Reptile & Amphibian Forums

E-mail, Phone, Fax or Call

www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/Senate/members/dist19/dist19.htm

As long as we're contacting the State Senator for West Texas, be sure to THANK HIM for his support of Senate Bill 689, "Relating to the Sale or Transport of Certain Desert Plants". Texas has needed protection for our slow growing desert plants for decades. Senator Shapleigh of El Paso authored this bill and Senator Uresti is supporting it to the stop the raping of our desert plantlife.

FWIW, I just searched Texas Legislature Online and there is still no record of a Senate version of HB 2414 being filed.

The policy analyst handling 2414 is in meetings this morning, I will be calling back this afternoon.

We want to charm this guy and let them know that at least three things.

1 - Conservation is being addressed by the permit system and the white list, not by ending a whole genre of hunting in the State of Texas. (Also the economic impact to his constituents)
2 - Safety issues should be addressed by existing traffic codes. (The fact that there is no data we know of to support this concern, also it is already illegal to shoot from or across a roadway)
3 - Landowners in the region will have one more limitation to dealing with nuisance animals that impact their livestock.

Did you happen to get a name for that "policy analyst"?

As one of Uresti's constituents I plan on making my second call and third letter on this bill later today. When I first called, last week, the staff member I spoke with had never heard of HB 2414.

I've been mainly keeping my powder dry on the Senate side until I see a Senate version crop up. On the other hand, one call from an influential Senator to the Consent Calendar committee and then the General Calendar committee could be all it takes to kill this thing. Such is politics.

I did not catch the name, it would not hurt to call before they are available. If enough of us start talking to him about this bill then they will have more staff members up to speed to talk with us anyway.

Like at Isett's office it used to just be Matt, now Chandler is talking to us about it too. Just too much for one guy to run.

Lance

Exactly, someone out there can (and might) make that call if we can convince them to do it.

I want Uresti to be prepared and against it. In my second e-mail to him this morning I gave him a dollar figure on my contribution to the economy of his district. It was enough to support a single small business for a year - just about.

>>On the other hand, one call from an influential Senator to the Consent Calendar committee and then the General Calendar committee could be all it takes to kill this thing. Such is politics.