Citizen Update – What Happened to the Second Amendment Preservation Act?!

Having made it through almost the entire legislative process, HB0118 Second Amendment Preservation Act failed Senate 3rd Reading yesterday (3/11/20).

We don’t assume to know all of the back-story, but here are the details of what we do know:

When House bill #HB0118 crossed over to the Senate, the Engrossed bill was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee on 3/4/20 with a recommendation to “Amend and Do Pass”. Here is the link to the Senate Judiciary recommended amendment, #HB0118SS001. We provide a copy below of what HB0118 looks like with this amendment (you might have to click refresh to get the pdf to appear).
On 3/9/20 the bill was voted on in the Senate Committee of the Whole (COW) where it was passed with the Senate Judiciary amendment being adopted. COW votes are not recorded unless a legislator calls for a recorded vote, of which no one did. Some people would say that the bill had lost it’s teeth with the adopted amendment – we agree with this to a certain degree.
On 3/10/20, via their own amendment, Senators Hutchings and Steinmetz attempted to put much of the teeth back into the bill, with Senator Hutchings debating these points – but it ultimately failed. Following the failed Hutchings/Steinmetz amendment, HB0118 passed Senate 2nd Reading with the Senate Judiciary amendment intact. Second reading votes are not recorded unless a legislator calls for a recorded vote, of which no one did. The audio of this debate and vote on 2nd Reading can be heard at this link at time 10:53:00.
On 3/11/20, another amendment was offered (by Senator Anselmi-Dalton) but withdrawn after the debate. Right before the 3rd Reading vote, Senators Bouchard and James left the Senate floor. Another Senator (Agar) was absent and legitimately excused per Senate Rule 12-1, (Senate Rules). It is unclear why Senators Bouchard and James left the floor right before 3rd Reading – citizens will have to ask them directly why they left the floor. We do know that this is sometimes done because a legislator does not want their vote to be on record. The audio of this debate and vote can be heard at this link at time 2:31:50.
HB0118 passed 3rd Reading with a vote of 16 Ayes and 11 Nays. Here is that vote record:
.
Ayes: Senator(s) Bebout, Biteman, Boner, Case, Coe, Dockstader, Driskill, Hicks, Hutchings, Kinskey, Landen, Moniz, Nethercott, Perkins, Steinmetz, Wasserburger
Nays: Senator(s) Anderson, Anselmi-Dalton, Baldwin, Ellis, Gierau, Kost, Pappas, Rothfuss, Schuler, Scott, Von Flatern
Excused: Senator(s) Agar, Bouchard, James. Ayes 16 Nays 11 Excused 3 Absent 0 Conflicts 0
.
HOWEVER, when Senators Bouchard and James came back to the Senate floor right after 3rd Reading on HB0118, it rubbed a few Senators the wrong way – causing them to call for a reconsideration vote on 3rd Reading.
On 3rd Reading for the second time the final vote for HB0118 was 15 Ayes and 14 Nays – with Senators Bouchard and James voting against it. Also, Senator Nethercott (Chairman of the Judiciary Committee who wrote the adopted amendment) changed her vote from Aye to Nay. The audio of the reconsideration vote and second 3rd Reading vote vote can be heard at this link at time 3:25:05. Here is that vote record:
.
Ayes: Senator(s) Bebout, Biteman, Boner, Case, Coe, Dockstader, Driskill, Hicks, Hutchings, Kinskey, Landen, Moniz, Perkins, Steinmetz, Wasserburger
Nays: Senator(s) Anderson, Anselmi-Dalton, Baldwin, Bouchard, Ellis, Gierau, James, Kost, Nethercott, Pappas, Rothfuss, Schuler, Scott, Von Flatern
Excused: Senator Agar. Ayes 15 Nays 14 Excused 1 Absent 0 Conflicts 0
.
At a glance one would assume the bill passed (as we initially did), but it did not. Per Article 3, Section 25 of our WY State Constitution, in order for the bill to pass 3rd Reading it requires a majority of all the members elected to the Senate. There are 30 Senators – thus a majority would have to be at least 16 Ayes, but #HB0118 received only 15 Aye votes when 3rd Reading was voted a second time.

We believe that the Senate Judiciary amendment, adopted by the Senate Committee of the Whole, weakened this bill considerably. This happens primarily on pages 5 and 6 of the amended bill.

On page 6, the defined list of WY public servants that are not to infringe upon our second amendment rights was completely eliminated.
On page 5 where it states (paraphrasing) it is the duty of the Wyoming attorney general who shall litigate on behalf of the citizens of Wyoming whose rights are being infringed… – the original language “shall” means that the Wyoming attorney general would have to litigate. However, “shall” being amended to “may” means that the Wyoming attorney general can litigate, but is not required by law to do so.

So, the Senate Judiciary Committee amendment pretty much gutted the bill. Having said all that, we still wish this bill would have passed whereby it could have been amended at a later point in time to put the teeth back in. Getting a bill passed that far in the legislative process is not a small feat! If Senators Bouchard and James wanted to vote No than they should have just done so on the initial 3rd Reading – and it still would’ve passed without their endorsing it.

More than anything though – we are just really bummed that we lost this bill altogether and in the eleventh hour.

Kudos to the sponsors – we really hope they bring this bill back again so we can ALL fight even harder for it!

HB0118 Second Amendment Preservation Act Sponsors: Representative(s) Jennings, Blackburn, Edwards, Gray, Hallinan, Miller, Piiparinen, Salazar, Styvar and Tass and Senator(s) Biteman, Hutchings and Steinmetz

~

Note: Some edits were made to this descriptive to fine-tune some details on March 13, 2020.

Loading...

Taking too long?

Reload document

|