(“Mr. Reilly, how long will it take for you to produce these documents? It’s been five days already.”)
The bill to regulate MMA in New York State, A04146A, was passed by a margin of 16-3 by a Tourism, Parks, Arts and Sports Development committee vote today and will be passed along for voting by various other departments before a final decision on the matter is made by State Assembly.
Unfortunately for MMA fans in the Empire state, the bill will likely not be pushed through in time for a vote before the current session ends in seven days, meaning it will be back to the drawing board next session.
Before it can be voted on by the Assembly, A04146A it will have to Codes Committee so liability and legal issues can be addressed before being passed onto the Ways and Means Committee,who will look at the dollars and cents of sanctioning the sport and if passed, only then will it be greenlit for the the Rules Committee to decide if the bill should see the light of day in the Assembly voting chamber.
If vocal MMA cock-blocker Bob Reilly gets his way, the bill will once again stall in the Assembly and be sent back to Senate for consideration in the fall. Similar bills have suffered the same fate as the one Reilly hopes will quash A04146A — a lack of time and the precedence of more pressing matters before Assembly members leave for their summer break.
Although most of those MMA supporters who are more versed on the inner workings of State government than we are are all but convinced that the bill will not make it to a final vote, according to The Fight Lawyer, Justin Klein, there is an off chance that it could take a shortcut to the Assembly floor.
“Worth noting that there are a significant number of assembly members pushing the Assembly Speaker to let the bill go straight to the floor for an up or down vote after passage out of the Tourism Committee,” Klein wrote in a blog post today. “Time will tell.”