Don't They Make You Proud?

Every odd numbered year for about the first five months of that year Austin, Texas experiences a circus that gives Barnum & Bailey a run for their money : the regular session of the Texas Legislature. Such times are legend around here, filled with DWI legislators, fistfights in the chambers, legislators caught with prostitutes, etc. You get the drift; a grand time is had by all. They do manage to work in a little of the people's business during their five month toga party so I guess they earn part of their $600 per month salary.

The wackiest part of the entire process is caused by the finality of the session. They have until a date certain, this year it's June 1st, to complete and pass all bills. This deadline creates mini-deadlines weeks before the final day that bills must be approved. Any bill not meeting these deadlines are essentially killed for the session. The only way they can be considered if not passed in this session is for the Governor to call a special session. He decides what is considered during the special sessions.

This is the end of May so, as if on cue, they are getting crazy once again. As usual they have a backlog of bills that need to get approved soon. The problem is that there is one bill that seems to really be bothering the Democrats and that is the Voter Identification Act. This would require voters to show a form of identification that would indicate their eligibility to vote. It passed to the final stages in both the House and Senate but not by huge margins. The Dems really don't want this passed! So this year they are employing a delaying tactic called chubbing where they use the maximum allotted time for the bills in considered thereby threatening the almost certain failure of those left unconsidered when time runs out. Kind of a mini filabuster on hundreds of pieces of legislation. They are trying to get the supporters of the Voter ID bill to pull it from consideration in order to save important legislation that may die due to time constraints.

Lest you think this an anomoly let me assure you something like this happens just about every session. Years ago a group of liberal Democrat Senators absconded to New Mexico to deny the senate a quorum, thereby halting business of the Senate. Of course this is a violation of state law so the governor initiated a seach by state troopers to bring them back to the capital. Of course they had no idea where they were. Quorum breaking attempts such as these have provided some great entertainment over the years but have also made the Texas Legislature a national laughing stock.

Who knows how this will end? Likely there will be some legislation that will die but that may be a blessing. Regardless, you can rest assured that two years from now some kind of high school stuff such as this will be going on. In the immortal words of Yogi Berra, "It's like deja vu all over again".