LANSING – The Senate is required to return on Wednesday, July 3, and while Senate officials intend that to be a pro-forma session with no voting, supporters of Medicaid expansion are targeting that day to get the Senate to act on the measure.

A spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville (R-Monroe) said Senate officials are looking at whether that date would be a possibility for Senate action, though there had not been much discussion on the issue.

One factor legislators will have to consider is whether the Senate chambers will be available for use on that day, as renovations involving new carpeting may go forward.

Administration officials said Friday they were gearing up to get the full Senate back on that day to vote on HB 4714 . A spokesperson for Governor Rick Snyder said that date would be a “great opportunity” for the Senate to act on the measure.

And an official in the Department of Community Health said for the state to get the process of winning a waiver from the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act takes effect in 2014, it was critical the legislation be enacted at that time.

Snyder himself in a radio interview called on the Senate to return on July 3, saying it was in the best interest of the state.

House members have also been told to tentatively plan on a session on July 3. An email sent out by a staff member of Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas (R-Midland) says the House will tentatively meet at 10 a.m. on July 3, July 18, August 2, August 16 and August 28.

On Thursday, when the Senate adjourned despite Snyder’s plea for the members to vote on the legislation – which would allow individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level to enroll in Medicaid (with the federal government paying 100 percent of the increased cost for the first three years) but adding some requirements for recipients to engage in healthy behaviors – it had passed SCR 9 that called for the Senate to adjourn until August 27.

However, the House did not approve the resolution. That meant both houses have to return to session on July 3, and then July 18, to meet constitutional requirements.

Earlier on Friday, the office of Senate Majority Floor Leader Arlan Meekhof (R-West Olive) released a revised summer schedule that included session on July 3, July 18, August 2, and August 16, though noting that no attendance will be taken and no business will be conducted until August 27th at noon, which previously marked the chamber’s return from its summer break.

That Senate does have to return to session has given the opening to officials to push for the chamber to meet on that day to vote on the bill.

Snyder, speaking on WJR radio, said that date should be used to act. “Shouldn’t they do their job, instead of taking a vacation?” he said.

He focused his push for the bill on saving the state money and making lives of lower-income working families better by offering them a way to get health care treatment without needing to rely on hospital emergency rooms.

“Let’s not play politics, let’s do what’s right,” Snyder said.

But Richardville, who was interviewed on a Jackson radio station, said if the Senate was going to act on the measure, “We do it the right way.”

Despite DCH officials, including Director Jim Haveman, saying the process of writing the waiver request and submitting it to the federal government takes about 120 days, Richardville said the Senate was not going to be pushed by an “imaginary timeline.”

Richardville had said on Thursday there would be a workgroup created to study the issue, and his spokesperson said he would announce the members of that workgroup next week.

Amber McCann, Richardville’s spokesperson, said there has been little discussion on the Medicaid issue since the Senate broke on Thursday.

But there has been some discussion about whether the Senate should come back on July 3, Ms. McCann acknowledged.

One practical problem is whether the Senate chambers will be usable. Both the Senate and House are to have new carpet put down, and the chamber may not have desks or otherwise be considered usable.

When the Capitol was being restored in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Senate met in the former Supreme Court chambers, what is now the Senate Appropriations Room. (The House met in the auditorium of the former Roosevelt Building at that same time. That building has since been torn down and replaced with a parking garage).

McCann said that room has been looked at if the Senate needed a meeting space should the carpeting not be finished when it returns in August.

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