• Last week, I brought HB 1208 before the House.  I mentioned this bill in my article last week.  By way of brief recap, this bill would prohibit motorized vehicles and combustion engines from being present on water or ice within 660 feet of an occupied dwelling, church, schoolhouse, or livestock confinement.  As any hunter knows, there is a 660-foot safety zone when discharging a firearm.  HB 1208 simply attempts to extend that zone to (nonmeandered) waters over private land.  The bill passed the House, 63-6, with at least two of the "no" votes hav

ing told me they were "friendly" no votes in hopes of being on a conference committee if the bill comes back from the Senate in an amended form.
• Speaking of "friendly" no votes, I was asked by the House prime sponsor to cast a no vote on her bill, HB 1161, relating to human trafficking.  This is a bill that I am very supportive of, so I asked what her thought process was.  She said that she had introduced three bills dealing with trafficking, two of which were killed, and one of which (1161) was gutted and passed out of committee.  She said it is her intention to amend 1161 in Senate committee, and assuming the bill passes out of the Senate in an amended fashion, she wants me on the conference committee, should there be one.  For further explanation, our rules state that if there is a "...disagreement between the two houses..." and the house of origin does not agree with amendments made on the other side, a conference committee will attempt to reconcile the differences.  The rules go on to say, "...insofar as possible, members appointed to conference committees shall be representative of the decision within the house upon the issue under consideration."  Simply put, by being the only dissenting vote on the bill, I am essentially guaranteed to be on the conference committee.  So, while I do agree with the language that was contained within HB 1161, I also agreed with so much of the language that was otherwise killed or stripped from the other bills.  My hope is that we can breathe life back into some of that verbiage before session concludes, and I did capitulate with the request to vote no.  The bill passed the House, 68 "yeas" vs one VERY friendly "nay"!
• HB 1166 passed the House floor by a vote of 61-8.  This bill would rewrite the law relative to the distribution of the universal access fee monies we all pay on our phone bills.  If you look you will see a 15-cent charge each month on said bills.  The dollars that come into the fund historically have been distributed 90% to serving the needs of individuals who are deaf or have profound hearing impairments and 10%

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