That rule prompted Rep. Mark Mahon to get involved. Mahon, R-Jacksonville, sponsored the bill that was amended last year to favor Burnett. He said Friday he didn't understand the ramifications of the 2006 change because his original legislation was designed only to make it easier to establish a registry of possible fathers in cases of challenged adoptions.
"I just want to go back to where I was," he said, as lawmakers approved three words in a new bill to rescind last year's changes. "I hope that this sideshow doesn't undo all the good we're doing trying to improve adoption and make adoption better for children."
But Rep. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, suggested an amendment that would remove those three words from page 66 of the 77-page bill and keep the 2006 changes intact.
All day Friday, the lobbyists in this peculiar family drama worked intensely. Book gave each lawmaker a set of talking points decrying last year's changes. Stafford and Krog did the same for their clients, with a sheet addressing seven of Book's contentions with lines in red ink labeling each as "FALSE."
"It's an issue where you've got to get down to 60-, 80-, 90-second sound bites in an aggressive fashion and lock them into your position," Book said.
For the hundreds watching as House Bill 599 came up for debate, the end came in just a few seconds, with no mention of the frenzied lobbying or the family drama.
"There's a provision in this bill that interferes with a current case that's going on and is stuck in our courts," Garcia said as few lawmakers listened. "But unfortunately I don't have -- I know where the (House) body's at, so I'm going to respectfully have to withdraw this amendment at this time."
"Neither Book and that family nor me and this family ought to be here lobbying this issue," Krog said. "The Legislature is not equipped at any moment on the floor to look at this amendment and consider these kinds of broad policy cases while a case is pending in the Second (District Court of Appeal).
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