Subject: FW: AFRW Voting Tally
for DROP Vote by Senator Bill Holzclaw
From: eloisz@hotmail.com
To: eloisz@hotmail.com
CC: holzclaw@knology.net
Subject: AFRW Voting Tally for DROP Vote by Senator Bill Holzclaw
Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 11:30:49 -0500
Dear AFRW Board Members,
The purpose of the email is to correct a vote by Senator Bill
Holzclaw as reported on our AFRW Voting Tally for the DROP bill and to
apologize to Senator Holzclaw.
As you know, AFRW has started keeping a voter tally on how our
Republican Legislators voted on priority bills chosen by our
members. This is posted on our website as well. In the final voting
tally that I distributed, I reported Senator Bill Holzclaw (2nd District which
includes Limestone and Madison) as not voting on the DROP bill.
Senator Holzclaw disagreed with that tally, indicating that the last vote on
the bill was the Governor's Amendment and not whether or not the bill
should pass or fail.
I'm new to this Alison process (the state website that tracks
bills and votes) and have done my best to understand how this
works, since most of the time the last vote on a bill determines the fate
of the bill. Also, there is a process whereby a legislator can
"change" his vote after the bill has been passed/defeated, but this
is not the process Senator Holzclaw used. He did not vote on the final
Amendment but he DID vote previously on several contested votes to support
the DROP bill.
While it's important that we know how our Legislators
voted, it's equally important to be fair to them and in this case, I erred and owe Senator Holzclaw an
apology. I will correct the AFRW Voting Tally
of his vote on the DROP bill from a "pass" to
"support" since he did vote for the bill on critical votes
(preceding the Governor's Amendment) that determined whether the bill would
pass or fail. He did not vote on the Governor's Amendment, which was the
last vote recorded by Alison. AFRW will continue to
monitor and report on interim votes on critical amendments and finalize a
voting tally on the passage of bills (usally the last vote).
While a series of votes occurred on the DROP, Senator voted on
all critical House votes as follows:
·
Roll Call 16 on 3/8. Cloture
vote passed 23-12
·
Roll Call 17 on 3/8. Bedford
amendment defeated 19-16
·
Roll Call 18 on 3/8. Motion
to adopt passed 23-12
·
Roll Call 19 on 3/8. Motion
to read 3rd time and send to House passed 23-12
·
Roll Call 59 on 3/22. As to conference report,
cloture vote passed 21-13
·
Roll Call 60 on 3/22. As to conference report,
motion to adopt passed 21-13
·
Roll call 120 on 3/22. Adopted executive amendment 30-0.
Thank goodness, most bills
don't have so many contested votes. I suspect we'll see more in the
future, however, from AEA as DROP was fought hard by Paul Hubbert. I
bear the sole blame for this oversight since it was I who documented the votes
and wrote the report since our Legislative Chair was too busy with her
job at the time. I will ask our Legislative Chair (or anyone
else who may research votes for AFRW) in the future to observe
when the last vote on Alison is an Amendment (which I understand is rare)
and will report to the AFRW Board critical votes during the process and
the final vote which determines the passage of the bill will be the one
reported in our voting tally. Hopefully I will soon feel more familiar
with Alison and it won't take so long for research.
I thank Senator Holzclaw for his support of the DROP bill, for
bringing this to my attention, and for insisting that I research the issue
in regard to the Governor's Amendment to be fair to him. I am
pleased to correct the record and offer my sincere apologies to Senator
Holzclaw and his constituents. This research has taken a lot of time and
I regret that deadlines on other projects kept me from following through until
now.
I ask that club presidents forward this email to your members so
they, too, can understand the error on the tally.
Thanks so much!
Elois Zeanah, President
Alabama Federation of Republican Women