Legislative Update:
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Well, the 2008 New York State
Legislative Session ended last week with the surprise announcement by
Senator Joe Bruno that he was stepping down as Senate Leader (I will
reserve comment on that development). Other than that,the session
ended with a whimper. I must say that this session seemed to go
by very quickly.
The good news is that I've been informed that the Rider
Education-related bill, S7405/A11185 has passed both houses and is
going to the Governor. We have contacted his office in support of
the bill and hopefully it will get his signature. I'm proud of
our success with this bill as it was introduced very late in the
session and we worked hard to get it passed in record time.
The bad news is that once again the
PBA has managed to tie up our confiscation bill S1705 in committee in
the Senate. The Assembly version had passed the full Assembly for
the second year in a row and there was tremendous support from almost
100% of the Senators I met with. Apparently somebody has an
agenda that conflicts with a reasonable return policy for confiscated
vehicles. We will have to reintroduce the bill in January.
I will try to meet with someone from the PBA prior to that and see if
we can resolve this impasse.
I must apologize for the delay in getting this report out . I have been busy interviewing potential plaintiffs for the possible class-action lawsuit regarding the "safety check" (roadblock) situation. I had several people approach the ABATE booth at Harley Rendezvous, but overall, I'm rather disappointed in the lack of response to our request for victims. I have been told of motorcycles being confiscated, but have yet to hear from those persons. Probably the saddest commentary is that most of the individuals who have stepped up to sign on are not even from New York. If anyone has been stopped at one of these roadblocks, I'd like to have them contact me.