Posted on 08/29/2004 9:11:53 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
Assemblyman Marco Firebaugh tried every trick in his political playbook to make California the first state in the nation to fine parents caught smoking in cars with small children present.
When his bill was killed by fellow lawmakers in public hearings, he gutted an entirely different bill and filled the empty shell with his anti-smoking measure. When that bill failed, the Los Angeles Democrat gutted another one and did it again.
"We've killed this bill two or three times already and he keeps pushing it. It's crazy. We've spoken on this issue," said Assemblyman Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, over the roar of deal-making lawmakers on the Assembly floor last week.
When legislators want to sneak unpopular laws past their colleagues and the public, they use a process known as "gut and amend." They hijack a bill that lawmakers might not realize is dead, hollow it out, fill it with their own controversial proposal, then, using the same bill number that identified the old proposal, rush it through during the Legislature's chaotic end of session, sometimes in the dead of night.
Many lawmakers declare "gut and amends" an unethical nuisance. What they don't acknowledge is that, in many cases, gut-and-amends violate not only the Legislature's rules, but even the state constitution.
The Orange County Register found 105 bills that were gutted and amended during the last two weeks of a two-year legislative session that ended early Saturday morning. That represents 12 percent of the roughly 800 bills voted on by both houses during that time.
Just over two-thirds of the reborn bills were ultimately sent to the governor for his signature or veto.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
Not to mention the time (i.e.MONEY) wasted by these shenanigans.
Mornin' Norm. Dreary over here today. Too much heat yesterday dragged old Mr. Fog back in. Bleah!!
Morning EGGs..
We almost hit triple digits,, another warm coming today..
We'll see soon enough if the Gub wears out a couple of Sharpies vetoing bills. ;-)
Maybe we should help out the budget and start sending thousands and thousands of pens to Arnold.....he's got a lot of vetoing to do............
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