The next big step – HB123 moves to the Senate side for vote.ħ. You now have a bill that passed through committees quickly, without good feedback from those who will be impacted by the bill. Perhaps this speaker is overweight and doesn’t appear to exercise, so the lawmakers don’t consider this speaker a worthy, healthy person to represent the “children.” Basically, they are discredited to add valuable input.ĥ. So now a school board member (a person with a little more clout than a parent) shows up to a committee meeting and is granted their 2-3 minutes to speak against the bill, but they themselves get interrogated as to their qualifications to represent the school on food choices. (In other words, you don’t have enough backing for us to really listen.)Ĥ. The first question you are asked is, “What organization are you with?” Oh, no organization? You’re just a citizen. Some parents call their representatives and try to voice their opinions, but they can’t get their representative to listen to them. They want the ability to determine on a school-by-school basis if this will be allowed. They are impacted, but they haven’t had time to weigh in on the impacts to budgets, government funding, parking lot crowding, or any other impacts to their schools. The bill gets added to the docket to be voted on TOMORROW and it is listed on the state website, but schools haven’t been notified of this recommendation. Representative “Sally” wants to change the wording and recommends that the bill include healthy options, such as fruits and vegetables become available for sale as well.ģ. “HB123” goes into judicial committees for review. Let’s call this “HB123: Food Truck Bill.”)Ģ. (Okay, there’s a purpose and benefit stated. This will help reduce students leaving campus for lunch and will balance out the crowding problem. Representative “Bob” comes up with the idea to allow Food Trucks to be available in school parking lots during lunch hour, since large schools don’t have enough cafeteria space for all the students. How can the content of a bill change completely during its journey? Follow me on this –ġ. Let’s use a very simple example that perhaps will help you see how bizarre and at times, quite unfair this entire process can be. But let’s talk this out in terms of what actually happens. Eventually, that vote for the bill occurs on both sides of the House and the Senate and it passes or fails. One would think that the committee maintains the focus of that bill as stated, submits it to be voted on, then sends to the other side of legislature for the same process. It is sent to committees to evaluate the bill with regards to constitutionality and benefit to the community. In simple terms, one would think a bill is drafted as an idea. Now that I am an adult and have become more aware of how our state handles the creation of bills, my mind is blown.
Anyone remember the old “Schoolhouse Rock” television bits that taught us all kinds of valuable lessons? Most memorable for me as a child was the “I’m Just a Bill” one.