Good article, overall, Gary, but one small quibble: Senate Republicans may have “trusted” Peter Courtney, but they walked out anyway when he was Senate President, as you know. In 2020, it was particularly devastating, killing virtually every bill (just 3 passed that year). The implication that somehow Rob Wagner is to blame for Rs gaming the system is unfair.
So is more movement to super-majority voting (on budgets) — another supremely undemocratic stunt to ensure rule by minorities on the most urgent responsibility of governments.
You don’t mention it, but the structural change enacted when annual sessions were embedded in the Constitution created this now-annual nightmare. By creating a hard-stop end date, the minority was given a gift of a structural way to game the system not previously available. A way to fix this structural flaw is to define a “day” for the 145-day limit as a “legislative day”, which is defined as a day in which the legislature is able to convene. If the minority doesn’t show up to work, the day doesn’t count toward the 145.
Sound systems, not personalities, are the solution.
Good article, overall, Gary, but one small quibble: Senate Republicans may have “trusted” Peter Courtney, but they walked out anyway when he was Senate President, as you know. In 2020, it was particularly devastating, killing virtually every bill (just 3 passed that year). The implication that somehow Rob Wagner is to blame for Rs gaming the system is unfair.
So is more movement to super-majority voting (on budgets) — another supremely undemocratic stunt to ensure rule by minorities on the most urgent responsibility of governments.
You don’t mention it, but the structural change enacted when annual sessions were embedded in the Constitution created this now-annual nightmare. By creating a hard-stop end date, the minority was given a gift of a structural way to game the system not previously available. A way to fix this structural flaw is to define a “day” for the 145-day limit as a “legislative day”, which is defined as a day in which the legislature is able to convene. If the minority doesn’t show up to work, the day doesn’t count toward the 145.
Sound systems, not personalities, are the solution.