You really do need to care about how the sausage is made

Witness what even the News Journal called "a debacle" yesterday when Representatives Rebecca Walker and Helen Keeley decided that, despite legions of people signed up to testify for and against a bail modification bill, even limiting participants to 60 seconds was too much lip-service to the concept of citizen input:

Rep. Jeff Spiegelman had seen enough, noting that lawmakers had only minutes earlier been handed a thick booklet of information about the bill and had no time to do their “due diligence.’ He called for a tabling of the bill so a full and fair hearing could be held.
Keeley objected, urging members to send the legislation to the full House with the promise that differences would be ironed out before she called for a full vote.

Yep, Walker calls for a hearing the same day that HB 35 is up for public comment and is then surprised to find herself in trouble. Keeley decides that committee members neither need to read their materials nor hear from citizens before voting on the bill.

Thankfully, the whole committee voted down these idiots.

But as you watch this all happen in Legislative Hall, you begin to understand why none of our lawmakers is really all that gung-ho for transparency.

If we actually watched them "do their jobs" we'd most of them for incompetence or arrogance.

Comments

Anonymous said…

In one of the previous articles it stated that abolishing the death penalty would save money. How does frying someone save money over housing, feeding, educating, entertaining them for 20, 30, 40 years?

March 14, 2013 at 12:21 PM

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