(“Excellent.”)
In spite of the passing of a Senate bill last month to lift New York ban of mixed martial arts, the state’s biggest douchebag most vocal opponent Bob Reilly says he’s pretty sure that an Assembly vote on the matter won’t happen until at least 2012.
The bill, which was approved by a 48-12 margin last month by the lower tier of government is expected to pass it’s next vote June 7, pushing it on to state Assembly voting. If it passes another vote after that, the sport could be legalized following a mandatory 90-day waiting period, however that’s a big if, considering it sounds like Reilly is planning on dragging out the process into next year.
Here’s what the old curmudgeon told The Business Review recently:
“It’s a dead issue for this session. There’s less than 10 days of session left, and I don’t think it’s sufficient time to vet this subject as needed.”
The current Assembly session ends June 20, which considering the issue was already brought to the table last year and all of the written materials from the senate presentations are readily available, shouldn’t take more than a few days, but Reilly apparently need more time to prepare his uneducated case against the sport.
It’s unclear whether or not the majority of Reilly’s fellow Democrat members of the Assembly (who outweigh the Republican side by a 99-51 margin) will back his anti-MMA platform.
The bill’s sponsor, Democrat Assemblyman Steve Englebright who chairs the committee on tourism, arts and sports development – the group that will be casting the initial sub-committee vote next week – says it could go either way.
“There is a healthy controversy. There are very concerned members of the majority who can’t support it this year, as they could not support it in years past. I imagine we’ll have similar blockage or stoppage,” Englebright says. “But, you never know. There are quite a few new faces in the chamber this year. I haven’t seen a sea [of] change, but I have seen subtle changes.”
Hopefully they’re subtle enough to beat Reilly’s personal vendetta against MMA.