SRA Springfield Report
Your ISRA lobbyists hard at work in the 94th legislative session
This is going to be an on-going series of reports from our lobbyists in Springfield. We hope to be able to bring you news as it happens, or shortly thereafter. They'll be able to give you a view of the action that they see daily, that most of us won't ever get the chance to experience directly. - webmaster
ISRA Past President Jim Vinopal writes this afternoon:
SB - A219 , the bill that would have required loss of a gun, through theft or otherwise, to be reported to the State Police within 72 hours, failed to pass the Senate this afternoon. 219 received only 27 aye votes, 3 short of a required majority.
He followed up this evening with:
One problem with rapid reporting on the events in Springfield is the way things move on a somewhat uneven playing field. in the span of time since I reported the failure of SB-219, the sponsor apparently ask for and received postponed consideration for his bill. This means that he can call it for a new vote at a later time. Sort of like a second bite of the apple. The way things are shaping up, it is fairly unlikely that he will call it again but we will need to make sure he doesn't pick up any more votes.
Then we have some good news and bad news.
In regard to our (good) bills:
SB-57 PASSED and went to the House. This is a good gun show bill.
HB-340 PASSED and went to the House. This is a bill that removes the waiting period on trades and trade-ins.
HB-341 FAILED but was placed on postponed consideration. This is a good gun show bill.
In regard to their (bad) bills:
SB-332, a bill to require dealers to have a State license and to provide a registration system, was "removed from the record" by the sponsor. This, in effect, kills the bill.
SB-546 FAILED. This was a bad gun show bill.
HB-794 PASSED and went to the Senate. This is a bad gun show bill. Looks like we will have a fight on our hands to get the good bill passed in the Senate.
No telling what else will happen this evening. At last count, both houses were still in session.
Posted Thu Apr 14 20:47:57 CDT 2005
Three shell bills that were amended and had been assigned to the Senate Executive Committee: They were SB-1330, SB-1331 and SB-1332. They covered owner liability, public nuisance and one gun a month.
In a late night session of the full Senate today all three of the contrived bills went down by votes of 24 - 31, 24 - 31 and 20 - 34 respectively.
All things considered, the gun owners of Illinois had a pretty good day today. We just need to keep things rolling.
Updated Thu Apr 14 22:23:19 CDT 2005
