The bill took some big strides on Monday.

First, it made it out of the House Judiciary Committee on vote of 10 to 1 in favor. I testified first, followed by a long list of witnesses ranging from activists to a former inmate who gave birth shackled to legal experts to an OB/GYN and Laraine, the nurse-midwife.

One of the lawmakers really didn’t understand what was at stake and kept asking how we planned to protect the guards from these dangerous women if they were unshackled. Clearly, this man has never had a baby.

Another lawmaker called current policy in the state “barbaric.”

Still another thanked the representative who is sponsoring the bill in the House for bringing the issue forward. He said he felt it was really important and thanked her for doing it. And guess what? She thanked me and credited my research and my persistence for the fact that they were about to vote on the bill. That made me feel wonderful, and I’m sure I was red as a tomato.

Then they voted, as I said, 10 to 1 to pass the bill.

I was at my desk at the paper when I heard from Pamela Clifton, who was still at the Capitol, that the bill had already been presented for second reading on the House floor and had passed. So that hurdle was jumped quite easily — and without any nail-biting on my part.

UPDATE — The bill passed the House on third reading this morning 62 in favor, 2 abstentions and 1 no vote. Talk about bipartisan support! The representative who voted against it was the same one who grilled me yesterday and who voted against it in committee.

Senate re-adoption — Tuesday, 2:30 PM. The Senate voted with no fuss and no objections to re-adopt the House version of the bill just moments ago. Woohoo!

Only ONE hurdle remains:

Governor’s desk — He’d be an idiot to veto it, particularly given the high level of bipartisan support the bill has earned. Once he signs it, Colorado will have a new law and be the eighth state in the United States to ban the shackling of pregnant inmates in labor.

Here’s what the bill will change:

No inmate, except for the worst of the worst, can be shackled during labor and delivery. So they’ll be able to use the hot tub and make use of other comforts that other women use.

No belly belts or ankle shackles on pregnant women ever.

If pregnant women are shackled, it must be using the least restrictive restraint necessary to ensure public safety.

A medical person will be present when an inmate is strip searched on return from prison after having a baby.

There will be a basic, uniform standard for all jurisdictions — state, county, city, juvenile, adult.

So we really are in the home stretch here, and I’m so glad it’s gone well. I feel good about what we’ve accomplished and the role I’ve been able to play in that. I hope to join with some other women I met through this process to put together a database of resources for people in other states who want to ban shackling.

What does this have to do with my life as a romance novelist? That’s an easy question to answer.



Unlawful Contact was my way of working through all the terrible things I’d seen and heard about the treatment of female offenders in prison and jail. The sadness I felt about those things made their way into the story. I put a fantasy ending on that story, in which Reece passes a bill addressing a host of wrongs, shackling during labor among them. But it was just a fantasy.

Now that HEA will be more reality than fantasy. And all the Megans out there — the women like her here in Colorado — will have one less indignity to face as they try to put their lives together again.

My part in this is more or less over, so I won’t be driving to Denver again till the bill is signed. I hope to attend the bill signing ceremony and perhaps take my nephew with me so that he can see what that’s like.

My older son, Alec, graduates from Colorado State University this weekend with a double degree in anthropology and history, so that will keep me busy from Friday on. I am super proud of him. He has worked his way through college, which has meant working almost full time while holding down a full course load. That’s very hard work, and I’m so happy he’s finally come to the end. So is he! (That’s a major understatement!)

There probably won’t be much time for writing. So I’ll be catching up with Natalie and Zach as I am able.

The anti-shackling bill, which some of you are calling Megan’s Law in honor of Megan Rawlings from Unlawful Contact, goes to the floor of the Colorado Senate for debate today. I’m pretty certain it will pass second reading today and third reading tomorrow.

Here’s the only hitch: The bill has drawn the attention of people on both sides of the abortion debate, both the pros and the antis, so I expect a bit of a tussle in terms of the bill’s language, which is neutral.

I’ve tried hard to shelter the bill from this issue, because this is not what it’s about. But when people feel they have a chance to beat their drum, that’s apparently what they do. I feel like I’ve said a hundred times: “This bill is not about abortion.” And I’ve said to people on both sides. But they’re all too busy trying to score points for their side to listen.

Hopefully, this little tussle won’t hold the bill back. It did delay the completion of the draft of the bill because there was bickering over language. Drove me nuts! I kept having to say, ”This bill is about unchaining women who are in labor.” Fortunately, the senator carrying the bill totally gets that.

