Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009...1:45 pm
Be Very Afraid…Again
Word is trickling down from the Senate that there is a move, once again, to suspend the rules to allow for last minute “strike all” amendments. Strike all amendments replace a bill that is already moving through the process with different language. The rules allow them, but there is enough time for members to look over the new language. This suspension would allow leadership to present strike alls without enough time for members to see this new bill that they are supposed to vote on.
Well, maybe I’m giving Senators too much credit here. This suspension would come from a vote of the membership, meaning that they are taking away their own right to have time to review the stuff they are voting on. The aim of this is probably not to keep information from the membership, but to keep the public shut out of the process.
UPDATE: Just got more details. This rules suspension would apply to Ron Gould’s Retirement and Rural Development committee.
9 Comments
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
This is where the Center for Arizona Policy gets whatever it wants.
By the way, I wonder if there is a group yet formed to oppose the Center for Arizona Policy? Isn’t it about time that they are opposed publicly and exposed?
June 23rd, 2009 at 2:18 pm
and these people accuse the left of being bullies.. oh, when they do it, it isn’t bullying, it is being assertive…
June 23rd, 2009 at 7:19 pm
Maybe Ron Gould will put in a strike all amendment entitled ‘budget simplification’ that amends the state budget to replace every appropriations line with zeros.
June 23rd, 2009 at 8:11 pm
You know, let me relate a story here:
I remember one time in college we had a rugby game in El Paso. The driver of the van was an alcoholic. He was supposedly drinking pop but he had his ‘flavoring’ in it. By the time we got into Texas he was definitely feeling it. We went up over the mountains into Fort Bliss (site of the game) on a winding, two lane road with lots of switchbacks, with a mountain on one side and just a cliff and the air on the other side.
Every minute or so (maybe every few seconds, nobody was counting the time) we got the scare of our lives. And then we got another scare of our lives and another and another. Time seemed to just stand still and hang there sometimes (or maybe it was the van just hanging there, on the edge of the cliff.)
By the time we got to the game, nobody had any adrenalin left, it had all been used up on the ride in.
We lost the game. In fact we got our butts kicked, I think the score was 60-3.
I think the legislature is playing chicken with everyone in the state, trying to cause lots of angst in a short amount of time so they can get some horrible stuff through just by sheer fatigue and volume of crap.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:34 am
You are right Eli
June 24th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Can they suspend the rules for just one committee like that?
June 24th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
i tuned in to yesterday’s senate appropriations meeting and found that HB2279 – reporting of debts – had an amendment added…the parent’s rights bill. so i scratch my head, look at the agenda, read the agenda, see it NOWHERE. i think i’m seeing things, so i did a quick search on the bill and the proposed amendments and yup! there it was. in the middle of an debt reporting bill. what’s more, after Sen. Gray left the podium, a woman representing – i think – a Chamber of Commerce office stood and spoke in support of HB2279. so…my dumb question: what on earth would a parental right’s amendment have to do with the budget/debt reporting if not to avoid a transparent process? if this is the rule of the senate – an allowable standard – it’s clearly no wonder we’ve arrived exactly where we are today. it’s just a giant coconut shell game run by a bunch of two-bit racketeers.
June 24th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
In Congress they would call that a ‘poison pill,’ an unrelated amendment that gets people to vote against something.
In the legislature they slap it together and vote for the whole thing anyway.
June 24th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Thanks, Eli Blake! The whole thing chaps my ass.