It’s never over until sine die – the Tea-Publican war on women returns

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Bad bills are never really dead until sine die. Political chicanery through back room deals and "strike everything" amendments allows bad bills that are dead to return to life. That is what happened today.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports Senate OKs bill to allow employers to deny contraception coverage; but deal in works | Arizona Capitol Times:

Persuaded by a promise to substantially narrow the legislation, the Senate today passed a measure to allow employers with religious objections to not pay for their workers’ contraception coverage.

Supporters said it would be amended to apply only to church-affiliated entities.

A copy of the proposed change defines a “religiously affiliated employer” to include the groups already covered by current laws, which are churches, and entities whose incorporation papers “clearly state that it is a religiously motivated organization and whose beliefs are central to the organization’s operating principles.”

The plan is to tweak the bill in a conference committee, where a select group of legislators will meet to approve the bill’s final language.

There's just one problem with that statement. A conference committee is for resolving differences between bills that have passed each chamber. HB 2625 was brought as a "strike everything" amendment in the Senate after the "baby Blunt" bill failed to get even a committee hearing in the House. The House has never voted on this bill. So a conference committee?

This is the Tea-Publican leadership preparing to ram through a bill that the Center for Arizona Policy aka the Christian Taliban wants, along with other anti-contraception organizations including the Catholic Church.

Senators who switched their votes to “yes” included Sen. Rich Crandall of Mesa, Sen. John Nelson of Litchfield Park, and Senate President Steve Pierce.

The final vote was 17-13 for the promise of a bill yet to be written. The Senate will have to vote on this bill again in the same language to be considered by the House for the first time — likely under the duress of the rush to sine die next week, always a recipe for bad bills sneaking through in the dead of night.