Today is the final day that bills generated in the House can pass on "second reading" on the House floor. That means that if a House bill isn't voted on the House floor by today, it's dead. Most of the major criminal justice legislation I support is well on its way to making it through the process, particularly Rep. Madden's major probation funding and TYC reform bills, plus some smaller but significant juvenile justice reforms.
I'm a little concerned that Rep. Isett's HB 1815 - which would disallow prosecution of law abiding gun owners carrying weapons in their cars, may be too far down the list to make it over to the Senate. There are more than 300 bills on the final day's calendar, and it's unlikely they'll get to them all. If you like, you can watch the floor debates yourself here.
I'll have several updates telling what's happened with key criminal justice bills over the next few days, once the dust settles.
Just eighteen days to go and counting.
Thank you Scott (Grits) for having this site. You are doing a great service to and for people. As part of the commenters on the TYC issues, I didn't always agree with what was said or how it was said, but I thank you in providing people the opportunity. Otherwise, TYC people would have been voiceless for themselves and others. Your site has allowed TYC staff who are sometimes hundreds of miles apart; not knowing who each other are, feel a connection in either their feelings, circumstances, ideas and have had a consequence-free way to "vent" when they may not have had that opportunity before. The lack of such before has been (in my opinion) a piece that led to TYC's downfall. Isolation does not encourage growth. TYC has always needed communication between and within its own employees to have some sort of unity and kinship. I hope the new administration finds a way to be more available to its employees and encourages more interaction between facilities. TYC is full of good, intelligent and strong people. This change will take time and I am doing a lot of praying that the right people wind up in the right places.
ReplyDeleteThank you Grits for providing a way for people to be heard, ideas to be shared and making it easy for all to come to one place to discuss common ground.
Pinpoint
Wow 6:10...you really hit the nail on the head. I couldn't agree with you more, nor could I have expressed it any better than you did...Perfect!
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