Reverse the RTK Tax, a Call to Action

by Julie Smith

House Judiciary member Louise Andrus, who actively opposed HB1002 with various efforts, including addressing the whole House on 2/1/24, has sponsored HB114.  It’s the political antidote to the abomination against 91A that His Excellency signed on 6/14/24.  The committee hearing is at 1:30pm in the LOB next Wednesday, January 22.

Since I don’t know every reader’s personal situation, I will offer an assortment of ways you can support this bill and I hope you will do one or more of them.  Without further delay, here’s a list of them.

Speak at the hearing.  Follow the pro tips that former Rep Melissa Blasek offered when she was in office.  Though not a comprehensive list, I remember a few of them.  Set a goal for making your points within 3 minutes because that’s a time limit commonly imposed by committee chairs, especially when it’s a long day and/or lots of people sign up to speak.  Share personal stories, if applicable.  Focus on the bill itself rather than one or more “degrees of separation” topics from the bill.  If you stray too much into dissing HB 1002, getting gaveled by Judge Lynn is almost as guaranteed as death and taxes.

Email the committee what you have to say in support of HB 114.  Click here for contact info.  This is an action item doable up until the day of the executive session and can be done in addition to speaking at the hearing or the following 2 items.

Upload your testimony.  This option is only available up to the day of the hearing and if you happen to be a good writer or have fresh talking points that are original and unique, its advantage over the email option is that it gets archived and might serve as inspiration to others who have writer’s block.  You can view other people’s uploaded testimonies for this and other House bills here.

The last, easiest and minimum effort action item is registering your support in the portal, which is also only available up to the day of the hearing.  Do it right now, if you’re so inclined, and you can still consider speaking or emailing later.  First, click here.  Then populate your personal information and select January 22 on the calendar.  Then select Judiciary and then HB 114.  Select “member of the public” in the “I am” field and select “I support this bill.”  Before you click SUBMIT, you have an opportunity to either upload a testimony you’ve already written, or type into the field below that.  It’s unknown(to me) if there’s a maximum character limit, so the former is preferred to the latter unless you’re a person of few words.  And don’t forget to click on SUBMIT.  Clicking on SUBMIT will result in a green stripe acknowledgment that your input has been captured.  Anyone trying to double dip from the same IP address will instead get a message that they’ve already done so.

I will close by reminding everyone how aggressive Judge Lynn, who happens to be the chair, pushed for HB 1002 in his multiple trips to the mic in Reps Hall.  On top of that, his little darling quisling and HB 1002’s sponsor, Rep Kuttab, is a committee member, so 91A can use all the help it can get in convincing the rest of the committee to support HB 114.  Please do something, even if you’re just a keyboard warrior.

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