Wednesday, February 16, 2005

clean indoor act bill in committee now

The Environmental Health Committee chaired by Karen May is meeting now to debate HB 672 sponsored by Karen Yarbrough that would permit more than the current 21 municipalities that may protect their workers from breathing carcinogenic smoke in their workplaces. Last week the bill failed in committee but Rep. Sara Feigenholtz was ill and not in the committee so maybe the bill has better prospects today. The culture of agreement manifests itself - former rep Dunn said that he will continue to discuss with opponents an amendment 'we put a man on the moon so we will continue to talk about this language'. No real hearing today since last week they had a full hearing. And the vote is coming. Oh the drama. . .you never know what will happen in these tense moments before the vote. And Bob Churchill saved the bill by voting yes. McCarthy voted no. Otherwise the Ds voted yes and the Rs voted no. 5 to 3 the bill goes to the floor. Fun stuff.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

As usual, those lousy Republicans are trying to take away our rights. Oh, um, wait a minute. Actually, I love all these smoking bans because I don't smoke and other people smoking pisses me off. But I do want to point out that in my lifetime, far more of my "rights" have been taken away (or tried to be taken away) by Democrats: Right to (1) own an assault weapon; (2) smoke in a restaurant; (3) pray in a public school; (4) use the Illinois tollways without an I-Pass. Fascist John Ashcroft was hardly as effective. - CF

Dan Johnson said...

CF -- more fantastic nonsense from you. I guess the right not to get thrown into jail without an attorney is no big deal, but the 'right' to a 40 cent cash toll on the tollways is an infringement on our precious civil liberties.