OUTRAGEOUS action by mass. politicians:

MA Judiciary committee - at last minute - floods "Transgender Bill" hearing schedule with 237 bills on various topics!

An impossible situation!

[See below: Ground rules for hearing set by Committee]

July 10, 2009

Get ready for an insane day next Tuesday . . .

For the last few weeks pro-family citizens from across the state have been getting ready for Tuesday's public hearing on the infamous "Transgender Rights and Hate Crimes" bill, which would impose fines and jail time for simply disagreeing with the transgender movement's push into everybody's lives.

          INFO on the Transgender Bill H1728 - and upcoming hearing

It's just gotten crazier. The Joint Judiciary Committee has suddenly flooded the schedule of the July 14 public hearing - which originally just had the Transgender Bill (H1728) - with 237 bills covering multiple topics with a wide range of constituencies.

          LIST of 237 bills for July 14 hearing, received from Committee

          LINKS to the TEXT OF EACH BILL in list

In over 15 years of state house lobbying we have never seen anything like this. It's rare, in our experience, for 50 bills to be covered at a single public hearing. Sometimes there have been as many as 90 or more, we've been told. But nobody we know has ever heard of attempting to hear testimony on 237, especially apparently important bills like these, in one hearing.

To give you some perspective: Suppose only one person testifies on each bill. At the rate of 15 people per hour - a VERY quick rate - it would take nearly 16 hours non-stop to hear them all - from noon to 4 am the next morning! But there is bound to be lots of testimony on many of these!

It's outrageous and offensive to citizens and voters.

Unrelated subjects bringing in odd groups

There are multiple diverse groups affected by these bills. Almost all of these bills would seem important to some prominent group. Will they all cram into that room that day?

Usually a hearing will only take up similar bills affecting one or two general subjects. But at this hearing, besides the "Transgender Bill", if you look at the list you will see bills to be heard affecting:

Police officers (high-speed chases, resisting arrest, etc.); DSS employees; pets; crime witnesses; AIDS patients; identity theft; retail theft; visitation rights of parents; gang violence; treatment of prisoners; treatment of prostitutes; dog fighting; domestic violence; minimum sentencing for drug offenses; computer crimes; drag racing; assault and battery on public employees; safety of judges; lobbying ethics violations; firearms issues; the mandatory reporting law; and many more.

All of these have their own groups that would likely come to testify for and against. If even half of them show up on July 14 -- besides the transgender and homosexual lobby -- it will be a circus. Gardner Auditorium is fairly big, but not that big!

Very strange notification of this hearing

The Legislature posts the upcoming public hearings on the State House website at least a week or two in advance. This hearing wasn't posted until last night -- just a few days before the hearing -- even though it affects so many bills and so many people. Before tonight we had to call the committee to find out the date and room of the hearing.

The "Transgender Bill" was the only one they originally said would be taken up on July 14. On Tuesday we called the Senate Chairman's office and asked if there would be any other bills also. They told us were told that there probably would be some, but they "were still figuring it out."

Yesterday we personally went to the House Chairman's office to find out. We were handed the list of 237 bills by the staff. We took the list to the Senate Chairman and they also confirmed it.

Other critical bills that we NEED to pay attention to that day

Among those 237 bills are several very critical bills that are being heard that day. These also need some serious testimony:

