HB 1205: “Do you know what ‘beat-down’ means?”

I never got around to doing a legislative preview of HB 1205, the Water Additive Accountability Act proposed by former hate group chairman Loy Mauch (R-Crazydelphia), possibly at the behest of nuttier-than-squirrel-turds Jeannie Burlsworth and Secure Arkansas. The bill was aimed to prevent the addition of flouride as well as “lithium … to alter human mood imbalances and statin drugs to affect human cholesterol” to the water supply. You know, the typical Secure Arkansas insanity disguised as the “protection of personal property rights and civil liberties of all Arkansans.”

This bill went to the House Public Health Committee yesterday, and, rather than simply vote the bill down as unnecessary and silly, Rep. Tracy Pennartz (D-65) decided to take Rep. Mauch to task for the section of the bill labeled “Findings.” That section stated that “The General Assembly finds” a number of things, including an increase in “public policy discussions of the prospects of adding” the above-mentioned substances to the water and that “chemical products are now more frequently sourced from China, Japan, Russia, and Mexico with no state requirement for batch testing for content and impurities.” Rep. Pennartz asked the correct and logical question: if the General Assembly “finds” these things, then where is the written documentation of such findings?

Thanks to the wonder that is the worldwide web, this tete-a-tete was captured on video, so you can watch Rep. Mauch’s response. (Yes, I realize that this has been posted elsewhere, but it was too good to pass up posting here as well.)

Seriously, where does this exchange rank on a scale of 1 to fantastic?

Pennartz: “Do you understand what the term ‘findings’ means?”
Mauch: “Yes, ma’am.”
P: “OK, line 31: ‘The General Assembly,’ do you understand what that means?”
M:”Yes.”

In the end, the committee (SPOILER ALERT) did not approve Rep. Mauch’s bill. Maybe a committee will be more friendly if and when Rep. Mauch ever gets around to filing a bill to establish John Wilkes Booth’s birthday as a holiday or to secede from the union.