We were failed by the senate
Last year the Gourmet Beer Bill was given the "Shroud Award" for the "deadest bill of the session".
This year members and supporters of Free the Hops rallied around magnificently and carried out a sustained effort of education on the issues, such that every single legislator in the Alabama Legislature heard about Gourmet Beer and knew what the real issues were.
We were failed by the Senate. They spent the entire session in petty bickering, being too busy scoring political points to do the job we pay them to do. An entire legislative session squandered in point-scoring instead of dealing with the very grave legislative issues that were before them.
The senate didn't deal with the education budget. They didn't deal with removing the 4% grocery tax. They didn't deal with the smoking ban. They didn't deal with a bill to prevent large corporations avoiding paying Alabama taxes. They didn't deal with a bill to exempt the Federal Stimulus Check from Alabama taxation.
It is time for you, the people of Alabama, to feel outraged at this. The senators behaved in a way that brings shame on the state, and they need to learn that their actions have consequences on their own political careers.
Let me be blunt here: the issue is not that the senators failed to deal with Gourmet Beer. The issue is that they failed you, the people of Alabama - and that failure needs to be punished.
Call, email, or write your senator. Tell them how you feel about their dismal failure to achieve anything this year. Tell them how you feel about their poor representation of you on the national political field. Tell them how you feel about them confirming everyone's prejudices about our great state.
Tell them you will remember that all they achieved in 2007 was to vote themselves a huge pay rise.
Above all, tell them that in 2010 you will remember their failures in 2007 and 2008. And that voluntary failure is not acceptable.
Find your senator:
http://capwiz.com/state-al/dbq/zs.dbq
Monday May 19
For those who were listening in to the Senate audio last week, it will come as no surprise that we took the strategic decision to hold off on pressing the Gourmet Beer Bill. By the time the semi-filibuster was resolved, it was late in the evening and the Senators were all cranky, tired, and hungry.
In that kind of environment our Gourmet Beer Bill would not have had good odds.
Mark your calendars for Monday, May 19th. This is the last day of the legislative session. HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, will be on the calendar. Please call your senators over the next week, and very politely request them to support HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill. You can call them whether or not you have done so already. You could also ask your friends, co-workers, family, neighbours, anyone you know who is not anti-alcohol - they, too can call their senators.
If you have family and friends who are out of state, get them to call as well - their opinion, and the tourist dollars that backs their opinion, are just as important to the senators as you and your opinion are.
If we all pull together, if we all rally our connections and contacts, we can achieve the aim we have been working towards for the last three years - we can start to Free those Hops from the chains of the archaic 6% ABV law. Let the Alabama Senate hear your voices loud and clear - let them hear the message -
FREE THE HOPS!
It's Never Easy
What a crazy day yesterday. Events took an unforeseen turn and forced us to change plans on the fly. Not uncommon in politics.
To sum up, the first bill that the Senate addressed yesterday was the bill to remove the state sales tax on food and eliminate the state income tax deduction for federal income taxes paid. That bill failed a procedural vote by a narrow margin, leading its proponents to begin a filibuster.
In the midst of the filibuster, the Senate adopted a special order calendar consisting solely of 100 local bills. Under more favorable circumstances, there would have been no debate and no stalling on any bill, allowing them to work that calendar at a rate of less than one minute per bill. In such a scenario, that calendar would have been completed early in the day, with plenty of time left for many statewide bills.
But the food tax bill proponents continued to filibuster the first few bills of that calendar, initially taking up to 40 minutes to speak on each. While that was going on, negotiations were taking place off the floor. Those negotiations led to some sort of possible compromise agreement, which it seemed to me probably involved a proposed amendment to the food tax bill that would allow it to pass. BUT, it required some research on fiscal matters related to the amendment.
So, the bill proponents agreed to stop their standard filibuster tactics of speaking for 40 minutes on each bill in order to allow the local bill SO calendar to make some progress. But to buy time for the continued behind the scenes dealings, they took up a different measure: a sort of "half-filibuster" by which they asked each bill to be read at length. This stalled and allowed them time to do the research and finalize the compromise, but obviously took less than the 40 minutes per bill that would have been dragging things down if a full filibuster were happening.
