I’m afraid I may have maligned Senator Jackman inappropriately with respect to Engrossed Version, Senate Bill 0089 regarding agricultural equipment which is long and tedious (see previous entry) and incomprehensible to me. Seems that a lot of the garbage seems to have been thrown in by the House. The Conference Committee has adopted a report that strips away the House amendments and leaves the original Senate bill which simply “provides that an implement of husbandry or a farm tractor manufactured after June 30, 2006, must be fitted with equipment that meets certain national standards when operated on a highway and requires the criminal justice institute to adopt rules for the design of a slow moving vehicle emblem.” The House adopted the conference committee version 88 to 1.

Engrossed Version, Senate Bill 0089 Agricultural Equipment. Maybe I’m misremembering and being unfair, but it seems to me that Sen. Jackman’s bills have a tendency to be a hundred sections long and accomplish very little. I think maybe it’s not him but some folks over at one of the agriculture groups for whom he carries water. Thinking back 7 years ago or so, I recall a bill that was drafted up by the group — wish I could remember who it was — but I kept calling over to the contact people I’d been given and telling them the many ways in which their proposed draft sucked and telling them what needed to be changed. (Not dictating policy mind you, just telling them how to clean up the language.) Problem was, they didn’t have me dealing with a decision maker. Just a person who took my call and hemmed and hawed and wouldn’t authorize changes because she didn’t understand the legislation and, from her perspective, it was cast in stone just the way the lobbyists had drafted it.

Anyway, I couldn’t say whether this bill evolved in the same way. It’s long and it’s boring and it tinkers with a lot of definitions for reasons that aren’t obvious to me and it passed the House 98-0.