According to an email I received for the Arkansas Right to Life (ARTL), the bill to ban partial-birth abortion, HB1113, will most likely go before the House Committee of Public Health, Welfare, and Labor Tuesday or Thursday of this coming week. Right now, ARTL has obtained the support of ten out the twenty committee members. It is important to contact the ten undecided committee members before the bill runs to ask for their support. If you live in the districts of these committee members, please call them and ask them to SUPPORT HB1133 when it comes up in committee.Committee Members Uncommitted Include:
Rep. Gregg Reep, Chair (D-Warren) - 870-820-2403
Rep. Gene Shelby, Vice-chair (D-Hot Springs) - 501-623-2606
Rep. Curren Everett (D-Salem) - 870-895-2164
Rep. Willie Hardy (D-Camden) - 870-833-1359
Rep. Stephanie Flowers (D-Pine Bluff) - 870-535-1032
Rep. Mike Burris (D-Malvern) - 501-337-4391
Rep. Fred Allen (D – Little Rock) - 501-225-4979
Rep. Billy Gaskill (D-Paragould) - 870-239-4383
Rep. Clark Hall (D-Marvell) - 870-829-3382
Rep. Tracy Pennartz (D-Fort Smith) - 479-285-4800
My thanks to the committee members who have indicted their support for the bill which includes Representatives Roy Ragland, George Overbey, Eddie Cooper, Pam Adcock, Nathan George, John Paul Wells, Eddie Hawkins, Johnny Hoyt, Lance Reynolds, Jon Woods.
There is one interesting twist on this story; the bill was originally on the agenda for Thursday morning but according to ARTL director Rose Mimms, they decided not to run it because, “too many of the members who support it were not in committee for one reason or another.” Without these members present, they did not have the votes to pass the bill. The bill’s primary sponsor is Rep. Dawn Creekmore (picture above) who was rumored to break with her Democrat colleagues and a vote against the tax increase on tobacco, HB1204. However, when the tobacco bill came up for a vote on Thursday afternoon, Creekmore cast one of the deciding swing votes to reach the 75 votes needed for passage. Although I wish Creekmore had voted against the tax increase, I hope that she will be rewarded for her vote by a smooth passage of the partial birth abortion ban. Her Democrat colleagues should realize she came through for them on a difficult vote for her, now it is their turn.
5 comments:
I am reading alot between the lines in that story. What are you really saying?
1. My advice is don't count too much on Roy "Tax and Spend" Ragland's vote until you find out how the leadership wants him to vote on this issue. He will get his running orders from old Robbie and until he does, his word about how he will vote doesn't mean spit.
2. Poor Dawn Creekmore. Run over by the House Leadership and St. Beebe. She was warned that unless and until she folded like the cheap suitcase she really is, her bill would not see the light of day out of committee. I have to say this, at least she gave in for the right reasons, as opposed to Tax and Spend Ragland. At the same time, she caved and refused multiple requests to have a press conference and come clean on the why's of her renig on the promise to vote against the tax.
All of the Dawn Creekmore excuses in the world will never relieve Tax and Spend Ragland's vote FOR A HUGE TAX INCREASE. Simply put, his no vote and the TAX INCREASE would have failed. He managed to put them over the top and make sure that we TAXED THE HECK out Arkansans. Thanks Roy. Run for Lt. Gov. PLEASE. Some of can't wait.
Ah Cameron! So I was correct in reading something between the lines in that story. I wonder if a certain conservative blogger will get to the bottom of this, or just let it fade into the past.
Ragland was at the Senate Agri Committee presenting a bill. Check the official legislative calendar.
Thanks for the comment but I never said Ragland was the one absent, so you must be quite the insider to know this. Besides, as Chairman of the Agri Committee, I believe Ragland could have scheduled his bill to run anytime he wanted.
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