Women's "Right to Know" law on abortion
H1670 Text of bill - Rep. Elizabeth Poirier (R-North Attleborough)
Also known as "Laura's Law" this would require abortion providers to give women complete and accurate information about abortions, to offset the huge pressure and propaganda that women in those situations now get.
Update outdated "wiretapping" statute
H1720 Text of bill - Sen. Brian Joyce (D-Milton)
Homosexual activists used the outdated Mass. wiretapping law to attempt to sue Scott Whiteman and Brian Camenker for "damages" regarding the recordings of the horrific Fistgate tapes. That law was never meant to be used that way, and this would update it properly.
Repeal ban of sale of abortion-inducing drugs, devices, etc.
H1745 Text of bill - Rep. Ellen Story (D-Amherst)
This would repeal laws prohibiting the ordinary sale of abortion-inducing drugs or medical devices to cause abortions. It has a huge list of co-sponsors.
Remove parental consent on abortions for minors
H1746 Text of bill Text of current law - Rep. Ellen Story (D-Amherst)
This is very frightening. The abortion industry continues to target younger kids. Currently, a girl's parents must approve an abortion (if she's under 18), though a superior court judge can overrule them if they refuse. This bill, sponsored by 44 legislators, would allow a wide range of people - including teachers, clergy, guidance counselors, social workers, or any adult relative - to overrule the parents!
Officially legalize homosexual "marriage"
H1708 Text of bill - Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston)
This coincides with the Attorney General's lawsuit against DOMA (see item below). The homosexual lobby knows very well that same-sex "marriage" was never really made legal. Since the Massachusetts Constitution does not allow judges to change law, the SJC's infamous Goodridge ruling left it in the Legislature's hands to do that. But it never did. (They've been trying to keep this quiet. Curiously, they haven't sneaked the legislation through yet. This crowded hearing is the perfect opportunity.)
Repeal sodomy laws and other morality laws
H3536 (Also H1711) Text of bill - Rep. Byron Rushing (D-Boston)
S1656 Text of bill - Sen. Cynthia Creem (D-Newton)
The phrase "the abominable and detestable crime against nature, either with mankind or beast" -- still found in the Massachusetts General Laws -- really drives the homosexual lobby crazy. They want to repeal this, as well as certain other laws dealing with public morality and order. This has a lot of implications!

Contempt for the public

Needless to say, this is an outrageous action by this committee. This is just more reason why the Legislature is, and ought to be, so passionately despised by many these days. The public should be given the right to give testimony on all these bills without having to endure long hours, possibly throughout the night.

Our sense is that they're acting a lot like Congress is these days. They feel that the homosexual / transgender lobby has told them all they need to hear. They want to dispense with the boring task of dealing with "the people" and just push whatever agendas they've already decided to implement.

It's up to us to disabuse them of this. Don't let this intimidate you from going and telling it to them like it is. They're going to hear from us, all right! And we'll have a full report.

What you can also do

Don't be intimidated. Even if you can't make it, you can:

(1) Download our Transgender Bill Pamphlet and distribute it to your friends and neighbors

Download PAMPHLET on the dangers of the Transgender Bill

(2) Contact the Committee, call then, email them, and sent them some written testimony!

LIST of Judiciary Committee members, with contact links

Keep up the fight!

When should you get there? How will it work?

Here are the "ground rules" for Tuesday's hearing

The short answer: Sign up at 10:30 am, but the testimony for the "transgender bill" starts at 3:00 pm.

We were informed that the July 14 public hearing will be run by Senate Chairman Sen. Cynthia Creem. So yesterday we went to her office in the State House and met with her staff attorney. We wanted to make sure that the outrageous way it was run last year isn't repeated again this year.

Here's what we were told by Sen. Creem's staff attorney:

People will be called up to testify in the order that they signed up, NOT by order of bills (except for the Transgender Bill).
Everyone will be given 3 minutes to talk. People on a panel will each be given 2 minutes to talk. (We'll see how long that lasts!)
Elected officials will get preference over the public to testify and can cut in line at any time. (We strongly disagree with this, but that's the way it will be.)
Sign-in sheets to testify will be available at 10:30 am. (at Gardner Auditorium).
The hearing will start at 12:00 noon, but only general bills will be heard then, not the Transgender Bill.
At 2:30 pm elected officials will testify regarding the Transgender Bill.
At 3:00 pm elected officials and the general public (in order of sign-in) will testify regarding the Transgender Bill. This will go on until 6:00 pm.
At 6:00 pm the hearing will go back to all bills, in order of sign-in.
Written testimony will be accepted all day by the committee staff.

That's what they told us. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, such as how you testify on several bills in just 3 minutes. We'll see what happens. We will have a full report for you.