Conniptions, Obstruction and Chaos—Oh My!

I’m sitting here watching the live streams of both the Alabama House and Senate at the same time.

That way lies madness, by the way. Do NOT recommend. However, needs must, especially since this is the 24th legislative day of the 30 that are allowed by law.

We still don’t have budgets, either General Fund or Special Education Trust Fund. That is the Legislature's Number One job, or so I was always told. If we don’t get budgets, the Legislature has to come back into special session, with all the added trouble and expense that entails. With only five days left after today, you’d think there would be a sense of urgency on both floors.

Just looking at these streams, you wouldn’t know it. On the House side, there’s been a parade of Democrats coming to the podium to bloviate about everything in general and nothing in particular. It’s obviously an attempt to slow things down as much as possible, the legislative equivalent to a toddler’s refusing to do anything during a tantrum.

Rep. Chris England (D-Tuscaloosa) made a good comment about how “I think we should get the budgets, put them up, vote and then go to the house.” I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it.

On the Senate side right now, a Democrat Senator is elocuting about…something that might (or might not) be tangentially related to the legislative process. I really can’t tell, and I’m afraid to listen more closely.

Aaaaand it’s now nearly 3:00 PM, and both Houses look like they’re finally settled down enough to actually pretend to be doing their jobs. The House Dems are still coming down one after a time to slow-walk things as much as possible, but the Senate hasn’t gone into the fit of cloture-mania we saw last week.

I can understand the frustration of the Democrats. They have a super-minority in the Legislature, and their national party is perhaps most generally described as being “in disarray.” However, as one of the leaders of their party once said, “Elections have consequences.”

They lost.

They lost bigly. Obstructionist tactics and passive-aggressive conniptions are about all the Dems have left, and that’s what they’re trying to do, regardless of whether or not it’s good for the State.

I’m certainly not endorsing some of last week’s actions from the Republicans, either. I understand their frustrations at the Democrat’s tactics in the Senate, and I can’t say I’d do any different, especially if my gout was acting up—or I’d just spent over an hour listening to the Dems in the House run their cake holes about absolutely nothing of consequence. Sweet Mother of Mercy, make it stop!!!

Okay, that may be unfair. There may have been a few tiny particles of reasonable discourse in what the House Dems were spewing, but with splitting my attention between the House and Senate I certainly didn’t hear it.

What I’m not impressed by is the hissy fits members of both Houses pitched last week, with a Senator threatening to filibuster House bills because he didn’t like something the House did, and the House carrying over (and refusing to vote on) all Senate bills for a day in retaliation.

We have the reasonable expectation that our Glorious Leaders on Goat Hill will act like adults, not toddlers or, worse, middle-school Mean Girls. That expectation was disappointed last week, but it looks like most of it has been resolved.

Mostly. Kinda. Except not really. Thank you, House Democrats.

That doesn’t change the fact that we now have five legislative days left in this session, and the budgets are still a LONG way from being done.

If the budgets don’t get done, and a special session winds up being necessary, the voters of Alabama need to take a close look at the video records of both House and Senate on The Alabama Channel, so we know who needs to be de-elected next year.

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