Today's action on HB 2282 was cancelled.  

It appeared the bill could be tabled by Commerce Committee members at its 1:30 p.m. meeting.   However, House Leadership intervened, taking action to have the bill "blessed"* in order to keep it alive beyond the House deadline for committee action on Friday.  The committee meeting was cancelled.

We have heard that the Speaker asked Committee Chair Les Mason to get the proponents and opponents together to work something out.  It appears the Uncork lobby could see that the bill was in trouble and sought the intervention.

Committee members were as surprised as we were to hear this news.  

It is ironic that the bill might have been voted on Tuesday, but the committee extended the vote to Thursday in order to "honor the committee process" and allow all members to be there - and now, the process has been diverted.

The legislative process has many twists and turns, but it looks like this issue could reach a debate on the floor this session.  Even if the committee bill is set aside, we fully expect to see attempts to amend Uncork onto other bills in the full House.

Retailers and other opponents to HB 2282 have done a good job sharing their message with the House Commerce Committee, but we must turn our attention to the full House of Representatives and Senate.  As we unravel what this means for the committee bill, you should work with your Representative and Senator now, so they are informed.

Those legislators who were looking forward to moving on to more important issues will now have to deal with it all session.

While this development is frustrating to them and to you, know that KABR will continue to fight and to keep you informed.

*Blessing a bill means to pull it from a non-exempt committee and refer it to an exempt committee.  Exempt committees are exempt from deadlines, such as Friday's Deadline called Turnaround Day - the last day to consider non-exempt bills in house of origin.   A bill simply needs to touch one of the exempt committees in order to survive beyond the deadlines, and possibly into the next session.

Although HB 2282 has been referred to Appropriations today, we expect it to be referred back to House Commerce for further action.