B-Ho, you really are going to have to cut this amateur crap. Your \"Republican\" bill was a Democratic bill in the House (prime sponsor Les Winningham). It\'s pretty sophomoric to pull that \"bipartisan\" jazz. A lie isn\'t spin. A lie is just a lie.

Secondly, don\'t you like to claim that Republicans \"control\" the State Senate? If that\'s the case, why couldn\'t the Republican chair of the Education Cmmt. get her bill passed?

So, Democrats are for both bills, which means they\'re for giving vets $3,000, I guess. While Republicans can\'t get a bill passed in a chamber they reportedly control, which means veterans would get jack from them.

Bzzzt. Wrong, but nice try. Yes the bill had a Dem sponsor in the House, but it also had 62 co-sponsors, many of whom were Republicans.

And the reason the Senate Bill didn't move further is that very close to the end of the session the House Dems amended the House bill to lower the GPA threshold for HOPE scholarships from 3.0 to 2.75, a move that would cost the state more money than the lottery was bringin in in revenue. A budget-buster, in other words.

The Senate Republicans couldn't go along with such fiscal madness, and there wasn't time for fixing it.

Did the Dems amend it to 2.75 because they wanted to over-spend the lottery revenues? Or because they wanted a "poison pill" to kill the legislation while being able to say they were for it?

Either way, they were being irresponsible.