Tim Lang is the chair of Senate Ways & Means and most of us are familiar with how much power a committee chair has on “either side of the wall.” One of those powers is choosing who is heard and in what order. I wasn’t planning on being petty about it, but I’ll quickly point out that I signed in first and he called on some nuisance Hudson local first, then tried to get the infamous Brodie Deshaies (now a lobbyist), but he declined. Hoping I wasn’t paying attention, he tried the Bugs Bunny “that’s all folks,” and then changed his mind, which can be seen in this quick video.
However, the bigger complaint and reason for this article is to call attention to his use of power to “do favors” for a bad bill. I’ve been monitoring a very troublesome David Watters bill, SB275, which is a property tax exemption for child care facilities and a senate enemy camp flagship bill as noted in a February 5 tweet.
February 5 was also the day that SB 275 had its committee hearing. While my testimony is available in the video archives, I’ll just embed a link here to the committee hearing report, which has my input starting at the bottom of Page 2, which doesn’t include my comment that Small World was appraised at $11.3M by Vision Government Solutions last year.
Also on February 5 was the executive council meeting with the Dartmouth contract on their agenda. This was while they were still in violation of the Patient Bill of Rights. After speaking to Senate Ways & Means, I went upstairs to ask Meagan Rose if the vote had been taken because Wheeler’s email inbox was malfunctioning earlier, and my message on how to vote had kicked back. They were running late that day, and I was able to listen to Wheeler get the item tabled while sitting in the Corner Office reception area abutting the crowd of vulture lobbyists.
After reporting the Dartmouth news to Melissa Blasek, I went back downstairs to see if there was any executive session activity going on in Senate Ways & Means and caught the last 59 seconds before adjournment. After Tim banged the gavel, I approached Victoria Sullivan as she was packing up and Senator Murphy was walking out the members’ door. Victoria warmly greeted me and said she supported my opposition to SB 275 and so did Senator Murphy. Since Tim is the tie-breaking vote, I said thanks and asked about him. She said they (she and Murphy) would get him on board. The committee met on February 12, and I checked for SB 275 activity to no avail. Tim adjourned until today, giving the committee a three-week recess (nothing going on Wed. 2/19 or 2/26).
Tim opened the executive session today by saying there were only 3 bills left and they would be processing 2 of them. Guess which one was the odd one out! SB 275. Seeing that Tim had 3 WEEKS to think about what was said in the hearing, what was emailed, and anything Senators Murphy and Sullivan have said to him outside of committee, I am convinced that he’s got some kind of back door or inside baseball deal going on with Watters. As the meme says, “change my mind!” Less than 2 minutes before adjourning, Tim said the following:
“Last bill we have is SB 275, I’m going to hold that bill. It has some problems. I did talk to Senator Rosenwald again. Being the Senate, we have some other options. I don’t disagree with its premise, and with no amendment to it, the issue is that it would literally take every commercial child care center and make it tax-free, make it property tax excluded. So the bill has problems, so if anybody wants to look at it, work on it, that’s ok. If anybody wants to use it as a carrier vehicle and do a wipe and replace non-germane topic, I’m willing to entertain that discussion…”
As the chair, Tim had the power to move the bill ITL with the support of Murphy and Sullivan, but he chose NOT to. Instead, he decided to put it on life support, aiding and abetting the enemy camp. He has proven himself a Uniparty “fake Republican,” to use the 9/29/21 words of Kelley Potenza. Tim Lang is a traitor to residential property taxpayers and should be expelled from the GOP and censured.
