Just to clear something up, I did join ALEC my first term, like many other legislators have. When the movement started to vilify the organization, I decided it really wasn’t worth the effort to defend it, especially since I didn’t get much out of it and never went to any of the conferences anyway. I made a commitment to one of my constituents that I would not renew my membership, so I didn’t join this term.

I never had an opportunity to look at the clip until now.

The task force was set up to be bipartisan and to develop solutions that influence gun violence, mental health, and school safety. The working groups were not like any working group I have ever seen! The clip you include in the blog contains my comments moments after I learned the gun violence prevention working group was really a rubber stamp to give legitimacy to a whole host of concepts that had never been discussed by members of the group. This took place at the second and final meeting of the entire group – that’s right. One meeting to tell the press we legislators would have this amazing bipartisan effort to help our state, and another where we presented a list of concepts. We never even met as an entire group to have any discussion.

I had just sat down with a list that I thought was being passed back and forth and negotiated between the members of the group. I thought our meeting would be our opportunity to discuss the concepts in a public forum. Instead, I was handed an additional list of concepts labeled the Democrat Caucus Proposals and the co-chairs presented both lists as concepts for consideration by the leaders of the task force with no discussion. I felt like I was ambushed! So, like any other bill, the Democratic Leadership would drive the bill. While that is their prerogative as the majority, it should have been made clear from the start.

I was disappointed the working group or task force would not be presenting a single set of bipartisan recommendations that would lead to a true bipartisan bill, or bills, that could have a public hearing and the chance for a unanimous vote. I hoped for a real first start to address gun violence, to be followed by bills that were already moving through the Public Safety Committee addressing more controversial issues.

Unfortunately, the political reality was nothing short of banning guns would be acceptable by the Democrats. The controversial debate didn’t leave room for some other great concepts. At the end of the day, I think there were not enough votes to get a ban on more guns, so it had to be combined with all of the other concepts to pass the legislature. That’s politics.

Thanks again for putting the clip out there! I look forward to addressing the issues and discussing my vote in the future.