UPDATE: The bill passed second reading on a unanimous voice vote after about 15 minutes of robust debate centered, unfortunately, around the abortion debate. This bill has nothing to do with abortion, of course. Fortunately, everyone seems to realize that at some level.

Tomorrow it goes back to the Senate for a final vote. I expect it to pass with strong bipartisan support. Then it's on to the House, where it will be pushed through quickly before the session ends.

And then change will have happened!

And all the women who end up in prison pregnant from now on will face a different set of circumstances than fictional Megan and all the real, live women she represents, women I've met and interviewed.

I cannot tell you how happy that makes me!

I watched the debate live via the Internet (I'm supposed to be working), and it was mightily strange to hear my name mentioned four times during the floor debate. Whoa! I think my face turned red.

Today’s discussion question: What have you all been reading? Any good books lately?

Thank you, Ronlyn, for keeping people up to date!

And thank you, everyone, for your vibes, prayers and good wishes!

Late last night I learned that the shackling bill was going to face a big hurdle today. The Department of Corrections (DOC), which runs the prisons, has said they're not taking a position on the bill. And that's true — sort of...

As one of the senators said, “You say you're not against the bill, but we can look at your comments and see how much you think this is going to cost and guess the truth.”

Instead of coming out and saying they’re against the bill, the deputy director came before the Senate Judiciary Committee today to share her concerns about the bill. Also, the DOC gave an analysis to the state of how much it was going to cost them if this bill passes, and the number they gave was HIGH. Those two things might well have been a big problem, and I spent last night and this morning doing last-minute research about the fiscal notes that other states included with their bills so that I would have a way of countering what they might say.

I was pretty stressed out about it — OMG! — and during her testimony, I kept wondering if this was going to be the end of the bill.

After she spoke, the senator sponsoring the bill asked me to testify again. And although I was only supposed to offer new information, I started by recapping what they'd heard last week. I didn’t want DOC's testimony to outweigh the rest of it.

Okay, so that’s cheating. Sue me.

Then I talked about how in Pennsylvania, they found they needed to have the same number of guards whether the inmate was shackled or not. I told about an incident (which I learned about this morning from the Penn. senator's legislative aide) where a guard left a shackled inmate to go do whatever (drink, bathroom, shag a nurse... whatever). And while he was gone the inmate became critical. When he returned to her hospital room, the doctor was on the bed trying to cut the shackles off with a hacksaw.

OMG!

I told them that whether the bill passes or not, DOC would have to look at increasing its staff because without having more than one guard, we are leaving inmates in danger if we walk off when they're shackled.

I tried to throw in every encouraging word I could. I told them that the Senate in Pennsylvania had passed its bill unanimously and that I was sure we could do the same. I had no sense of what they thought of what I was saying. Everyone always looks painfully serious in these hearings.

I went and sat down. Beside me was an inmate whose story I reported on a long time ago. (Unlawful Contact is dedicated to her stillborn baby — the result of neglect from the guards). She reached over without saying a thing and took my hand and gave it a squeeze.

And then they voted and passed it unanimously — and when I looked beside me, she had tears in her eyes. Of course, since I'm a crybaby, I got tears in my eyes, too. *sniff*

Now the bill heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which may be the biggest hurdle, because they have to find money for it in a state with no money. I told them they should tell DOC to hold a bake sale. (Aren’t I helpful?)

So keep your fingers crossed, and keep the prayers coming.

We’re in the midst of our biggest edition of the year right now, so I’ve got work to last me through midnight and beyond, probably. But I wanted to hop in and update everyone because I knew you were pulling for the bill today.

THANK YOU!

Oh, yes — students from a journalism class I spoke to two weeks ago were there. And there was a photographer as well who shot photos of me (but no one else — weird), so perhaps there's going to be media coverage of this outside my paper. For the sake of the bill, I hope so.

I hope everyone is doing well. It was a crazy-busy week here on Colorado’s Front Range. We’re heading toward the biggest special edition of the year at the paper, and that requires a lot of preparation. On top of that, of course, there’s the anti-shackling bill.

But before I update you on all of that, I wanted to talk about music again. This week, I thought I’d share the songs I typically listen to when I’m gearing up to write love scenes, and also my preliminary playlist for Zach and Natalie.

