Rep. Bedke defends anti-Occupy bill

State Rep. Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, sponsor HB 404, said, “I have been impressed by the eloquent defense of the vigil and the passionate nature of the testimony.” But he said lawmakers are charged with maintaining “minimum levels of health and safety” at state buildings. Without rules, he said, “the logical conclusion of what we would have is chaos.”

Bedke said the rights to free speech and assembly are “sacred to us,” and he said suggestions that lawmakers were “willing to trample on those” concerned him. “I was offended by that, that’s not what I’m about, that’s not what you’re about, I  know you,” he told the House State Affairs Committee.

He said, “In their words, it’s not an encampment, it’s a soapbox to make a point. I guess some of the points they made, they allege that you’re out of touch, that you’re not the 99 percent, their term. We are citizen legislators. We go home to families, we go home to jobs. We go home to all the problems that are described here, and my constituents are not bashful when it comes to telling me about all these problems. … To say that we’re somehow removed, that we’re somehow bought and paid for and not tuned in to all these issues, is offensive to me on nearly every level.”

Said Bedke, “This is not hard, this is not a big stretch. Who would’ve thought that we’d need to regulate camping on the capitol lawns?” He said, “It’s within the state’s prerogative, the Legislature’s prerogative, to regulate camping. It’s settlled law. … This is not about curtailing freedom of speech. All of the venues are still open that they had.”