Yeah, that's what it was, the house committee, I believe, had been
scheduled to meet on Thursday. I remember now, because it was Thursday
night that I got the message that it had been postponed and it was
Friday morning that I called up Whichard and asked him what the hell had
happened, about 7:30. Or maybe he called me that night. It doesn't
matter.
At any rate, then the senate committee met on Friday and I believe that
it was voted out by an eight to seven favorable majority. But you see,
the house knew we were worse off in the senate than we were in the
Page 8 house, they knew that. The senate all year long,
last year and this year has been, as H. L. Mencken used to say, "a
Sahara." I mean that it has just been devoid of leadership, character,
you know, the whole smear. They have been perfectly awful. The
legislature hasn't been good, but the senate has been dreadful. Also, we
had worked on the senators, we had worked on those committee members
very hard to get a favorable vote. Because a bill that doesn't get a
favorable vote is hardly ever voted on favorably and they would have
used that for an out on ERA. We worked very hard on the committee. But,
we had not lobbied the senators, we had spent, I don't know, five or six
weeks or whatever the time period was, doing nothing but working on
house members. Nothing. I mean, I could pull out my . . . that's what I
had marked. We just went over and over them. I called people like Pat
Taylor to call Hightower. I mean we used everybody, I mean, we've been
doing it for years, we just haven't gotten credit for it. If I was to
pull out my phone bill, you'd see . . . my phone bill one month was
three hundred dollars. We raised money, fortunately, we raised money, so
I didn't have to pay for this one, although I've paid for plenty. I
imagine that I called at least six hundred dollars worth. And see, we
had, she's a Republican woman, and he was assigned to her, and she
reported back to here that Locke, no. See here, I marked on this, this
one is signed yes. See, we sent out things and over fifty
Page 9 percent of them were signed yes before they walked in the
door. We know who signed and then who chickened, which is a kind word
for it. At any rate, here they are, signed "yes", signed "yes", . . .