Looks like the GOP chickened out on preemption enforcement. There were a few local reps here that looked to be wavering. Tabling might have done the bill a favor if we need time to get the needed votes and support, since if it had been voted down it’d be dead for the session. But it’s disappointing that some are going soft on the issue. Preemption is a bedrock principle for gun owners.
12 thoughts on “Preemption Enforcement Tabled”
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Well, there’s a rally planned for May 8th (IIRC) in Harrisburg. Make sure you’re there to pester all the congresscritters, because I KNOW FOR A FACT that this is a piece of legislation that FOAC is really pushing.
Congresscritters are in Harrisburg voting on state legislation? Members of Congress only have authority over federal legislation, and they tend to only meet with people in their districts on in DC.
Don’t mean to be overly snarky, but it does usually help to make sure you’ve got the right folks targeted if you want to sway legislation at either the state or federal level.
Actually, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s governmental structure is very similar to that of the federal government, in that we have a bicameral legislature (both a congress and a senate), an executive (the governor), and a judicial system.
So, by all means the commonwealth-level legislators in Harrisburg ARE congresscritters. Thus, I was careful to distinguish them from the federal-level congresscritters by specifying Harrisburg instead of DC.
You’re correct about the structure, but the nomenclature is wrong. In the federal system, we have a Congress, comprised of a House and a Senate. The Senate members are called Senators, and the House members are called Congressman, Congrsswoman, or Representative.
At the state level, we have a General Assembly, comprised of a House and Senate. The Hosue members are called Representatives, and the Senate members are called Senators. In the vernacular “State” is usually prefixed to the title to denote that we don’t mean federal representatives or senators.
But it is not correct to call a Pennsylvania Representative “Congressman” because our state legislature is called the General Assembly, not Congress. Make sense?
Take the “embly” off the end of General Assembly and it’s even more correct in my opinion…..
I, for one, like to generically use “congresscritter” to mean anyone who is a representative making laws for a State or Nation. Even though there are variations in the different terms used to describe a Congress or an Assembly, it still seems appropriate. The term “congresscritter” doesn’t sit well with me for people on a city council, though–perhaps because the entity is too small, and a city council has a much different feel to it than a representative-based body–so maybe “councilcritters” would do for such beings.
If you’re trying to communicate with folks about an action they should take, you’re only going to confuse them by using a specific reference to Congress so broadly to any body of lawmakers. To be honest, if I randomly hear someone in real life talking about “congresscritters in (insert state capital),” I’m automatically going to assume they don’t know what they are talking about since Congress is a term used to refer to lawmakers in DC.
The issue though, is that “assemblycritters” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
There’s another reason the bill could have been tabled. Under the House Rules, any bill that sits on the House Calendar for more than 15 consecutive legislative days goes back to the committee it came from (Rule 71). The bill was about halfway there before it was tabled, and by tabling it, the clock was stopped. If that’s why it was done, I think we can agree that it was a smart move.
I don’t know for sure why it was tabled, but if I had to guess, that would be it. There’s still plenty of row left to hoe on this bill. Let’s not count it out prematurely.
Reading this part “There are at least thirteen anti-gun amendments to HB 1523 that range from a “ballistic imaging†mandate to gutting the current “state preemption†statute, which would make MAIG and anti-gun advocacy groups very happy.”
Perhaps it is best is isn’t passed, at least not as is.
Those were proposed amendments, not attached to the actual bill.
17, 2012 at 3:59 pm
“there’s a rally planned for May 8th (IIRC) in Harrisburg. . .this is a piece of legislation that FOAC is really pushing.”
Maybe FOAC could show their displeasure by backing out of support for this annual charade, which is nothing but a Republican campaign event disguised as a “gun owners rally” to get people to drive to Harrisburg to hear campaign speeches at their own expense.