~HB 1926 FINAL PUSH FOR RENDELL'S SIGNATURE!!!~

[renegadephoenix]

Actually, understanding exactly what happened is somewhat important in realizing how convoluted this whole process can be.

HERE is an interview with John Hohenwarter where he explains in fair detail the paths that HB40 and the CD portion of HB1926 took.

Essentially, HB40 would have been loaded with the anti-gun amendments that were attempted against HB1926. The difference was that on HB40, the amendments would have been voted on in a committee where they would have passed. Once this became apparent, HB40 was scuttled and they went the HB1926 route. Those same amendments were voted on the floor for HB1926, where they failed.

Utimmer, i beg to differ as to what would have happened had HB40 been the chosen bill. I was in Harrisburg watching what went on and had Inside knowledge thanks to a few of my Senators. HB40 was slated to have an off the floor vote while Senate was in session. this would have done away with all the "Bad Amendments" since off the floor votes are straight up or down votes with out amendments being able to be offered.

the "NRA didn't want a clean bill as they wanted a "Veto" proof bill. well that all hung on the House coming back into a lame duck session for a concurence vote. at the time, they were not scheduled back in for another voting day. I don't know what the "NRA" did to change the minds of some Senators, but i do know that "Grades and Election Funding" were thrown around a good bit.

The "NRA" Has 2 choices next session, stand BEHIND Pennsylvanians who are helping move legislation through the house and senate or GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!!

[Sebastian]

Utimmer, i beg to differ as to what would have happened had HB40 been the chosen bill. I was in Harrisburg watching what went on and had Inside knowledge thanks to a few of my Senators. HB40 was slated to have an off the floor vote while Senate was in session. this would have done away with all the "Bad Amendments" since off the floor votes are straight up or down votes with out amendments being able to be offered.

the "NRA didn't want a clean bill as they wanted a "Veto" proof bill. well that all hung on the House coming back into a lame duck session for a concurence vote. at the time, they were not scheduled back in for another voting day. I don't know what the "NRA" did to change the minds of some Senators, but i do know that "Grades and Election Funding" were thrown around a good bit.

The "NRA" Has 2 choices next session, stand BEHIND Pennsylvanians who are helping move legislation through the house and senate or GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!!

Off the floor vote? What the hell is an off the floor vote? If you mean a committee vote, where there were votes to pass all kinds of anti-gun amendments, then I agree it that could have happened. But there was no scenario where HB40 was getting out of the legislature clean. Under what ruleset could HB40 have gotten out clean?

Grades and election funding were thrown around a good bit. Several previously endorsed politicians got their grades lowered and endorsements stripped for fucking with HB40, and ultimately trying to get anti-gun amendments added to HB1926 when that route was chosen.

[andrewjs18]

It passed on its own as HB40 with overwhelming bipartisan support. However, the Democrat leadership of the House was determined to use any parliamentary tactic available (and a few illegal ones) to prevent that bill from ever reaching the governor's desk. They left us with no choice, but to tack CD to the Megans Law bill. It was never meant to be a backdoor tactic at all.

problem is..both democrats and republicans are to blame. it was held up for FAR to long in committee and the Republicans just let it sit idle.

if this process was this far along say 2-3 months ago, we could of had a 2/3 majority to override the Governor's veto.

[Sebastian]

problem is..both democrats and republicans are to blame. it was held up for FAR to long in committee and the Republicans just let it sit idle.

if this process was this far along say 2-3 months ago, we could of had a 2/3 majority to override the Governor's veto.

Depends on the chamber. Democrats, Dwight Evans in particular, were responsible for holding it up in the House. But dissentIon in the GOP is what caused HB40 to die in the Senate. So yes, this was a bipartisan fuck-up.

Here's the bad news: Senate makeup didn't really change. So we have some of the same GOP softies to potentially cause us problems next year in the Senate.

[renegadephoenix]

Off the floor vote? What the hell is an off the floor vote? If you mean a committee vote, where there were votes to pass all kinds of anti-gun amendments, then I agree it that could have happened. But there was no scenario where HB40 was getting out of the legislature clean. Under what ruleset could HB40 have gotten out clean?

Grades and election funding were thrown around a good bit. Several previously endorsed politicians got their grades lowered and endorsements stripped for fucking with HB40, and ultimately trying to get anti-gun amendments added to HB1926 when that route was chosen.

an off the floor vote while the House or Senate is In session is when the members of a committee get pulled off to the side while in the main House/Senate Chamber to vote a bill out of said Committee. it is a single up or down vote and Amendments can not be brought up. I Have watched this happen numerous times while in Harrisburg over the past couple years. we had this all lined up until your buddy Hohenwater stepped in.

[S&WM&P40]

I am appalled to read the outcome of this today. I thought for sure it would get signed into law. To be honest this was the first time I have ever took interest in getting laws passed, making changes, following senate ect. This will probably be the last time though. What a disappointment.

[Ramtuff]

Doesn't sound like Perry plans on making any changes to the bill before reintroduction.

"Almost immediately it will be re-introduced," he said. "We did a lot of work on it to get it to what we thought was perfect. We don't see any reason to change it at this time."
http://www.yorkdispatch.com/news/ci_16728490

[Sebastian]

an off the floor vote while the House or Senate is In session is when the members of a committee get pulled off to the side while in the main House/Senate Chamber to vote a bill out of said Committee. it is a single up or down vote and Amendments can not be brought up. I Have watched this happen numerous times while in Harrisburg over the past couple years. we had this all lined up until your buddy Hohenwater stepped in.

Do you mean a discharge petition? That's a House measure. AFAIK, there's no such animal in the Senate rules, and the only way a bill comes out of committee is by report.

[FNG19]

Do you mean a discharge petition? That's a House measure. AFAIK, there's no such animal in the Senate rules, and the only way a bill comes out of committee is by report.

Senate Rule XV, section 17 allows for discharge from committee. It doesn't appear to be nearly as involved a process as the House version is.

[ChamberedRound]

HB40 was slated to have an off the floor vote while Senate was in session. this would have done away with all the "Bad Amendments" since off the floor votes are straight up or down votes with out amendments being able to be offered.

Off the floor vote? What the hell is an off the floor vote?

Senate Rule XV, section 17 allows for discharge from committee. It doesn't appear to be nearly as involved a process as the House version is.

This is kinda what we've been (and I've been) saying all along, Sebastian, here and on your site as well. Your Q&A with Hohenwarter didn't really address this issue, other than to say that there was information we didn't have and he couldn't share. And THAT is the real problem. When a state-level organization has more resources on hand to address an issue than the NRA, they should respect that enough to at least involve the said state-level organization in the process, and maybe listen to what its leadership has to say.

As I said earlier, what's done is done. However, I'd like to re-iterate something renegadephoenix posted:

The "NRA" Has 2 choices next session, stand BEHIND Pennsylvanians who are helping move legislation through the house and senate or GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!!!

Castle/SyG would have gone NOWHERE without the people involved in PAFOA and FOAC making noise about it. The NRA alone, for all their talk about Castle being a priority for them, have done very little themselves to promote or advance it. Given that, one would think the NRA would either WORK WITH US, or at least NOT HINDER US. Unless, of course, they have another agenda that's counter to the goals of the state-level organization. To be honest I have no way to know if that's the case, but it sure seems that way.

I'm not just "Monday Morning Quarterbacking" here because HB1926 didn't become law, I've been saying it for two months: Hohenwarter didn't just drop the ball on this one, he stole the ball from the hands of the FOAC and then fumbled it.