Update: Direct Shipment of Wine in Massachusetts

John from Belchertown writes in with an update on what happened yesterday:

Good grief -- did you see that H 4498 apparently passed both the house and senate on 11/17/05, with various unspecified amendments? (This is per the bill history at www.mass.gov.) I may or may not have supported H 4498, but I'm somewhat flabergasted that after literally years of various direct shipping bills languishing in the general court, H 4498 passed within several days and without the possibility of any sort of meaningful input from us consumers. (The text of H 4498, even as proposed, is still not avialable on the state's website, near as I can figure.) Frankly, I've found this whole process rather bizarre and disheartening. Let's just hope H 4498, however it turned out, is reasonable.