Last year the Gourmet Beer Bill was given the “Shroud Award” for the “deadest bill of the session”.
This year members and supporters of Free the Hops rallied around magnificently and carried out a sustained effort of education on the issues, such that every single legislator in the Alabama Legislature heard about Gourmet Beer and knew what the real issues were.
We were failed by the Senate. They spent the entire session in petty bickering, being too busy scoring political points to do the job we pay them to do. An entire legislative session squandered in point-scoring instead of dealing with the very grave legislative issues that were before them.
The senate didn’t deal with the education budget. They didn’t deal with removing the 4% grocery tax. They didn’t deal with the smoking ban. They didn’t deal with a bill to prevent large corporations avoiding paying Alabama taxes. They didn’t deal with a bill to exempt the Federal Stimulus Check from Alabama taxation.
It is time for you, the people of Alabama, to feel outraged at this. The senators behaved in a way that brings shame on the state, and they need to learn that their actions have consequences on their own political careers.
Let me be blunt here: the issue is not that the senators failed to deal with Gourmet Beer. The issue is that they failed you, the people of Alabama – and that failure needs to be punished.
Call, email, or write your senator. Tell them how you feel about their dismal failure to achieve anything this year. Tell them how you feel about their poor representation of you on the national political field. Tell them how you feel about them confirming everyone’s prejudices about our great state.
Tell them you will remember that all they achieved in 2007 was to vote themselves a huge pay rise.
Above all, tell them that in 2010 you will remember their failures in 2007 and 2008. And that voluntary failure is not acceptable.
Find your senator:
http://capwiz.com/state-al/dbq/zs.dbq
9 Comments
Amen. This will be remembered.
It was that ugly… There were too many people that were sensible to get sh*t done but they ultimately failed. Our local senator will get a nary vote.
mw
I am dissapointed at the priorities and the underlying agendas we continue to see in our politics. Get your shit together, guys, 4reel.
I hesitate to leave my state senator an outraged message, since he’s Senator French, one of our close allies on the Gourmet Beer Bill (I believe he introduced the Senate version). What do you think?
Andrew, Steve French is very much a staunch supporter and friend of Free the Hops. Perhaps a letter/email to him along the lines of “I am writing to you to express my disappointment with the actions of the Senate, and appreciate that you share my disappointment”…?
This may be a dumb question but… Everyone keeps saying our beer bill is dead until next year? Does our legislature only meet once a year& they will not meet another time in 2008? Do we have to wait until 2009?
the AL legislature is a part time event. It only meets for 30 days. That’s it till 2009.
Let’s keep our chins up guys. Come out to the MAGIC CITY BREWFEST and celebrate the one thing everybody here loves. WE MUST PERSEVERE!
When you “Blue Dot”ers realize that you are consistantly screwed by your precious Dem
buddies you re-elect election after election back to Montgomery, then sit there and biiitch about Bush.
Until you open your eyes and realized these idiots
you keep electing are keeping us ALL back nothing
will change. Blame Bush all you want but it’s the Dems
that control Montgomery and it’s the Dems keeping
Alabama the backwards joke it is.
- Red Dot in a Red State held back by Blue Dits that can’t speak English.