Subject: [againstslaughter] Report from Springfield
and what is next!!!
Hi everyone,
Sorry it took me so long to post, very tired when I finally returned home
yesterday.
First off, I want to thank all of you for your amazing contributions over the
last several months and in particular, the last week!!
WOW!! What an amazing influence all of our calls and correspondence has
had in Springfield!!
As Carol, has reported, the bill was not brought to the floor for a vote, as in
this 2 day session NO bills are voted on.
rep. Molaro has assured us, that the bill will be voted on when it is the
correct "procedural" time to do so, which will be sometime in
mid-February.
Molaro is confident that with the "roll call" of yes votes we have, we
will be successful in passing the bill!!!
To date, we have nearly 70% of the reps voting Yes and 60 % of the Senators as
well. We still have 20% reps unaccounted for and 30 % of the senators
remain unaccounted for. By the way, thus far we have only 6 reps , and 2
senators who are confirmed to be voting no!!!!
We expect to be able to win this battle in near landslide proportions!!!
Brief update on what is next.
For the time being, please give the IL legislators, a "break" in our
correspondence. This advice comes from the pro's that the racing industry
is providing us to lobby this bill. They have advised, that there is such a
thing as overkill, and that some of the legislators are overwhelmed by the
support for this bill. They request that we hold correspondence until we get
close to the day the bill will be voted on.
Thursday morning Jan, Carol and myself attended a "lobbyist" meeting
called by Rep Molaro to discuss the roll call. I had expected the 3 track
lobbyists to be present, but was amazed when 8 power lobbyists entered the room
eager to do battle!!!
We went over the list of votes that from the efforts of you AMAZING people, we
have acquired over the last several weeks. One of the men replied that
"we" have the most legislative support of any of the bills currently
being considered for vote!!!
They were indeed very impressed by our roster!!
We detailed the list of legislators, that we have yet to get a position on, and
after a very long meeting, they struck out enmasse to add more legislative
support to our bill!!!
In a separate post, I will ask for your attention to our next order of business.
Again, fabulous job done by all!!
I also, would like to express our most sincere appreciation to those who came to
Springfield this week to show their support. Thanks to all of you for all you've
done!!!
We will do this all again in a couple of weeks, and we WE WILL CONVINCINGLY WIN
THIS BATTLE!!!