Up coming Legislative Session - Help needed
I am monitoring the state legislative session again this session. So far there are 1201 bill draft requests. (as of 2 Dec 08) There will most likely be a few bills that will affect 4x4 users. So far I see 7 that will bear watching.
I want an e-mail network in place so I can alert you to bills that need to be responded to. I will provide you with all the info you need to either e-mail your local area legislators or provide a phone # so you can call the switch board and leave a message for them. Early in the session we usually have a few days to react. Late in the session we sometimes only have 12 hours, so paying attention and responding quickly is important.
This will only require that you look at your e-mail daily for a couple of months. If anything needs attention, you'll have a message from me with what to do. It will only take a few minutes of your time to help. And probably only 2 or 3 times during the session. If a bill looks ominous, I'll send you a link so you can read the bill for yourself.
With everyone's help by sending a message to your area legislators we can shape bills to better fit our needs. This method I describe is usually very effective for getting bad bills modified to our liking or killed. We stopped several last session.
If any of you want to do your own monitoring for other bills of interest to you personally, let me know, and I'll send you a short tutorial and some URLs to get you started. It's interesting to see what bills are being considered. One I noticed is "State dog". How useful!
What I need you to do now is get your e-mail address to me. I will add you to my mailing list. Do it now so we are ready.
My e-mail; ell-rep@montana.com Put "4x4 e-mail list" on the subject line. If you have anything to add or questions, put that in the body. Otherwise just put your name and where you live in the body. I like to know who I'm talking to. This list will not be used for any purpose but to contact you about this legislative session. Also if you know anyone else that would be interested in helping with this project, give them this article. The more people we having responding the more effective we will be.
Larry Ellison, Bozeman Mountaineer