It was a long and complicated bill but at least I didn't have time to read it........

Hecate:

Last week our legislature passed a "first in the nation" comprehensive health reform legislation that really really screws our little agency that serves low income uninsured people. We did everything you told us to do..........we developed short easy to understand fact sheets and background papers that we used to brief our legislative delegation, the staffs of both Ways and Means committee , the Speaker and the Senate President. We got the commitment of two key legislators who promised to protect our interests. We walked our so called champions, and their staffs through about two inches of detailed background and made our policy analysts available to them at a moments notice. When the leadership tried to rush a 160 page bill through in less than 24 hours, our legislative sponsors were at least able to file a couple of amendments (that we wrote), but they weren't even brought up for debate!! It was all over so fast after months and months of lobbying. And the kicker was when one member of our legislative delegation made a joke about it --"It was a long and complicated bill, but at least I didn't have time to read it." I think that's just reprehensible!!!

Hecate says:

Well s/he was problably a little tired and cranky from trying to figure out the bill in the first place, never mind trying to figure out how the bill impacted your agency. Sounds like you did everything right but still failed to convince the Leadership that it was a top priority to protect your agency. Hard to swallow, I know.

Big complicated bills with lots of competing interests from a couple of hundred different stakeholders with millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs at stake, often are rushed through quickly after a couple of months of figuring out how to balance all the different interests. The goal is to make sure all the "big guys" don't get everything they want, but most of them get something. Lots of drafting mistakes are made in the margins because every section that benefits one stakeholder affects a dozen others, and vice versa. Trust me the leadership will be releasing several bills in the near future offering "technical corrections" to the big bill. Your champions still can make things right.