Hello everyone,
 
Today I'm the bearer of bad news.  The crossover date has come and
gone and the Judiciary Committee didn't vote on our bill.  For the bill
to pass, the Judiciary Committee would have had to present a favorable
vote to the House, then the House would vote on the bill.  This needed
to happen before the crossover when House bills are sent to the Senate
and vice versa.  We presented our best efforts this year, and are
tremendously disappointed that the committee didn't feel compelled to
vote.  In an ideal world, they would have time to vote on all bills that
are presented before them, but it just doesn't happen that way.  A 'no
vote' is better than an 'unfavorable' vote, but not by much since it
still means that our bill is dead for this year.
 
We have started discussions with Delegate Cluster for the strategy for
next year.  He is very much on board and ACTIVE in wanting to get this
important legislation passed.  There will be more updates as we have
progress on this front.  In the meantime, we will continue to collect
petition signatures online and at locations around Maryland.  If you
would like to help in this effort, please let me know and I'll get you
the information you need.  We can make this happen!
 
Ingrid Rhinehart
Secretary
Maryland Ferret Protection and Welfare Society
www.mdferretpaws.org
Sign the Petition!!  www.mdferretpaws.org/legislation/petition.html
Announcements - www.mdferretpaws.org/cgi/mboard/discus.cgi
[Posted in FML issue 4470]