Reply #36: Okay BB, so you do NOT have personal experience..

[Melissa G]

This is important point. I do have personal experience..and those of us who DO have personal experience and have seen the damage done in committees are Justifiably Leery.
Every hearing that i have been to in Texas on this and related topics has been a Sham. That would be over a period of months, day and day out, during 3 sessions of re- redistricting and two or three hearings on the voting machines...
Back in the 80's i did this on numerous health care topics for about three legislative periods over 6 years, when the Dems were in control... At that time, there was various levels of success depending on what was wanted by the weightier members of that particular committee.

MY point is that what you tell legislators what you want them to do, ie: pass HR 550 "as written", it is likely to have ABSOLUTELY NO WEIGHT on their decision.

Once a bill gets to them on a topic they can rewrite or substitute or whatever they want as long as they are in control of the process. Public hearing input is often just 'window dressing', with absolutely NO WEIGHT on the bill outcome. It can just be carte blanche to make things worse IF they oppose what you want and they are in control of the process. This is My Experience of a state legislative process on this issue.

As you might remember I hang with a lot of political types, some of which are lobbyists..They tell me it is even Worse at the Federal level.