Well, as we'd been advised H. 410 passed the House Banking Committee meeting this morning. The way politics has to work sometimes, the Carolinas' Credit Union League dropped in a changed bill with new wording - called a "proposed committee substitute" (PCS) - at the last moment around 9 pm last night. CCUL and CEO Schline have moved from "Magic tricks" to "Snake Oil" and the House Banking Committee swallowed it...but don't be too hard on them. I'll give you a little clearer picture of what's going on tomorrow. In politics, as in life, sometimes you just got to do what you got to do to survive - and some of them did. More later!
There was a little bit of discussion amongst the Committee members; and, despite no one having had a chance to read and study that new "PCS", the bill passed, on a decidedly split voice vote. So, next stop is the Rules Committee and then the bill would go to the House floor for a vote. After that, on to the N.C. Senate. It's a process, be patient. Will follow up with more details later.
The one regret today was that a pretty hardy band of SECU advocates showed up to comment before the Committee on H.410. They had prepared well, with solid thoughtful statements on why H. 410 was "bad news" for credit unions and all of North Carolina. But we got surprised again when the length of comments was limited to 1 minute!!- when usually 2-5 minutes is the norm. So, the messages often sounded fragmented, with disconnects, and several had to stop mid-sentence. Kinda horrible after all that prep, everyone felt discouraged. But who said life is fair?!
Good news is the Banking Committee had never had that many people sign up before! That made a statement all by itself...far beyond any impossible one minute limitation on speaking. Got shut down but didn't get shut out!. Have permission to publish a few on the blog... some will make you cry, some will make you mad, some will make you laugh.
Some good signs that truth will win out on this bill.... the final Yea/Nay vote is still @ 8 weeks away!
S-S-S-Surprise! S-S-S-Surprise! S-S-S-Snakes on a plane!
