Legislative Update: June 20, 2007

By: Prospector

The news is not good, once again we've been blindsided in the closing days of session. I'm getting ahead of myself, so let me start at the beginning.
I had 5 appointments on Tuesday, one of which turned out to be a no-show.  I also paid a welcome visit to new Assembly Member Micah Kellner who replaced Pete Grannis last week. When I checked on our lead bills, I found that the red light bill, S405/A7568 is still in Transportation in both houses and unlikely to move any farther this year.  I determined to focus on this bill in January, seeking more sponsors in both houses.

The Confiscation bill, A1939 has passed the Assembly and is still on 3rd reading in the Senate.  I went to Senator Robach's office where his Senior Staff told me they were working to get the bill through byThursday.  I ended my day confident that all was well, but when I arrived home, there was a message on my answering machine from Assembly-woman Lupardo's office telling me that S1705 was dead.  I returned the call and was told that there was a problem.  I then called Senator Robach's office where I learned that DMV has some problems with the bill (afer 2 years, they have problems in the last days?) and that Senator Robach did not like the changes they wanted made to the bill.  Assemblywoman Lupardo is not happy with this development and has promised to continue to seek passage of the bill.  I also spoke to one of the individuals whose confiscation prompted introduction of this bill in the first place and got some first-hand information on the incident which left even more unanswered questions.  After 3 years, those bikes still have not been returned nor have the owners been charged with anything, and the only reason the bikes have not already been auctioned is that the attorney for the victims has managed to get a temporary court order (which expires soon) to prevent it.  By the way, just so it's clear, when those bikes are auctioned, the state (DMV?) keeps the money. I think some type of investigation is called for here.

I will be working the ABATE booth at Harley Rendezvous for the next few days, so I will not have access to e-mail until Sunday night, but I'll be available by phone at my usual number and will keep on top of this situation as best I can.  The word is that there will be a Summer Session in July, so all is not lost.