Senate President Bob Burns issued the following statement:
“The Senate, and subsequently, the House, had to adjourn today before completing the final votes to continue our work on closing the huge budget gap when Sen. Thayer Verschoor failed to appear and did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him.
This state is in crisis and it is very disappointing and frankly embarrassing that one member of our caucus did not have the decency to show up. I left the floor open to give him every opportunity to do the right thing.
We all have to abandon our individual wants and needs to tackle this statewide issue. We are past the point of using individual demands to hold the state hostage.
I am sorry that this happened and I hope this weekend will provide the time and reflection we need to come back on Monday to perform our legislative duties. I hope Sen. Verschoor is part of that.”