It was the intention
of certain members of the General Assembly from the very moment the Bipartisan
Task Force On Gun Violence Prevention And Children's Safety was formed to “e-cert”
the normal legislative process, State Senate President Pro Tempore Donald Williams said in a recent interview.
The emergency
certification of a bill bypasses usual legislative hearings and requires, as
the name itself implies, an emergency to justify it. Generally, e-certs are
reserved for times of crisis such as natural disasters or when action cannot be
delayed because of an approaching timeline.
In this case, the “emergency”
was triggered by a timeline set by legislative leaders who had tasked the
bipartisan task force to complete its recommendations to the legislature before
February 28, so that a bill could be produced on that date. Apparently, it is
the assigned date that has created the emergency, which begs a question: If the
task force completes its work on the 29th rather than the 28th
will the legislature emergency certify its gun control measures without benefit
of the committee’s work simply to meet a deadline?
The answer to that
question, one supposes, would be no. And the answer exposes what may be a
subtle legislative fraud.
The multiple murders
at Sandy Hook, however horrific, were exceptional; when was the last time,
other than at Sandy Hook, that a slaughter of 20 children and 6 faculty members
occurred in Connecticut? For purposes of legislation, exceptions of this kind
should not be discounted, but the ordinary legislative process is designed to
produce as its end product a bill that has been properly vetted the provisions
of which have been sufficiently debated by legislators whose votes sanction the
committee work on the bill.
It should not be the
business of the General Assembly to decline to do its business or to assign its
constitutional responsibilities to ad hoc committees created either by the
legislature or the governor. Legislative
short cuts of this kind that leave fewer fingerprints on a final bill allow
cowardly politicians to assign responsibility for defective legislation to
non-elected entities.
Speaking at the last
of four public hearings on gun control in an empty Newtown High School
auditorium, Mr. Williams explained why a bill on gun control must be produced
without benefit of the usual committee hearings. The haste to produce a bill in
the absence of data certified by the principal crime investigators – a final
criminal report will not be due until March, if then – is a result of
constituent demand: “When our constituents say 'We don't necessarily have all
the answers, but we want you to do the right thing,' we need to rise to that
challenge – and that's why we have this bipartisan task force," said Mr.
Williams.
At the beginning of
January, Governor Dannel Malloy announced “the formation of the Sandy Hook
Advisory Commission, an expert panel that will review current policy and make
specific recommendations in the areas of public safety, with particular
attention paid to school safety, mental health, and gun violence prevention.” That panel’s initial report willnot be due until March 15, two weeks beyond the date the legislature
has set to produce a bill that presumably will accomplish the same purpose without committee hearings.
This is legislating
with a purpose. Unfortunately, it would appear that the purpose is not to write
a bill that would satisfy the deepest longings of the parents in Sandy Hook whose
children were so violently taken from them. Those parents want a bill that will
quench the fire in their blood, so that after its passage everyone in
Connecticut may say of Sandy Hook -- “never again.”
Bills based on surmises
and vagrant hopes rather than hard data – which will not be vetted by the
relevant oversight committees before a final bill is produced – suit other
purposes.
Comments
There may also be some significant response issues by the Schools and Law enforcement (notice how quick the lawyer who wanted to file a suite was demonized).
No wonder people feel their rights are at constant risk. Not just the right to arms, but in many other areas.
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Amen.
This sort of emergency legislating has become customary in Obama's D.C. First negotiate in private, pass the bill pronto, find out what it says post facto. The essence of self-government would seem to be a public deliberation process. What we are increasingly under is a government of experts and bureaucrats. On the bright side, a tax on bullets is likely to be a lot less destructive than Obamacare.
Locks are.
The General Assembly’s response to the Petit murders was to abolish capital punishment for criminals who commit multiple murders. http://donpesci.blogspot.com/search?q=abolish+capital+punishment