Good Luck, You'll Need a Lot of It.

A. I appreciated your comments about being “patient” with our new supposed-to-be liberal Speaker, (July 15,2005), but our organization has been working our butts off to get 100 House members committed to vote yes on legislation permitting a limited number of undocumented young people to pay in state tuition rates at our local state colleges and university. We know we need 109 to override the Governor’s expected veto in the House, and we know the Speaker is supportive (he’s one of the 100.) We have seen a lot of evidence that the Speaker can push through stuff that he cares about in a couple of days – like a $60 million subsidy to the film business. Why can’t we get him to look at our list of leaning yeses and “convince” 10 or so to commit and we can get this passed and over ridden before the summer recess so these kids can go school this fall? The Senate president has said publicly he has the two thirds vote necessary to override in the Senate.

B. The answer is yes of course it can be done, but there are a lot of “ifs” to think about. If you can convince your Speaker to personally look at your vote count and confirm that all of your 100 commitments are securely committed (in other words make sure you and your supporters have not interpreted a leaning yes or a maybe as a committed yes); and if he is able to identify 10 leaning yeses (a reasonable number) who will commit to him on this vote in return for some reasonable favor or consideration from him, (everything from appreciative personal attention to a commitment to help with another piece of pending legislation to a commitment to visit the district for a local event) he would probably be willing to let the vote come up before the summer recess. Then all you have to worry about is if the Senate President can take it up before the summer recess and if the Governor would veto it before the summer recess (and not fool around with a delaying amendment) and if the vetoes can be taken up in both chambers before the summer recess. That's a lot to do in 7 days. Good luck , you’ll need a lot of it.