Suddenly, the bill went back on the informal calendar, and we knew it was dead for the day. The informal calendar can be a resting place for piece of legislation to allow a sponsor more preparation time, or it can be the final resting place for a bill. The House leadership has complete control of it when, if ever, it goes to the informal calendar. The sponsor simply needed one more day to prepare. He presented the bill for perfection on the floor of the House.
Perfection is the part of the process where a bill is debated and amended.
This is always the most dangerous time for a bill. Bills are killed as often by amending them as by voting them down. MNEA had picked up the rumor that an attempt would be made to amend the teacher minimum salary schedule onto the bill. We were against this for three reasons. First, we don't think the bill is a good one for the majority of Missouri's teachers.