Legislative Update: April 25, 2006

By: Prospector

Today was a bit chaotic, what with legislators going in and out of session and meetings to deal with the veto override situation. One of my appointments was cancelled upon my arrival and I was forced to juggle most of the others to accommodate office staff. All this made for a long, hectic day, but this kind of adapting is not all that uncommon. Most of my appointments were pretty much routine discussion with no real negative feedback.

The Yield the Right of Way,YROW, bill, A4914B is on the agenda for the Transportation Committee meeting tomorrow (another deviation, as the committee usually meets on Tuesday), so I'm not able to confirm its fate at this time. I will report the result sometime Wed or Thur.

The most significant occurrence today was the fact that Assemblyman Joel Miller's office notified me of their decision to reword the Wheelie bill, A5809.

A little background on this issue: Assemblyman Miller has been a friend and supporter of our legislation in the past, and, in fact, has been a rider himself, so this bill was not authored with any malice toward motorcyclists. I was told the bill was written due to pressure from police agencies in the Assemblyman's district who apparently have had problems with the extreme sport bike riders. We had several discussions regarding the bill, and I suggested the possibility of substituting "exhibition driving" for the original language to draw more of a distinction between reckless vs merely foolish behavior. This is what the Assemblyman finally assented to and the bill will be rewritten. Not exactly the end of the bill, but a much more palatable compromise. At this time there is no Senate bill, so we just have to keep an eye on it.

We have a full schedule again for next Tuesday and I will submit another update then.

Prospector's phone number is 518-239-4560