azcdlfred
Regular Member
imported post
“Sine Die” is the Latin term the Arizona Legislature uses to signify the adjournment of the legislative session. The Senate adjourned this morning, July 1, 2009 at 7:30 AM. The House adjourned at 7:31 AM. It’s officially over folks. Unless a Special Session is called by the Governor, we have a 6 month reprieve on any further legislative meddling in our lives.
Unfortunately HB 2439, the AzCDL-requested CCW training reform bill that was amended to include Petty Offense and Defensive Display language, failed in the House at 5:10 AM this morning. It passed in the Senate Third Read by a 18-5-7 vote around 2 AM but when it was voted on in the House Final Read, it failed by one vote, 30-10 with 20 (Yes, twenty!) members not voting. Five of those twenty who were not present for the vote were Republicans who had indicated to us that they would vote for the bill. If they had been present, HB 2439 would have easily passed. You can find how every Representative voted here: [url]http://tinyurl.com/HB2439FinalVote[/url] . The Republicans missing during the final vote were Nancy Barto (R7), Rich Crandall (R19), Adam Driggs (R11), Bill Konopnicki (R5), Lucy Mason (R1), and Doug Quelland (R10). If you are in their Districts, please keep this in mind next November.
Despite the setback with HB 2439, there are four pro-rights bills that made it through the legislative gauntlet and are headed to the governor’s desk. They are SB 1113, SB 1168, SB 1243 and SB 1449.
SB 1113, a “Restaurant Carry” bill laden with concessions to appease opponents, passed in the House Third Read yesterday (6/30/09) by a 40-19-1 vote. Early this morning, it passed the Senate Final Read by a 19-8-3 vote. In the final version of SB 1113:
- “Open carry” is not allowed in places serving alcohol. The firearm must be concealed.
- Only individuals with CCW permits may carry a concealed firearm where alcohol is served.
- The individual legally carrying the firearm may not consume alcohol.
- The penalty for violating the law is a class 3 misdemeanor.
- Establishments may prohibit firearms by posting a sign in a specified location.
- It is an “affirmative defense” if the person violating the law “was not informed of the notice,” the sign had “fallen down,” the person is not a resident of Arizona, or the posted sign has not been up for 30 days.
- However, lack of knowledge (by Arizona residents only) that firearms are prohibited in establishments serving alcohol is no longer a valid defense.
SB 1168 is the Senate bill containing the “strike everything” amendment substituting the language of HB 2474. It passed the Senate Final Read by a vote of 18-9 with 3 not voting. SB 1168 prevents any private or public employer, property owner, etc., from banning any person from keeping a firearm in a locked vehicle in a parking area on the property, with specific limited exceptions. HB 2474, the original “Parking Lot” bill, passed in the House and made it through Senate committees but was dropped when SB 1168 made it through the process first.
SB 1243 passed the House Third Read by a vote of 42-12-6 on June 29. Since the language in SB 1243 remained unchanged, it was sent back to the Senate where it was formally sent to the Governor this morning. SB 1243 is the AzCDL-requested bill that codifies the defensive display of a firearm.
Another very important bill that passed this session is SB 1449 which applies, retroactively, statutory changes relating to justification defenses in all cases in which the defendant did not plead guilty or no contest that were submitted to the fact finder as of April 24, 2006. In plain language this means that the restoration of the “innocent until proven guilty” language that passed out of the Legislature via SB 1145 in 2006 retroactively applies to cases pending at the time of passage. The most infamous of these was the trial of Harold Fish, who defended himself while hiking and was prosecuted under the 1997 “guilty until proven innocent” law. Even though SB 1145 became law in the middle of Mr. Fish’s trial, he was convicted under the older law. You can read more about Mr. Fish’s case here: http://www.haroldfishdefense.org/ .
This has been a very bizarre legislative session. With the focus almost entirely on the budget, very little time was spent on non-budget bills, and there was a mad rush to end the session and filter out as many bills as possible. Without the constant pressure YOU provided via your emails, letter and phone calls, AzCDL’s representatives (who went home this morning after staying all night lobbying and counting votes at the Capitol) would not have been able to keep pro-rights bill in the pipeline. Pat yourselves on the back – Job Well Done!
Unfortunately, we’re not out of the woods yet. The Legislature may have adjourned but the Governor now has a stack of bills on her desk to sign, ignore or veto. Her priority is the budget. The Legislature deliberately waited until Sine Die to send the budget to the Governor. If she vetoes the budget, state bureaucracies grind to a halt. A “do over” budget will require the Governor to call a Special legislative session, with more delays. It boils down to gamesmanship and who blinks first. All the non-budget bills might become pawns in the power struggle.
Meanwhile, the next step is to start asking the Governor to sign these bills. Her email address is azgov@az.gov. You can also fax a letter to her at 602-542-1381. Or you can mail it to her at the following address:
The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
You can call her office, toll free, at 1-800-253-0883 or 602-543-4331.
You can also go to the Governor’s website, [url]http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp[/url], where you will find a fill-in-the-blanks form to register your opinion. For "subject", scroll down and select "Legislation." For "topic", fill in the number of the bill you are making a comment on (e.g., SB 1243). In the message/comment area, leave a polite message asking her to sign the bill you are referring to. We recommend a separate message for each bill.
Stay tuned! We will notify you on the fate of legislation via these Alerts and Twitter.
These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization. Join today!
AzCDL – Protecting Your Freedom
[url]http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html[/url]
Copyright © 2009 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved.
