Brian Howey, long time commenter on the Indiana General Assembly, has a column in the Evansville Courier Press on the Democratic walk-out that doesn’t jibe too well with how the legislative process actually seems to work. He’s been watching the General Assembly a lot longer than I have, so I assume he knows better, but his column seems to reflect an idea that the “work” of the House of Representatives occurs on the floor or in the committee room. I say it doesn’t.
The bumper sticker criticism of Democrats (generally, maybe but not necessarily made by Howey) is that “they need to get back to work” as if they’re wage slaves paid by the piece of legislation. I only got to observe the General Assembly from a particular angle when I worked for LSA and now watch them mostly through the newspapers, but it seems to me that most of the work of your average legislator takes place away from the floor or committee room. Often, they phone in their bill requests. You can read legislation anywhere. And, the crux of the matter is that the fate of pretty much every bill seems to be determined before it gets to the floor of the House or into the committee room. Public testimony and legislative debate always looked to be more for show than because it had much utility in affecting a vote.
Absent House Democrats can still make and receive phone calls or e-mails or other communication from constituents and fellow legislators as to their ideas and opinions on pending legislation and willingness to vote in favor or against. As for the idea that legislation should receive a hearing and the process should allow it to be debated and rise or fall on its merits with a vote, that’s a great School House Rock version of the democratic process, but ignores that the majority of bills die without ever getting a committee hearing.
Let me emphasize that: the normal fate of a bill is to die without hearing. The legislator introduces the bill, the bill gets assigned to committee, and the committee chair never gives it a hearing. So, the idea — and I’m not sure that Howey is advancing this one himself, necessarily — that it’s some sort of miscarriage of justice if the Democratic walkout deprives a bill of the opportunity for debate and a vote, is ridiculous on its face. Most bills don’t get debated, and most bills don’t get voted on.
I’m tired of the walkout too. The Democrats need to be reasonable, the Republicans need to be flexible, and they should get on with it. I know supporters of the Republicans feel like they shouldn’t have to bother with the Democrats because they won big in 2010. But, the Democrats are showing them why they have to be dealt with. The Constitution requires 2/3s for a quorum, and the Republicans didn’t win quite enough seats in the House to make the Democrats entirely irrelevant.
The Democrats are close to “freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose” territory. As an electoral matter, they need to avoid standing in the way of legislation the public is crying out for. I don’t see a lot of that being proposed, let alone blocked. If the Republicans want to paint the Democrats as being unreasonable, they need to do a better job of explaining what, if anything, they have offered. I think the public will recognize that, since the Republicans have majorities, they shouldn’t have to offer much before concluding that Democrats are being unreasonable. But, if their “offer” consists of little more than getting red in the face and saying “do it,” (or issuing progressively stiffer fines) voters will primarily chalk it up to more partisan bickering and go back to watching basketball.
the “get back to work” framing bugs me because it defines a legislator’s job so narrowly. if a legislator’s job is to pass good bills and ensure that bad bills fail, then the democrats who walked out are absolutely doing their jobs by preventing the passage of bills that they feel will hurt the state.
i understand why republicans are upset about the situation, but they are partly to blame for trying to ram through every bill on their wish list in the first year of their new majority.
I really don’t want the process to be “get what I want at all costs, as long as it is close enough to legal that we can get away with it”.
By that logic, the Republicans that did the last-minute passing of the bill in WI should also be respected for doing their jobs, assuming a judge doesn’t strike it down. After all, they are passing a bill that they feel is best for the state, and see the Democrats as hurting the state.
You set a really low bar there Doug.
I myself have thought, “Who cares, let them stay in Illinois forever. The 800 odd bills they killed are all garbage anyway (as are all the bills in most any session), and let’s shut the government down without a budget, too, they don’t do anything useful.”
But that’s Buzzcut talking. It that really where you are? I don’t think so, based on past experience. This post comes across as sophistry.
Some of the bills are undoubtedly necessary.
What I’m objecting to most are the notions that: a) The Democrats couldn’t possibly be “doing their job” from somewhere other than downtown Indianapolis; and b) that it is somehow remarkable for legislation to be killed by something less than a majority of the legislators.
There are legitimate criticisms to be made against use of this tactic by the minority party, but those criticisms require more nuance than I’ve typically been seeing.
You’re expecting “nuance” from our politicians? You aren’t at Disney’s FantasyLand anymore. Remember? Vacation’s over this time around.
“Expect” and “want” are two different things. And, Howey, at least, can do better.
I don’t think any of the bills are necessary, other than the budget. And even that is open for debate.
The irony is that the party that loves government is the one that is going to shut it down and show everyone exactly what our state government does (which isn’t much).
The budget is more important know that all general fund money flows to schools from the state. If the budget isn’t passed, schools will have to borrow money to keep the doors open thus committing scarce resources to interest payments on operating loans.
Also, without the budget, most state agencies will close and funding for school lunch, title grants and stimulus money will not be distributed.
For my local school that is ~$800,000/month in revenue that will need to be replaced and most of that revenue goes out almost immediately in pay and benefits for teaching staff.
Paddy, it would be cosmic justice if teachers were laid off because of the antics of Democrats, working at the behest of these unions.
The odds of that happening are between zero and none.
I would gladly explain the reasoning and mechanism, if I didn’t think it would be ignored…
If there is no budget, and schools need to float anticipation bonds in order to continue operations, there very well could be teacher layoffs. That would be justice.