The last of the Big 3 Bills passed yesterday evening.
The Basic Law was supposed to be voted on at 1 AM on Thursday, but the House Committee decided to move up the vote to 6:30 PM on Wed, due to the opposition’s boycott. Unlike the other two bills all 68 coalition MKs showed up and voted in favor.
The official Knesset protocol will show that not one opposition MK gave a speech against the bill and no MK voted against the bill.
Speaker Edelstein announced that there was no coalition MKs objections and that all of the opposition objections were removed because the objecting MKs were not in the plenum to voice them.
Basic Law: National Referendum passed 68-0 in its second reading.
Basic Law: National Referendum passed 68-0 in its third reading.
To read more about the National Referendum Bill: https://knessetjeremy.com/2014/03/09/national-referendum-bill/
Basic Law: National Referendum (for good and for bad) is complete.
* The Knesset will come back for two more days of sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday next week before going to recess.
Jeremy's Knesset Insider 
Listened to the show. Thank you. It was very informative. According to Israel Hayom, New Wave Research Institute did polling and it seems these three laws seem to have fairly broad support or at least not much hostility.
71% favor the referendum 17% against, 12% no opinion
61% favor the Haredi service bill, 23% against, 16% no opinion
56% in favor of the election law, 15% against, and 29% no opinion
I was surprised the election law had the lowest support but as you said on the show it is sort of the most arcane to the average voter.
I’m wondering what the next major bills they are looking to pass. They have a budget in place. They got these three bills passed within a year. I know a Conversion Bill is in the works which Lieberman really wants for Russians awaiting conversion. Other than that I wonder if the coalition will be playing “legislative small ball” (NGOs, oil and gas issues, trade deals, etc.) until the coalition dissolves or if there are any other huge bills planned.
I’m glad you enjoyed the show. It was meant to be informative for people that are willing to sit through an hour and I’m glad there is a market for that. It pains me that most of each bills points are not being discussed by either side.
I did see that poll. It is not a surprise for me that the referendum had the most support. As I pointed out it was reflected in every way in the committee work. Additionally, the two-state-solution is something that most Israelis feel is very far away.
The election law had a lower number in favor, but it also had the lowest number of people opposed. The number that stood out to me is the 30% that have no opinion, probably because they have no clue what is actually in the law.
Among the new big bills that will be tackled in the summer session will most likely be conversion, civil marriage, housing and Basic Law: Israel as the State of the Jewish People. I’m not sure if any of those bills will be passed, it will probably be decided by MK Levin’s successor as Coalition Chairman/Chief Whip. Levin was a good political player like his predecessor Elkin, not sure who the new one will be.