Save Marriage and Textbooks at the Same Time!

Even though the California Assembly narrowly failed to pass a same-sex marriage equality bill, it seems that the measure is not dead yet. The group of six gay and lesbian lawmakers in Sacramento is planning to revive the bill by getting it passed in the Senate (where the chances are reckoned to be better) and bringing it back to the Assembly. This will require a parliamentary maneuver known as "gut-and-amend", whereby an existing bill that was already passed by the Assembly is "amended" to delete the contents of the original bill and replaced with the same-sex marriage equality bill. I expect that this would require one of the six lawmakers to sacrifice one of their own bills for the gut-and-amend. I can see a great opportunity here to do two good turns at once: let's hope Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) offers to gut-and-amend her misguided bill to prohibit California schools from purchasing textbooks over 200 pages!