Sorry I didn\’t post immediately after HB 3186 saw its untimely demise this week, but I went out and drank to bed Thursday night after it became evident that we weren\’t gonna get there.
Lets bring the vitriol down a notch and look at the big picture here. I\’ll do a proper post-mortem later, but for now lets remember a few things:
1) All good bills take time to pass. I was one of the primary organizers behind the legislation to give Texas teachers paid health insurance. That took us about 4 1/2 years in a time when the state was pretty flush with cash. Not because we did anything wrong, not because the system doesn\’t work, but because that is just how long it takes to tell everyone what you want to do and why. We are WAY ahead of the curve on this one.
2) Nobody expected a bill this good to get filed…much less out of committee, through calendars and given a slot on the floor.
3) Our bill didn\’t die because legislators don\’t like/want poker. Our bill died because there were some major bad bills ahead of it that legislators didn\’t want to get to. That is just the way it goes. Frankly, we are probably better off that some of those bills didn\’t get voted on.
So, where does that leave us? That leaves us with about 2 1/2 weeks left of session. The possibility does still exist that we could amend our language onto another eligible bill that has already made it through one chamber. I\’ll spare y\’all the procedural civics lesson for now, but it is a possibility.
If that doesn\’t work, we have 1 1/2 years to get ready to do this again. That isn\’t very long. We will need to build up a better organization, raise money and stand together until then.
Stay tuned. The fatcats may be singing, but the fat lady isn\’t even getting warmed up.