Some of the songs on Zach and Natalie’s list are completely new to me — “Beautiful” by 10 Years; “Santa Monica” by Theory of a Deadman; “Call Me” by Shinedown; “Bother” by Stone Sour; “Break Me Shake Me” by Savage Garden, which one of you suggested.

Of those, “Call Me” resonates for Zach at the moment — at least the first several lines — because he’s certain he’s going to be dead in the next couple of days. I like “Santa Monica,” too, though it has no application to the story itself. Again, a lot of the music I listen to is just to help set the mood.

“Champion in Me” by 3 Doors Down is a great song for a Navy SEAL, as is “Shine.” And “Landing in London” is just one of my favorites songs over the course of the past two years.

As for the sexy love songs, they range from Madaonna’s “Justify My Love” to Brian Adams’ “Everything I do (I Do It For You),” which together have more plays than any other sexy-ish, romantic song. If I find a song that hits the mood of the story, I’ll play it over and over for hours.

Also on that list: “Kiss from a Rose,” by Seal; “Chasing Cars,” by Snow Patrol; “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” by Savage Garden; “Unchained Melody” by U2; “Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye; “Feelin’ Love,” by Paula Cole; “Nights are Forever Without You,” by England Dan and John Ford Coley; “Freak Me,” by Silk; “Could I Have This Kiss Forever,” by Enrique Iglesias; and “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel, as well as many others.

I have another list that’s just romantic songs, and one that’s more down and dirty sexy songs, like “Closer,” because sex isn’t always about romance. Sometimes it’s about sweat and pheromones and coming hard and fast.

I am always, always open to new music. Suggestions are welcome! When I get a chance, I'll publish these as iMixes on iTunes so you can browse through them that way.



Now for an update on Senate Bill 193:

Wednesday, as you probably know, was its first hearing. That gave us a taste of who might be opposing the bill and why. No one showed up to oppose the bill at all. Because politics are so partisan these days, I expected the senators who weren’t in Sen. Hudak’s party to oppose it just for fun, as both sides do. However, though they asked the most questions, the questions they asked were thoughtful — a good thing because they’re all male.

One of them seemed not to believe that any women in Colorado was ever shackled. He asked, “Do we even know that this happens in the state?” sounding very doubtful. Ironically, he’s from the district where our state prison department is headquartered, and being on the Senate Judiciary Committee, he’s supposed to be an expert. I got a silent laugh out of that.

I was, indeed, nervous, but not as much as I expected to be. As soon as the senators started asking questions that other witnesses couldn’t answer, I felt like the know-it-all kid in the classroom — the proverbial Harmione Granger who just has to raise her hand and answer. Of course, in legislative committee hearings, you don’t raise your hand; you wait your turn. And that was hard!

I thought I did a decent job of testifying. I had to stop a couple of times to make sure my mouth was keeping up with my brain. I made the male senators grimace when I talked about the guards strip-searching women with stitches. So that was fun.

My mother went to see what it was all about and ended up passing a note to one of the lobbyists who handed it to the senator carrying the bill explaining that the immediate postpartum recovery period is about 42 hours for a vaginal birth and 72 for a c-section. She used to work as a labor and delivery nurse, so she was able to make her contribution, too.

The midwives who work with incarcerated moms-to-be sent a representative to speak on their behalf, and when I saw her my jaw dropped. She was the certified nurse midwife who caught Benjy when he was born. I said, “You were my midwife when my second son was born!” And she said, “I thought you looked familiar.” That was wild!

As people were testifying on behalf of the bill one by one, I had a surreal moment where I realized none of them would be there if not for me. That felt good — and very strange. And then I almost got choked up because here was a room full of people talking about the humanity and the needs of women in prison. How often does that happen? Rarely.

The committee couldn’t vote because the bill has moved so fast that we don’t yet have a fiscal note — an analysis of how much the bill will cost the state. Typically in Colorado if a bill has a fiscal note, it’s dead. However, the fiscal note in this case is attached to a provision of the bill that I created to guarantee public accountability by requiring a report to be filed any time a woman is shackled. Why did they do it? For how long? What kind of shackles did they use? It’s an attempt to make sure they’re following the law. And it guarantees nosy reporters access to a font of public records.

Remember how the I-Team heroines are always filing open-records requests? That’s what investigative reporters do. So I’m trying to set it up so that there will be public records to request.

However, I won’t kill my own bill to accomplish that. So if the fiscal note means death, then we’ll cut that provision.

