Quiet, Work in Process

Sometimes the Legislature just has to exert its power. Sometimes the public forgets about our bad old self, sometimes we just need little knuckle crack reminders that we exist in the outside world.

Every culture has its lingo. Every culture has its games, and the game of politics is the biggest money of them of all. The people seeking to get in need to observe that, lest they become a part of the problem. The more that see the need for reform of this partisanship that evades the doing of many things...quoted so wisely by Rep. Dan Surra at a Labor Relations Committee meeting last week on the minimum wage bill. Said with enthusiam: "We are the best at doing nothing!" yes, with an exclamation point as the dilatory oral amendment was being discussed. I was a fly on the wall at that meeting.

Of course, the room was packed with flies, given the amount of sheet that was getting flung. Busy-ness, bidness, business. It's all about business.

This job, politics, for those newbies out there, it isn't a fair game, it is as tough as nails to be immersed in it, to truly get it, without suffering from ponophobia - fear of fatigue, overwork. You get to this point it is time to jump off the stressometer and move into a more peaceful line of work.

But here I sit, an 18 year fly on the wall, keeping coming back for more like Cool Hand Luke keeping coming after Dragline and being told to stay down. We stay down for no man and for no voter. We cant standing being locked up in this place any longer, but willing to fight to the drop down to do the job it takes to be here, because the process needs thinkers like us to keep the ship of state afloat whether the ship of state knows it or not.

Un appreciated, we are the rats under the floorboards picking up all the litter and hoarding it into little secret stashes until implosion occurs. Know where the skeletons are hidden? Hell, we put them there, holding the foot end of the load.

# 1 Rule of Politics. Know where the bodies are buried and better yet, know who did the burying, and make sure they know you know.

This keeps you in the position of your choice for as long as you choose that choice.

The political process is sort of like pro sports, in that you have a certain lenght of career that you are most effective, and through the natural ebb and flow, you outlive your star status as a member of the process. Obviously, the brain does not suffer the injuries of the body that happen to a footballer, but the mind too can suffer injury from the stress of this process. There has therefore to be a lot of mental illness hidden in politics. Take the NJ Gov. Candidate admitting depression the other day.

We are a story in how to manage chaos with brinkmanship.

You puppies read the stories coming out of neighbor New Jersey? A budget impass that has something to do, let me see, with property taxes being shifted onto the sales tax? sound familiar? You thought we made that up? Senate Bill 30 in special session did not move with its lollipop language asking the Secretary of the Commonwealth to call some vaguely worded nonbinding statewide referendum about shifting to sales tax from property tax, foisting that decision on voters, like a straw poll, because they have been afraid of the backlash if they act on it without the tacit endorsement of the electorate that is still so very pissed off at them at the moment via the 4th Estate because of the money issues.

So, I called it, eventually. Fiscal Year 2006-2007 budget arrives, first thought to be stillborn in the Senate, it got properly Fumoed, but not without getting a little bit Birmelined, on Sunday, July 2, 2006 around 1:45 a.m. a new session day properly rang in for a new perdiem, and peeps, it was worth it, ok, you just come on in and spend the time it takes to get it done and tell me you can do it better.

But give credit folks, I see how this show is run, and I challenge you to do it any better. Come try to come on in and try, I think I'm going to like the levity...I'm not saying change isn't coming or that I wont embrace it, I'm saying that with change comes growing pains, mistakes, experiements gone awry. This means: cost taxpayers money. Governments, like businesses, should learn from their mistakes.

The General Assembly kept its unmade pledge not pass a bill at the witching hour, you see, because it is those items getting passed then that are the last in the legislative freight train, and there is a dang good reason that a pay raise is the caboose of the thing, because it is the kicker on all the other shenanigans that just passed down the tracks in the preceding cars. First, the deal is you have to make these deals and not renege and then we conclude the deal.

I hope that was coherent, I am done rereading for now, I have a warm day to play in.

So they did not go to the witching hour of Pay Raise 2 a.m., but they gotter done. More later peeps.