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March 6, 2002
Senate File 67 Goes
Down Hard
CommanderDons.com
CHEYENNE --
The House Committee on Minerals, Business, and Economic Development held a
hearing today on the infamous "Anti-terrorism legislation" bill, Senate File
67. I am pleased to report that the bill was soundly defeated.
Several people showed
up to speak in favor of the bill. The chief architect, Senator Charles Scott
was there, along with Representative Larry Meuli, a co-sponsor. The Adjutant
General of the Wyoming National Guard, Major General Ed Boenisch, Jr., was
there, as well as the State Health Officer, Brent D. Sherard, M.D.
Opposing the bill were
myself, Mr. Bob Rule of Rule Communications Co., Mr. Moxley, an attorney,
and Mrs. Anderson who was representing Christian Science. I hope I got
everyone's names right. There were others present as well, but they were not
there to testify.
Upon the very good
advice of my friend Kevin Burt, who has more experience in this sort of
thing than I, I had written my comments in the form of a letter. When I
first arrived, I gave the copies of the letter to the secretary. I had also
made myself an outline of the major points I wanted to make.
When the meeting was
called to order, the committee first took up a budget issue. This went
fairly quickly, perhaps 15 minutes or so. Having finished work on that bill,
Senate File 67 became the issue. Mr. Scott and Mr. Meuli had requested that
they be called when SF67 came up, so there was a break in the action while
we waited for them. It was at this time that the Chair announced that there
was a letter from me, and asked if I was present. I stood, and she
acknowledged me. She then passed out copies of my letter to the committee
members and they all read the letter while we were waiting for Mr. Scott and
Mr. Meuli.
I would like to thank
these 2 gentlemen for taking their time getting to the meeting, as it gave
the committee more than ample time to read and digest my letter! If nothing
else, it gave the members some questions to ask!
So, we finally got
underway and Mr. Scott was naturally the first to speak. In my estimation,
he defied every rule of logic in presenting this bill. I honestly believe he
did more to bolster the position of the opposition than to garner support.
He rambled at length,
in direct violation of rule number one…keep it short, direct, and to the
point. In several places the members of the committee stopped him to ask a
question or challenge something. He seemed ill prepared for this, and again
did more good for us than himself. At several points the committee asked
questions, which Mr. Scott referred to either Dr. Sherard or to General
Boenisch.
Both of these
gentlemen are intelligent, well spoken, and truthful. By being truthful,
they too did more to help the opposition than to garner support for the
bill. One thing that Dr. Sherard pointed out was the tremendous amount of
authority that the State Health Officer has already, even without this bill.
This, I am certain, was a key statement that helped defeat the bill,
although I'm sure that wasn't his intention.
Mr. Scott finally
ended his testimony, but not without making a big mistake first. He stated
during his testimony that he did not use the Model Legislation put out by
the CDC as a template for his bill. When he said that, Bob Rule, who was
sitting directly in front of me, turned around and looked at Mr. Moxley and
me, and he had fire in his eyes!
You see, Bob was
present at the Senate hearings on SF67, and during those hearings Mr. Scott
plainly and unequivocally stated that he had indeed used the Model
Legislation as the basis for his bill.
When the Chair asked
for testimony against the bill, Bob was rarin' to go! He was the first to
testify, and did a great job of raking Mr. Scott over the coals for the
above inconsistency…respectfully of course. Mr. Scott had no recourse but to
admit that he not only had read the Model Legislation, but had also attended
2 National Conferences on the subject! He insisted, however, that the Model
Legislation was much too harsh and that he came up with SF67 on his own.
*ahem* (does Mr. Scott not understand what a template is?)
Bob went on with his
testimony, doing a fine job of standing up for individual freedom. At this
point, we were long into this meeting and I was beginning to have doubts as
to whether or not everyone would be able to testify. I decided to wait until
last, and if there was still time, I would speak. Since they had already
read my letter, they knew what I thought.
Mr. Moxley was next
up, and being an attorney who has represented children and the families of
children who have had adverse reactions to vaccines, brought some very
important points to the meeting. His main points were concerning the
vaccinations, forced medications, and quarantines, and his testimony was
very valuable in my opinion.
Unfortunately time was
running very short by now, and Mrs. Anderson was limited to 5 minutes…hardly
enough time to say what she wanted to say. She did the best she could with
the time she had, but was cut way short. I didn't speak at all, which is why
I again would like to thank Kevin for advising me to write the letter. Of
course, if I had not written the letter, I would have been one of the first
to jump up...perhaps even beating out a fired up Bob Rule!
So, having heard
testimony from both sides, the committee was set to vote. I wasn't sure if
we would be allowed to stick around for the vote or not. I've never done
this before, so I thought perhaps they would simply thank us all and we
would have to leave, allowing them to debate in private.
To my surprise, the
Chair called for the vote without much ado. I was fairly certain by the
statements made and the questions asked by various committee members that we
probably had 3 members that were definitely going to vote no. The rest of
them I couldn't read one way or the other.
The final vote was 8 -
1 AGAINST the bill. The only aye vote was from Rep. John Eyre, who was one
of the bill's sponsors.
I would like to once
again thank everyone for their efforts, the phone calls, the e-mails, the
letters…they all added up to help defeat this bill. I would also caution
everyone that this is not necessarily the end of this nasty legislation…as
we have all witnessed with HB5.
What this means is
that this bill will go to the floor with a "do not pass" recommendation from
the committee. This carries a great deal of weight, and it is highly
unlikely that it will go any further. We should not set the funeral date
just yet though…it's hurtin' but it's not dead.
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