Sometime mid to late evening, the compromise was obviously finalized and the food tax bill proponents finally stopped their half filibuster and allowed the local special order calendar to proceed at full speed. But by then the mess had drug on for hours and hours. They didn't finish the local bills until sometime around 8:00pm. By that point, some people were asking for a motion to adjourn. They were tired and hungry and sick of dealing with bills. Nevertheless, the Senate leadership was determined to adopt a calendar with some statewide bills and make some progress--yesterday was the last chance the legislature had to pass bills which would not require the Governor's signature to become law. They didn't want to miss their chance to get some bills through that might be vetoed by the Governor. They will have a chance to overturn any vetoes of yesterday's bills when the return for their final day on May 19th.
But our lobbyist decided that under those circumstances it was likely they wouldn't get through the entire calendar of statewide bills proposed by the Rules Committee, and he feared if we opted for a spot on that calendar we might not come up before the body adjourned. He therefore opted instead to wait for the final legislative day. It was critical strategic decision in a stressful environment, and it's why we are paying him good money. The Senate only made it through 5 of the 17 bills on the calendar adopted last night. We would not have been in the top 5.
So now, again, we wait. And the dynamic has changed a bit. We really wanted to pass yesterday for the reasons stated above. Passage yesterday would have allowed HB196 to become law even without Riley's signature. And/or a veto could have been overidden on the last day. If we pass on the last day, we must get Riley's signature.
So, in addition to continued calls to your Senators, I think it might be a good idea to start calling the Governor's office on behalf of the gourmet beer bill. As has been previously reported on this blog, Riley told us a couple years ago that he could see no reason not to sign a bill such as ours if it made it to his desk. But it's been a while... and we're not taking any chances.
The number for the Governor's office is (334) 242-7100. I'd suggest calling and saying that you expect HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, to pass on the final day of the 2008 session, and you would like to see him sign it into law. Simple as that.
Filibuster
The senate is engaged in a semi-filibuster. There have been mutterings about staying in session until midnight if necessary, but as things stand just now (5pm) the senate is only passing local House Bills, and is barely a third of the way through the list of local bills.
All we can do is wait. And hope. And pray.
HB196 in the senate this week!
Friends of Free The Hops,
HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, is up for vote in the Senate this week, most likely on Tuesday May 6th. Now is the time to call your state senator and let him or her know that you want HB196 to pass! Because the Gourmet Beer Bill has already passed the State House of Representatives, this is the final step before sending this bill to the Governor. It's very close, so please contact your senator to express your support.
Please visit this website and enter your ZIP code to find out who your State Senator is. Then please call them about HB196, the Gourmet Beer Bill, unless your senator is Lowell Barron. As he is the head of the rules committee that decides which bills come up for a vote on the floor, and his secretary will be receiving hundreds of phone calls, you will get a better result if you call Senator Barron's business office instead of his Montgomery number.
When this bill was debated in the House, many legislators spoke of the dozens of phone calls they received from their constituents. Your phone calls and emails really do make a difference and is one of the primary reasons we passed in the House. Let's do this again!
When you call your senator's office, you'll likely speak to a secretary who will only be interested in knowing the bill number and your position. Here's an example of what to say if you're not sure:
"My name is (your name) and I'm calling to let Senator (senator name) know that I support HB196, The Gourmet Beer Bill. I would like him/her to vote Yes on this bill. Thank you for your time. Have a pleasant day."
That's it. The secretary may ask for your address to ensure you are a constituent.
Especially if you have made previous attempts at phone calls or emails and have not gotten a response, we are now at the point where it is imperative that you speak with your senator's office. We need you to confirm that you can count on their Yes vote on HB196 this week. You can be sure our neo-Prohibitionist opponents will be making lots of phone calls. Calls from our supporters need to overwhelm the Senators and drown out the opposition's calls.
Hope
The word today from our lobbyist is that he is very confident he will be able to get the Gourmet Beer Bill on the Senate's special order calendar sometime next week. Nothing is guaranteed in Alabama politics, of course. Although the Senate did a remarkable job passing a tremendous amount of legislation today and yesterday, tensions are still running high because of the long filibuster over gambling and how it was ended (and where that leaves the specific bills each Senator wants to see passed).
But this is the best news we've had since we passed the House. The long nightmare of the bingo filibuster is over, the Senate is doing real business, and we are ideally positioned to come up for a vote before the clock runs out this session.
Stuart will be sending out a newsletter next week encouraging everyone to call their Senator. We want to light the phones up shortly before the bill comes to the floor for maximum effectiveness.
Be prepared.