More on Howell’s asbestos bill

I knew there was something fishy about that asbestos bill that only benefited a single company. The Washington Post’s Anita Kumar takes a much closer look in this article and this blog post. What she finds stinks.

First we have a group, the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has been pushing legislation for the favored company, Crown Cork, across the nation since 2006.  It has been successful: 11 states have passed similar bills. Who is ALEC?

ALEC, founded almost four decades ago by the father of the modern conservative movement, Paul Weyrich, includes about 2,000 state legislators as well as 300 companies, such as ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart Stores, according to group officials and documents.

Membership costs $7,000 for companies, $3,500 for nonprofit groups and $50 for legislators, said Jorge Amselle, ALEC’s director of public affairs. Fees make up the bulk of its $7 million annual budget, documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service show.

Companies pay $7,000 while legislators pay $50? Hmmm. Speaker of the House Bill Howell is a member. I’m guessing he paid the $50. The Post reports his PAC has received $8,000 in donation from ALEC.  Not a bad return on a $50 investment.

The bill was first introduced two years ago. It failed. It was introduced again last year. It failed. This year?

Howell altered the makeup of the 22-member committee — two Democrats were removed and three open seats were filled with Republicans who backed the legislation, which passed 11 to 9.

That may have gotten the bill out of committee but when it got to the floor, the bill failed again. I hear Howell was quite surprised. And, as I mentioned in my earlier post, some horse-trading took place.  One of those changing their vote was Del. Dave Albo. According to The Post blog:

Albo said the speaker did not ask him to reconsider but several others did, including House Majority Leader H. Morgan Griffith (R-Salem) and the bill’s sponsor, Del. Terry G. Kilgore (R-Scott). He said he was not threatened, but rather he was persuaded to back the bill in order to win approval of his own priorities later in the legislative session.

Yep. Some horse-trading. And those two folks who didn’t vote? I’m hearing they were asked to take a walk.

Our only hope here is that the Senate kills it.

Late Thursday evening, The Post blog reported on another backroom, “sleight of hand” deal, this time about guns. Seems no one knew that a bill to repeal the one gun a month law was being heard in a subcommittee. Is such behavior on the part of the enlarged Republican majority in the House to be expected from now on?

This is ridiculous.

Correction: In my earlier post on the topic, I missed that a third member, Del. Joe Johnson, changed his vote from NAY to YEA, and that Del. Tommy Wright changed his vote from YEA to NAY.