Reptile & Amphibian Forums

STALL HB 2414 FOR 22 DAYS AND IT DIES

We might be able to kill this with help from just FIVE House Reps.

Here's my proposal...

EVERYBODY, call your own representative and ask if they'd be willing to submit a written notice to the Local & Consent Calendar Committee requesting that this bill be moved to the General Calendar Committee. Explain that the substitute text changed the bill dramatically and more time is needed to evaluate the potential consequences.

IMPORTANT: Don't have them send the notice yet. Get them to commit to sending it when and if the Local & Consent committee puts this on the calendar. The later it gets moved, the better.

The L&C Committee could calendar this next week or (hopefully) the week after. They usually set the L&C calendar on Monday or Tuesday for a hearing on the House Floor on Thursday or Friday. House Rules require a 48 hour notice before a calendared bill hits the floor. The requests to withdraw and move the bill should be submitted during that 48 hour window.

According to house rules (Rule 6, sect 14), once five requests are submitted, L&C must either set it again (rarely happens, but would still buy us at least another week), or transfer it to the General Calendar. As the session draws to a close, the General Calendar Committee has many more important bills to rush through.

If we can keep it off of the House floor past 5/11/07 (just 22 days), it DIES. Unless a special session is called, the final day for the House to consider general calendar House bills is May 11, 2007

Even if your representative won't agree to vote against this, he/she might be willing to transfer it to the General Calendar so that it can get a fair hearing.

Five open minded representatives is all it will take to buy us at least another two weeks on this.

Again, they don't even have to oppose this bill, they just have to request that it be moved to the General Calendar so it can get a fair hearing.

10,000 points awarded to each person able to get a Rep to commit to submit a request to withdraw this bill from the L&C Calendar!

I'll send an email to Gallego tonight when I get home. I assume you and Beckwith and the Engeldorfs and all will do the same?

Troy Hibbitts
Camp Wood, TX

Then you could have a lot more than 5 reps to stand and ask questions?

Thanks,

Steven

It is that whole my constituent verses not thing... Start with your rep and call as many others as you would like as far as I can see...

Just remember that we're trying to walk a line here to buy time.

If we had a clear majority to vote this down, then we could rush it to a vote (but I don't think we're there yet). Most Reps will assume it is a good bill simply because it is on the Local & Consent calendar. The implication is that it MUST have overwhelming support or it wouldn't be a L&C bill.

On the other hand, if we only have a few votes (I think this is where we are at), our best bet is to STALL. Let it sit in L&C as long as possible, then get it withdrawn and referred to the General Calendar as LATE AS POSSIBLE.

If we line up too many reps too fast, this thing could come out of L&C today (the chair can call a meeting anytime he wants) and get scheduled on the General Calendar too soon. Politics are just plain screwy!

I'm sure a politically savy lobbyist could give us more specific and reliable advice. This is all just my personal thinking. Everyone has to weigh the legitimacy of stall tactic for themselves. Unlike our $40K lobbyist, I can't guarantee results. The House has lots of contradictory rules, and I've only had time to explore a few for exploitation.