To which we responded with with a letter and post chronicling the the history of HB137 and SB1992Many thanks to Abate of Florida for staying on top of our rights as motorcyclists. For more information on Abate of Florida:
aka the "wheelie bill" in which included the language increasing the fines for what was already a violation of law. We also document where the President/lobbyist of ABATE of Florida, James D. Reichenbach, supported these bills.
(Ed. Note: We previously printed a post reporting on James D.. Reichenbachs resignation from ABATE of Florida which included a letter allegedly written and signed by him. We have since obtained a letter by the ABATE of FLorida current Sgt. of Arms, "Mudder", stating that the resignation was not accepted leaving Mr. Reichenbach in the position he has resigned from on more than one occasion.)
I personally was present in a committee meeting wherein he stated "all Florida Bikers" support SB1992. A somewhat grandiose statement considering his organization represents less than 1% of Florida motorcyclists.
We have to wonder if this has been some sort of coordinated marketing/propaganda push on ABATE of Florida's part as similiar statements showed up around the same time on CyrilHuzeblog, which we also responded to and RumbleNews.com, "Your guide to the ride coast to coast".
And no doubt sites that have not yet been discovered.
If you click on the RumbleNews link you will find a blank page: They pulled their article immediately after Mike Greenwald of GoldIron hit them up at 8:10 this am with info from this site and Biker Rogue
And knowing Mike, I suspect he had a few choice words of his own to throw in. It is also reported that Rogue was on the phone with Rumble News first thing this am.
Also adding to the protests of erroneous reporting were Bruce Arnold of Burce and rc's Biker Forum and http://www.ldrlongdistancerider.com/
Frequent tipster to this site and moderator of Lord knows how many others, Tallahassee Gun Forum for sure and others, the Dragon, not only responded but brought up an interesting conundrum:
316.605 Licensing of vehicles.-- is still on the books? Which states:
Vehicle license plates shall be affixed and displayed in such a manner that the letters and numerals shall be read from left to right parallel to the ground. No vehicle license plate may be displayed in an inverted or reversed position or in such a manner that the letters and numbers and their proper sequence are not readily identifiable.
This was the law prior to SB1992 . Which leaves us wondering if the following:
From http://www.flsenate.gov/cgi-
sufficiently renders the old law unenforceable???ENROLLED 2009 Legislature CS for CS for SB 1100
Section 4. Subsection (3) of section 316.2085, Florida 173 Statutes, is amended to read: 174 316.2085 Riding on motorcycles or mopeds.— 175 (3) The license tag of a motorcycle or moped must be 176 permanently affixedhorizontallyto the vehiclegroundand may 177 not be adjusted or capable of being flipped up. No device for or 178 method of concealing or obscuring the legibility of the license 179 tag of a motorcycle shall be installed or used.
Getting back to the communications from ABATE of Florida and/or its president/lobbyist however, it is interesting to note that on the ABATE of Florida Website under From the Desk o f the President Doc writes:
By this time everyone should have heard that the Governor has signed the two bills that Abate of Florida, Inc. supported during this past session. Senate bill 1100 was the Highway Safety bill that Representative Greg Evers placed Abate’s amendment on that deleted the $1000 fine for the vertical license plate.
Yet on the ABATE OF FLORIDA legislative page it states (Emphasis ours):
The Governor has signed the following two Bills that ABATE of Florida, Inc. was supporting into law. CS/CS/SB 1100 Department of Highway Safety & Motor Vehicles [CPSC]: The Bill that removes the "horizontal" wording of the motorcycle tag was signed by Officers and presented to Governor on 06/08/09 .IN our mind their is a difference between calling something "ABATES amendment" and saying ABATE supported it.
Now normally this might just be a question of semantics were it not for the fact that Representative Lopez-Cantera, the architect of HB137 aka "The wheelie Bill" who stated in a letter that Doc was working with him on HB137, which Doc refuted in a letter (see here), posted on this site his promise to rectify the vertical tag problem (see here). Note however his promise had to do with the amount of fine and not legalizing vertical tags.
But as difficult as it has been for others in ABATE of Florida to find out where the ABATE of Florida money goes to it is apparently more difficult to find out just exactly what it is that The ABATE of Florida President/lobbyist does or does not do in the capital as he has clearly stated in a letter to one ABATE member dated June 10, 09 (again emphasis ours):
From: abatefl@att.netTransparency is obviously not a word in The ABATE of Florida's President/lobbyist vocabulary. Though based on the statement above, "playing one side against the other" is obviously a tactic the ABATE President/Lobbyist is well versed in. In our mind this further impinges on the integrity and credibility of James D. Richenbach and by extension ABATE of Florida, if not at the very least muddies the water to the extent that the truth becomes extremely difficult to know.
To:
Subject: RE: Follow Up
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:47:41 +0000
.........................You want to continue to hurt this corporation then keep it up and last thing if you think I'm going to tell you every person I talk to then you are out of your mind no lobbyist will tell conversations he's had with both sides of the aisle you have no idea how it works in the Capitol nor do your sources............................
This is especially evident when "Biker" publications, the people you are supposed to represent, reportedly start pulling your releases once someone presents them with the "truth".
Most publications now days do not expend a lot of resources on investigative journalism. So once burned many of them may be reluctant to publish future releases even if they may be true.
In this manner, James D. Reichenbach has irreparably harmed ABATE of Florida's reputation to the extent that even were the membership to wake up from their kool-aid induced stupor and fire their leader, as they are within their rights to do as per by-laws, it could very possibly be to late. The damage has been done. The organization has sacrificed good members, good chapters, A good name (A Brotherhood Against Totalitarian Enactments) and a good original mission to feed the likes of a man who when he speaks in the legislature rarely even uses the word ABATE, preferring instead to use words such as "I" and "mine" as if the organizations purpose is to serve him.
Which would be o.k. I guess if that's what the membership wants. But when they start receiving tax payer dollars, yours and mine, start blaming other bikers for their own failures, and try to claim the state as "their " territory then they truly have lost sight of the cause preferring instead to devote themselves to "cliquish self interest".
For more on ABATE of Florida and it's President/Lobbyist you can search the following links:
ABATE of FLorida
ABATE of FLorida President
ABATE of FLorida lobbyist
James d. Reichenbach
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