Hello everyone,
 
Today AB 363 passed the Assembly floor, a milestone for this bill, by a
whopping 59-7 vote with 14 abstentions or absentees.  I say absentees
because there may be two or three memebers that did not get the chance to
vote on the bill and will add on later today or tonight.  Jan Goldsmith did
an excellent job of presenting this bill in all of our committees and on the
floor he was forceful and articulate.  He presented this issue as a matter
of personal freedom and showed the ferret in the context of domesticated pet
ownership to be a safer pet to people and the environment.
 
A word of caution:
FERRETS ARE STILL BANNED IN CALIFORNIA.  Before our bill becomes law it must
pass two committees in the Senate and be signed by the Governor (I believe
it may also become law without his signature but I'm not sure-- in any case,
it cannot be vetoed).  So, if you own ferrets, do not take them out in
public please.
 
During the floor vote, though, something happened that put a slight scare
into all of us but turned out to be pretty funny in the end.  When AB 363
came up there was some discussion in favor and against and then the rolls
opened for the vote.  For those of you who haven't seen this on TV, the
place to watch is a large black board with the members' names and a green
(yes) or red (no) dot next to it.  As the members vote, these buttons light
up red or green, yes or no.  At the top of the board you can see the tallies
as the votes come in 26 in red means 26 noes and 31 greens means 31 yesses.
 
As our bill votes came in something really wierd happened.  The yesses
(green lights) seemed to come up really slowly 3-5-7-9 instead of the
8-15-25 kind of thing that we'd seen on the dozens of votes ahead of us, and
the noes shot up for a second to 25-26, something like that.  I looked at my
friends in the gallery, Margaret, Shelly, Lili, and Susan and thought, this
bill is going to die!  Suddenly I saw the yesses shoot up to
18-26-40-53-ending at 59.  What the heck?  Come to find out later that Jan's
buddies on the floor had played a little joke on him!  Needless to say the
tense Gallery visitors erupted with aplause.  There was significant applause
from the floor as well, Assemblymembers are going to finally get some relief
from the mail and phone calls :).
 
Jan asked us to come down on to the floor after the vote and we were able to
thank some of the members and speak to some of the press.  We then took
ferret fact sheets to our Senate representatives offices.  The staff at my
State Senator's office, Senator Sher, was visited first by Shelly, Margaret,
Lili and Susan and I was told that they would support if the staff received
one ferret calendar each (four).  Not a problem!
 
Everyone who worked so hard to see this bill pass please pat yourselves on
the back and say, "Job well done." We took on two major state agencies,
three major private state organizations and two state chapters of large
national associations and we won because we did our footwork and our
letter-writing and our phone-calling and because the facts are on our side.
Please call or write your own Assemblymember and pass along a big thank you
for their support.
 
Now get ready to work twice as hard in the Senate.  I'm going to give
everyone a reality check here.  We've had years to educated the Assembly and
have a very committed author in Jan Goldsmith.  Typically bills do better in
their houses of origin where their author resides.  Also typical, and
something that our lobbyist said to me last year, is that bills go to the
Senate to die.  THIS BILL CANNOT DIE!  AND YOU ARE THE KEY!
 
Please find out immediately the name and address of your State Senator and
write him/her asking for a district meeting about AB 363.  District meetings
with the Senators are critical for the passage of this bill so call me if
you want to organize or participate in one of these meetings.
 
We'll have new WANTED posters available soon that ask folks to write to
their State Senator and to the Governor.  We'll need to get those up and
make new contacts and spread the word.  All of you should call your papers
or write letters to the editor letting them know that a good thing has
happened in California and that it should be passed in the Senate.  Let's
all work hard to see that ferrets are legalized this year!
 
Congratulations everyone on a job well done!
 
P.S.  We still don't know how the Sierra Club or Audubon Society will come
out in the end.  I think we need to keep up the letters and phone calls
especially to the Sierra Club.  I was advised that the committee was split
against revising their position on our bill but that there might be room for
some change.  This is extremely disappointing and speaks volumes about the
wisdom of the direction of committees!  Please help spread the word about
the Sierra Club's anti AB 363 position.
 
Jeanne Carley
Californians for Ferret Legalization
410 Mountain Home Road  Woodside, CA  94062
(415) 851-3750   <[log in to unmask]>
http://www.ccnet.com/~beisners/gsfs/lobby.html
CALIFORNIANS, YOU CAN FIND OUT YOUR ASSEMBLYMEMBER AND STATE SENATOR BY
VISITING THIS SITE!! IT'S TIME TO CALL AND WRITE YOUR ASSEMBLYMEMBER--THE
FLOOR VOTE WILL HAPPEN SOON!
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
[Posted in FML issue 1958]