I got a firm sense that if this bill were about nothing other than not shackling women during labor and birth, it would sail through. So that left me feeling very optimistic. If we pass through Senate Judiciary and the appropriations committee (for the fiscal note), then the bill will be off to the Senate for debate. If it clears the Senate after three readings, then we start over in the House. I do have a House sponsor now.

Afterward the hearing, I spoke with one of the witnesses. She’s a legal expert on birth-related issues. She asked if I’d like to participate in setting up an online database so that other women in other states can download the info and use it to get shackling banned in their states. And, of course, I would love to do that. We’ll wait till this bill passes. I’ll do some writing for that project, and hopefully women across the country will get ready for next year’s legislative session and change the lives of women in prison.

We’ll take the bill up again next Wednesday for a vote.

In the meantime, I’ve got a few more historical novel sketches to prep for my agent, as well as Chapter 2 of Zach and Natalie’s story to write. I want to get through Chapter 3 this weekend. I need to make some writing goals and see what kind of ridiculous schedule I need to keep to finish the book by August, which is my plan.

I won’t be online much, because I really, really don’t want you all to have to wait forever for this book.

Have a great weekend!

Didn’t Reece and Kara get hot and heavy in an elevator at the State Capitol? Or did they just talk about it? I can’t remember.

So sorry to be MIA. It’s been a crazy week.

It started Monday with word that a friend of mine had been found dead in his home. I turns out he killed himself. So that’s been hard to deal with.

I got the lawyerized version of the anti-shackling bill I’m spearheaded back to review, and one page of words had been turned into five. I kid you not. So I had to read through that and make sure that nothing substantive had changed. And it hasn’t.

Then, of course, there was a paper to put out. I wrote a tribute to my friend, who was a public figure in our town.

Today, I’m the guest speaker at a journalism class on the Metro State College campus, then I’m heading a few blocks up Colfax to the State Capitol for one last go-through on the bill language before it is officially introduced into the State Senate. It will have to clear at least one Senate committee before going to the Senate floor for debate. A lot of people have signed on to support it — everyone from Planned Parenthood to a statewide lobby organization of county sheriffs. The sheriffs are key because they run the county jails, and they will not be opposing the bill. In fact, their past president is going to testify in favor of it. So that’s going well.

Tomorrow is the Rockies home opener vs. the Padres. Go Rox! I’ll be going to that tomorrow with my older son, Alec, so that will give me some desperately needed time to relax.

On the writing front, I finished my proposal for Natalie’s book, which is called Breaking Point at the moment. Survival Instinct and Body Heat are still in the running. What I don’t like about the first two is their lack of sexual innuendo... Maybe something brilliant will come to me.

I hope you all have a great day. And I’m sure no one minded MTM lasting a few extra days, though that wasn’t my intent. I got thrown for a loop Monday when I heard about my friend and have just been crazy-busy since then.

Sorry to have vanished. I typically like to reply to each and every one of you, but this week has been a madhouse. I might still get a chance to go back to my previous post and reply. If not, please know that I’ve read your posts and really appreciate them.

Also, please know that if you’ve sent me e-mail, I'm behind on that, too.

First the news: I have a senator willing to carry the bill about the shackling of inmates in labor. I’m meeting with her on Tuesday afternoon to help write it. Now, that’s something I've never done before. Draft a bill. OK, sure.

“And there shall be cookies and milk for all at precisely 3 p.m., followed by nap time. Bedtime stories shall consist of romance novels with heroines who present positive role models for inmates. Sexy man posters shall be posted in all cells so that all female inmates get their recommended daily allowance of man-chest and six-packs. Chocolate shall be included with each evening meal. And there shall be absolutely no shackling of pregnant inmates in labor! Duh! What were you people thinking?”

Hmm... Probably needs some work.

Some other folks have connected with me hoping to be a part of pushing this forward. But, typically I guess, there are people who want this bill but want it on their own time. As in, “How about we do this next year?”

Call me naïve. Really, call me anything you want. I don’t care. I want to do what I can while I can, not next year. There are inmates who will be having babies this summer whose experience will be different if we pass a bill before the session recesses in May. So I remain undeterred.

Less interesting news: I want a new back! I‘m taking steroids and narcotics, and every day is an exercise in endurance. I am not enjoying this. Obviously, as I'm whining about it in public.

And now on to the fun stuff!

