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Cue the Charlie Brown Music
May 23rd, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Christmas is here. And apparently the Fourth of July, too.

It’s a common occurrence this time of the session for bills that flamed out to return as amendments to related bills. Legislators call these “Christmas Trees,” because you can hang just about anything on them. Today, there were finally fireworks in the House — as in, an actual bill about fireworks. It became an amendment/ornament on SB 11, the homeland security bill we’ve been watching for the last few days. The amendment clarified that local jurisdictions had the ability to limit the use and sale of fireworks during drought conditions — or at least, that’s what most of the debate was about.

But, wait, homeland security, you say? Rep. Carl Isett, standing in for Rep. Phil King, the amendment’s author, explained: “If a county has a real threat of, let’s say, a burn situation” during a drought, then the use of fireworks becomes “a disaster issue.” This was appropriate for the bill because it affects the “abilities of first responders and counties to address … either natural or man-made disasters.”