Boondock Saint
Ultimate Member
Any Delegate or Senator that bitches about too many bills, no time to read them, needs an easier job. Something that doesn't require serving the public in an elected capacity, perhaps.
And no one testified because the vote was unannounced, on a day when no gun bills were scheduled.
Apparently written testimony, phone calls, mail, emails etc don't count.
Any Delegate or Senator that bitches about too many bills, no time to read them, needs an easier job. Something that doesn't require serving the public in an elected capacity, perhaps.
I'm not actually sure I buy that, and the volume of bills that are introduced every year is part of the issue. This year, there were 87 days (including weekends) in this year's assembly session. If we round down and say that there were 3,000 bills, that leaves 34 (rounded down) bills to read per day of the session. So if each legislator did literally nothing else than read bills for 8 hours a day, that means they could spend a total of about 15 minutes per bill. Now, most of these people do have an assistant (I know my rep has exactly one staffer, for instance) so if you divide that in half then they get a total of a half hour per bill, and again, that's literally reading bills for 8 straight hours a day for 87 days.
Of course that's not practicably possible - they have to do things like have meetings and hold actual votes, and eat, so I don't think they're being untruthful when they say "we just get too many bills to read them all."
I do think it's a problem, though, and personally, I would lean toward the idea that there should be limits on the number of pieces of legislation that any one legislator can introduce during a given session. If you were given one bill a year there would be a LOT less ********.
Because they were told to by M&M
Why would someone vote in favor of a new law they didn't read?
I'm not actually sure I buy that, and the volume of bills that are introduced every year is part of the issue. This year, there were 87 days (including weekends) in this year's assembly session. If we round down and say that there were 3,000 bills, that leaves 34 (rounded down) bills to read per day of the session. So if each legislator did literally nothing else than read bills for 8 hours a day, that means they could spend a total of about 15 minutes per bill. Now, most of these people do have an assistant (I know my rep has exactly one staffer, for instance) so if you divide that in half then they get a total of a half hour per bill, and again, that's literally reading bills for 8 straight hours a day for 87 days.
Of course that's not practicably possible - they have to do things like have meetings and hold actual votes, and eat, so I don't think they're being untruthful when they say "we just get too many bills to read them all."
I do think it's a problem, though, and personally, I would lean toward the idea that there should be limits on the number of pieces of legislation that any one legislator can introduce during a given session. If you were given one bill a year there would be a LOT less ********.
Well, realistically because here's the choices that they have when they have that many bills come across their desk in a session:
1. Only vote on the ones that they read. This would leave them with the task of picking which ones to read and vote on. That's still a crapton of work when you're looking at that volume. It will also likely piss off a lot of their constituents, which they don't like doing.
2. Vote a straight line of either yes or no on any bill that they haven't read. This has obvious problems that make it not really a realistic choice I think.
3. Vote randomly. This also has the same issues as #2.
4. Vote based on guidance from the party / the lobbyists / their constituents on bills that they haven't read. This is what most of them do, and in this case we were sold down the river by party leadership who said that HB1302 was a "yes" vote for the R's. We were also screwed by the fact that House testimony in committee was given on a day when the bill wasn't supposed to be up for consideration so we missed out on providing testimony. Without some sort of guidance, all they have to go on is the summary, which for this bill probably looked something like "to keep guns out of the hands of people who have threatened harm to others or who are mentally unstable." The devil, for this one, was in the details.
Now, I'm not saying I like the situation, and I'm not excuse making, but I don't see what other choices are available to these people when they have to vote on stuff and there is this much volume.
The problem here is that it's too easy to throw new bills out there. I think we need a limit on how much legislation each person is able to propose each year.
Who proposes new bills?
Can a citizen or group do this?
Jeff Ghrist is a House Delegate and he is actually correct in that NO ONE from our side testified against HB1302 in Judicial Proceedings in the House.
What we saw was Squaregrouper and his fine testimony in front of the Senate JPR.
I'm not actually sure I buy that, and the volume of bills that are introduced every year is part of the issue. This year, there were 87 days (including weekends) in this year's assembly session. If we round down and say that there were 3,000 bills, that leaves 34 (rounded down) bills to read per day of the session. So if each legislator did literally nothing else than read bills for 8 hours a day, that means they could spend a total of about 15 minutes per bill. Now, most of these people do have an assistant (I know my rep has exactly one staffer, for instance) so if you divide that in half then they get a total of a half hour per bill, and again, that's literally reading bills for 8 straight hours a day for 87 days.
Of course that's not practicably possible - they have to do things like have meetings and hold actual votes, and eat, so I don't think they're being untruthful when they say "we just get too many bills to read them all."
I do think it's a problem, though, and personally, I would lean toward the idea that there should be limits on the number of pieces of legislation that any one legislator can introduce during a given session. If you were given one bill a year there would be a LOT less ********.
From Kathy Afzali-
Clearly you didn’t read the final version of the bill.
http://mgaleg.maryland.gov/2018RS/bills/hb/hb1302e.pdf
Most of the bill was struck and the senate committee accepted 10 of the NRA’s amendments. NRA ended up NOT opposing the bill.
Fake news is the norm with my competitor whose campaign manager is Cam Harris who made national news for “Fake News”
I am hoping you will study the final version of the bill and not be swayed by Kirby’s last minute desperation.
Also, what does the 2nd amendment have to do with the county anyway? You should be asking me about overdevelopment and property taxes
Lol what does your rights have to do with the county??? Really??
It gets better. She said anyone who threatens schools should have their firearms taken away.
Not sure that is anywhere in the bill. I couldn’t find that that.
And no one testified because the vote was unannounced, on a day when no gun bills were scheduled.
Apparently written testimony, phone calls, mail, emails etc don't count.