On Saturday, I’m inviting any of you who’ve read Naked Edge and want to talk about it — but don’t want to spoil it for your friends — to join me for an After the Epilogue chat where you don’t have to worry about spoilers.

Here’s how it will work:

I will put up a new blog post tomorrow at about 7 Eastern/6 Central/5 Mountain/4 Pacific time right here on this blog with a link to a Chatzy chatroom. These are just chatrooms you can create and sign into on Chatzy.com. Registration is minimal.

You’ll just follow that link to the chat, register and pop in.

The chat itself will begin at 9 E/8 C/ 7 M/ 6 P and continue as long as you like. This is for you, and I want it to be fun for you.

During the chat, I'll take down the names of participants and someone will win a signed copy of Naked Edge, plus a $25 gift card to Borders.

Spread the word. Bring your friends.

I’ll be having another one in a couple of weeks because there are people who want to participate but who can’t.

If you have questions, post them here or e-mail me: pamelaclare @ earthlink.net (remove spaces). Also, feel free to propose discussion topics, but if please be careful not to post spoilers or at least to warn people before you do.

This is the first time I’ve done anything like this, so I’m very excited!

See you tomorrow night!

What a day. It started with a really awful night.

Y'all know that my body has been through the wringer. There’s the whole falling-of-the-cliff gig. There’s the broken neck thing. And then there’s the gave-birth-to-a-baby-with-a-15-inch-head incident, which tore my cervix, caused permanent damage to my lower spine and even made my hips hemorrhage internally. (Can they really do that? Yes. TMI? Sorry, I’m a journalist. There's never any such thing as TMI.)

Somehow yesterday I did violence to myself and set off the lower spine problem. I’ve had physical therapy, massage, steroid injections and every other thing that can be done short of that special Klingon spine replacement surgery they do for Worf on Star Trek. I would sign up for trials for that, but no one’s doing them yet...

To make a boring story shorter, I couldn’t even lie down last night without serious pain. I finally took narcotics and got maybe four hours. What does a newspaper E-in-C do she's been awake all night? She gets up and goes to work.

Today was our press day — and we made our deadline — but it was also the day I was supposed to meet the president of Colorado’s Senate to see whether there was any chance of getting legislation going to make it illegal to put women inmates in chains when they're in labor.

And... It went really, really well. I took the packet of materials I had put together out of my own research on the topic, met with him privately in his office, and gave him my impassioned plea to end this practice. He got a funny look on his face and said, “Do you mean to say that they actually shackle a woman by her wrist or ankle to a hospital bed even though she’s already under armed guard?” And I said, “Yes."


Elated, I left his office and got lost. Then I got on the elevator and meant to go to a different floor and wondered why the elevator wasn’t moving. Then I realized I kept pushing the button for the second floor... and I was on the second floor. And that explained why the lobbyist in the elevator was giving me strange looks.



So there’s a lot more to do to get this effort underway, but I feel things are converging. When I got back to the office — which entailed driving through a short blizzard — I found I had a message from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) saying that they had hoped to get legislation rolling about this for next year but that if I already had something underway they’d throw their weight behind it. And so it’s on!

I feel very happy about this. It’s something I’ve tried to make happen for a long time, but I haven’t been able to persuade a lawmaker to take up the challenge. Now I’ve done the research they’ll need to pass the bill, and I’m willing to throw the newspaper behind it. Is that objective journalism? Do I care?

Back when the Founders created the First Amendment, newspapers played an advocacy role on behalf of things they believed were important issues. Nowadays “advocacy” is saved for the editorial pages. But sometimes that’s not enough.

Too many people don’t care about women, and especially about women in prison. I have to change that somehow. I can’t exactly say why this became so important to me, but it is. When my mother told a friend what I was working on, her friend said, “Well, I guess they shouldn't have landed in prison.”

But birth impacts the baby, too. And no prison sentence should include being chained while doing that uniquely beautiful thing that only women can do — bringing a new life into the world.

I am staking myself to this one.

I know it has nothing to do with fiction or Naked Edge, which I’m supposed to be promoting now with tireless zeal. And though it was mentioned in Unlawful Contact through the character of Megan, it really has nothing to do with my novels. But it has to do with what’s important to me on a soul-deep level. And so here it is.

If you’re interested in checking on or changing the policies in your state, please let me know! I’ll hook you up. If you want me to blog on this topic, baby, I’m all yours.

Time for more percocet... If only I had some chocolate!

Now back to your regularly