Half-way Point

Indiana's legislature is at the half-way point. Now I'm admittedly a little biased for my home state, but Indiana generally finishes on time and we still continue to have a surplus while other states debate what to cut.

There are little squabbles that pop up though. This week's installment of Statehouse Shenanigans involves a technicality that I can both understand and disagree with.

The Speaker of the House called a bill on third readings that was not on the calendar. The Minority Leader stood up and said that the Speaker could not do that and expressed outrage at his attempt to do so. Well, all that happened was that the House stopped for a few minutes while a new calendar was printed with the omitted bill added to the list.

In the end, I can understand the Minority Leader's position of following the rules, but he also surely recognized that the majority party could do exactly what happened (reprint the calendar, then vote on the bill). I think he could've been a bit more diplomatic and simply said that adding the bill was not appropriate, but in the spirit of good governance and expediency, the minority party will simply vote against the measure as expected.

Sometimes I just get pretty frustrated at the legislative leaders. The Speaker was wrong for not following protocol, but the Minority Leader was wrong for holding up the process unnecessarily.

I can't wait for the final push.