“Sine Die” is the Latin term the Arizona Legislature uses to signify the adjournment of the legislative session. The Senate adjourned this morning, July 1, 2009 at 7:30 AM. The House adjourned at 7:31 AM. It’s officially over folks. Unless a Special Session is called by the Governor, we have a 6 month reprieve on any further legislative meddling in our lives.
Unfortunately HB 2439, the AzCDL-requested CCW training reform bill that was amended to include Petty Offense and Defensive Display language, failed in the House at 5:10 AM this morning. It passed in the Senate Third Read by a 18-5-7 vote around 2 AM but when it was voted on in the House Final Read, it failed by one vote, 30-10 with 20 (Yes, twenty!) members not voting. Five of those twenty who were not present for the vote were Republicans who had indicated to us that they would vote for the bill. If they had been present, HB 2439 would have easily passed. You can find how every Representative voted here: [url]http://tinyurl.com/HB2439FinalVote[/url] . The Republicans missing during the final vote were Nancy Barto (R7), Rich Crandall (R19), Adam Driggs (R11), Bill Konopnicki (R5), Lucy Mason (R1), and Doug Quelland (R10). If you are in their Districts, please keep this in mind next November.
Despite the setback with HB 2439, there are four pro-rights bills that made it through the legislative gauntlet and are headed to the governor’s desk. They are SB 1113, SB 1168, SB 1243 and SB 1449.
SB 1113, a “Restaurant Carry” bill laden with concessions to appease opponents, passed in the House Third Read yesterday (6/30/09) by a 40-19-1 vote. Early this morning, it passed the Senate Final Read by a 19-8-3 vote. In the final version of SB 1113:
- “Open carry” is not allowed in places serving alcohol. The firearm must be concealed.
- Only individuals with CCW permits may carry a concealed firearm where alcohol is served.
- The individual legally carrying the firearm may not consume alcohol.
- The penalty for violating the law is a class 3 misdemeanor.
- Establishments may prohibit firearms by posting a sign in a specified location.
- It is an “affirmative defense” if the person violating the law “was not informed of the notice,” the sign had “fallen down,” the person is not a resident of Arizona, or the posted sign has not been up for 30 days.
- However, lack of knowledge (by Arizona residents only) that firearms are prohibited in establishments serving alcohol is no longer a valid defense.
SB 1168 is the Senate bill containing the “strike everything” amendment substituting the language of HB 2474. It passed the Senate Final Read by a vote of 18-9 with 3 not voting. SB 1168 prevents any private or public employer, property owner, etc., from banning any person from keeping a firearm in a locked vehicle in a parking area on the property, with specific limited exceptions. HB 2474, the original “Parking Lot” bill, passed in the House and made it through Senate committees but was dropped when SB 1168 made it through the process first.
SB 1243 passed the House Third Read by a vote of 42-12-6 on June 29. Since the language in SB 1243 remained unchanged, it was sent back to the Senate where it was formally sent to the Governor this morning. SB 1243 is the AzCDL-requested bill that codifies the defensive display of a firearm.
Another very important bill that passed this session is SB 1449 which applies, retroactively, statutory changes relating to justification defenses in all cases in which the defendant did not plead guilty or no contest that were submitted to the fact finder as of April 24, 2006. In plain language this means that the restoration of the “innocent until proven guilty” language that passed out of the Legislature via SB 1145 in 2006 retroactively applies to cases pending at the time of passage. The most infamous of these was the trial of Harold Fish, who defended himself while hiking and was prosecuted under the 1997 “guilty until proven innocent” law. Even though SB 1145 became law in the middle of Mr. Fish’s trial, he was convicted under the older law. You can read more about Mr. Fish’s case here: http://www.haroldfishdefense.org/ .
This has been a very bizarre legislative session. With the focus almost entirely on the budget, very little time was spent on non-budget bills, and there was a mad rush to end the session and filter out as many bills as possible. Without the constant pressure YOU provided via your emails, letter and phone calls, AzCDL’s representatives (who went home this morning after staying all night lobbying and counting votes at the Capitol) would not have been able to keep pro-rights bill in the pipeline. Pat yourselves on the back – Job Well Done!
Unfortunately, we’re not out of the woods yet. The Legislature may have adjourned but the Governor now has a stack of bills on her desk to sign, ignore or veto. Her priority is the budget. The Legislature deliberately waited until Sine Die to send the budget to the Governor. If she vetoes the budget, state bureaucracies grind to a halt. A “do over” budget will require the Governor to call a Special legislative session, with more delays. It boils down to gamesmanship and who blinks first. All the non-budget bills might become pawns in the power struggle.
Meanwhile, the next step is to start asking the Governor to sign these bills. Her email address is azgov@az.gov. You can also fax a letter to her at 602-542-1381. Or you can mail it to her at the following address:
The Honorable Jan Brewer
Governor of Arizona
1700 West Washington
Phoenix, Arizona 85007
You can call her office, toll free, at 1-800-253-0883 or 602-543-4331.
You can also go to the Governor’s website, [url]http://azgovernor.gov/Contact.asp[/url], where you will find a fill-in-the-blanks form to register your opinion. For "subject", scroll down and select "Legislation." For "topic", fill in the number of the bill you are making a comment on (e.g., SB 1243). In the message/comment area, leave a polite message asking her to sign the bill you are referring to. We recommend a separate message for each bill.
Stay tuned! We will notify you on the fate of legislation via these Alerts and Twitter.
These alerts are a project of the Arizona Citizens Defense League (AzCDL), an all volunteer, non-profit, non-partisan grassroots organization. Join today!
AzCDL – Protecting Your Freedom
[url]http://www.azcdl.org/html/join_us_.html[/url]
Copyright © 2009 Arizona Citizens Defense League, Inc., all rights reserved.
