At the same time, lawmakers consented to about $2.8 billion in farm aid for drought-stricken farmers around the nation, relief that Western and Midwestern lawmakers said was as badly needed as the hurricane money.
After lawmakers consented to his steep cuts to health care and school spending this year, he held a news conference to call the New York Legislature — for years the butt of late-night comics and a target of editorial pages — "the best legislative body in the nation".
Lawmakers say consent can be nonverbal, and universities with similar policies have outlined examples as a nod of the head or moving in closer to the person.
In the two-and-a-half weeks since President Barack Obama and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced ways in which states could overhaul No Child Left Behind without Congress's consent, lawmakers have introduced several bills that would alter the sweeping federal education law.
Health care providers should be allowed, but not required, to obtain such consent, the lawmakers said.
That could be done in the House by unanimous consent, without lawmakers present to vote.
California, Missouri, North Dakota and Oklahoma also banned tagging without consent, with lawmakers asserting the chips could lead to serious privacy breaches, such as covert monitoring.
The Cabinet has agreed that the package will not become policy without the consent of lawmakers, who will debate it at a meeting of the finance committee Wednesday, according to a parliamentary spokesman, David van der Houwen.
Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the No. 2 Democrat, said Friday that he believed that if the Senate bill received 60 votes, it could pass the House by unanimous consent without lawmakers returning, an optimistic assessment given the partisan atmosphere.
For at least a decade, the association has called on lawmakers to change the consent process for the state's immunization registry, ImmTrac, to opt-out from opt-in to encourage retention of more records, reduce operating costs and protect more Texans against preventable diseases.
