S. 103, the bill to legalize assisted suicide in Vermont, was killed yesterday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, with the help of the man who holds the chief leadership position in the Senate, President Pro Tem John Campbell.
Why is the group representing Vermont proponents of assisted suicide saying on its Facebook page, “We’re not done yet”?
What can we expect the proponents to do next? One option for them would be to attach the language of S. 103 to another bill. If they try to do that, however, it seems that they will run into opposition from the Senate leadership.
Today’s Rutland Herald has a piece from Vermont Press Bureau from which we quote below:
Sears pointed out there still could be a way for the legislation to proceed if a lawmaker successfully attached it to another bil
But Senate President Pro Tem John Campbell said that wouldn’t be appropriate.
“It would almost be as if we were bypassing the committee process, which is unacceptable,” said Campbell, who along with Sears opposes the bill.
So….what tactics are open to the proponents? Will they take up the final six weeks of the legislative session, during which we could all be working together to address the real needs of the state, by trying to advance this bill through the House, even though, as Campbell and Sears have said, it would not pass in the Senate? What a waste of time for nothing except some publicity. We hope John Campbell can convince the House Leadership that this would be an exercise in futility.
We also hope that Vermonters will tell their representatives in the House that playing this game would not advance their chances for re-election in November. For that matter, we hope they will say the same thing to their Senators. Contact information is available online at http://www.leg.state.vt.us/legdir/legdirmain.cfm. Don’t forget to thank Senators Dick Sears, John Campbell, Ann Cummings, and Alice Nitka. Though rejoicing, we cannot relax our guard.