CAPITOL LETTERS

Ms. Brooks--

I think I now understand your perspective on this issue. You think that all voting is the same. Elections and legislatures are not created equal, nor should they operate in the same manner. Suggesting the opposite indicates a capacious lack of understanding of both.

Ah, there you are. Was wondering when I'd hear from our resident Capitol Apologist.

You know what - anytime someone questions what the politicians do and how they do it, BG, you accuse them of not understanding the process or the issue - when actually, you're the one who seems to have an enormous inability to see the forest for the trees.

Step outside the pink dome for a few minutes. I think you could use some fresh eyes of your own.

Regarding the post, OK look. I was being a smartass.

I just found it funny that they're talking about ghost voting in the polls like it's a horrible, widespread sin ... when I just saw several verification votes on important amendments on that very bill prove, without a doubt, that members were voted WHO WERE NOT HERE.

Just pointing out the irony.

I apologize for nothing. I do, however, object when a journalist complains about a process that she fails to understand due to ignorance, lack of an ability to develop quality sources, or--dare I say it?--laziness. I would ask such journalists to learn what game they're playing before complaining about the rules.

Of course, you could never be accused of any of those things. So, I'm puzzled as to why I offend you so.

Good lord, Bubba. I just read this and your comments on Ms. Ramshaw's "Fresh Eyes" post. All of which leads me to the conclusion that you are one sactimonious little ... uh ... guy, aren't you?

In any case, Ms. Brooks pointing out the irony of the situation on the floor today is exactly what we readers pay her for. I find it funny and refreshing. Further, I'd submit she knows the rules better than you. The implication, at least, of your first post is that ghost voting on the floor is permissible. It is not, which is why the verification procedure exists.

I do appreciate the deference, BG, (assuming you weren't being sarcastic, which I don't think you were). I'm not personally offended, per se.

I'm just confounded as to why someone would consistently want to give an automatic free pass to a process, procedure, or tradition just because it happens to go on inside the Capitol. Seriously? Are you saying it works like a well-oiled machine, always has, always will? NO room for improvement? At all?

Everything's all peace, love, and good happiness stuff?

The system isn't perfect, and nothing has ever been improved by people who don't question anything.

Then again, my job is to question everything - so you and I may be in a Lorax-like standoff simply in our raison d'etre.

DMWP is dead on - ghost voting is against the rules of the House. The fact that it happens doesn't automatically justify it.

As for Emily's post, the formal meetings by the committees to vote out pending items are fly-by-night meetings - particularly the Calendars committee - so she makes a great point that it's extremely difficult to track all these bills when you don't ever know when they're going to come up for a vote. Some panels leave them pending for AT LEAST a week, minimum. They can then sit on them - or not - for weeks and weeks after taking testimony.

It's not that she hasn't figured out how to track them. She's annoyed at how messy it is. Aren't you? I mean, isn't everyone?

Life is too short to be stalking committee chairman, that's all I'm sayin.

Plus, her Fresh Eyes posts are tongue in cheek anyway. It's a regular item on this blog that I'd encourage you to read - I think you'll find her Fresh Eyes column to be funny, charming and right on the money.

I am honored to have merited your attention. I think you're coming a little late to the conversation. Ms. Brooks and I have discussed this issue at length in the past.

I do not mean to give the impression that I think that "ghost voting" is "permissible". It's clearly against the house rules--with verification being only one of several tools used to ferret-out the practice.

BG, I may also have misunderstood your position on ghost voting.

But I still think that you're splitting hairs when you say elections and legislative voting are different. At the end of the day, the principle is the same. One person, one vote. If they can't follow that principle themselves, I find it funny that they expect the electorate to.

I'm not advocating anything except consistency here, just for the record. And mostly I'm doing that for the entertainment value.

I've been sitting here listening to this debate since 1 p.m. I gotta do SOMETHING.

/Nurse!

Ms. Brooks--

You are absolutely right to criticize. You are absolutely right to question. But what frustrates me is your lack of curiosity. You always look at the issue from your perspective. "This makes it hard to do my job," you and your brethren (especially at the DMN) say, "so it's bad."

You never bother to ask or acknowledge why a certain practice exists: how does a particular rule affect the body, and, by extension, democracy? Why is it hard to get a committee clerk to return phone calls?

You assume that disclosure is always better, because your job is to disclose. In general, that might be true. But disclosure is not a good in itself. Every time you change the rules, you change the way the game is played. Often, that can result in consequences that are corrosive to democracy, or work counter to the purpose of the legislative process.

When you criticize the system as messy--that's exactly my point! Yes, it's messy. It should be messy. It is only because it's messy that it can work. LOVE the mess. LOVE the fact that you've got the relationships among 182 diverse personalities that affect how bills are passed. It is only by embracing that big, fat, wet sloppy mess that is the legislature that you begin to understand WHY it operates why it does. That will allow you to wring out the information you need.

Do I think that it can be improved? Maybe. But decades of precedence should not be tossed aside lightly.

Ms. Brooks--

In response to your 5:51PM post, and then I'm going to stop:

Consistency is not a virtue when the situations are not the same, or even similar.

Bubba, sweetheart, anyone who knows me will tell you how much I adore this whole thing. Process included.

(To the point where my coworkers tease me. This is my fifth session. Something's keeping me here.)

Which is why it bugs me when it's violated, twisted and otherwise manipulated. And why I keep such a close watch on it.

I take real issue with you saying that I don't ever "bother to ask or acknowledge why a certain practice exists."

I beg your pardon. Please go look at the link in this very post. I acknowledged - and totally expected an answer from you - the occasional reason for machine malfunctions.

Where's the LOVE on that??

People like you always see questions as an expression of contempt. I promise, you could not be more wrong about that.

Anyway. See you on the next debate.

Ms. Brooks--

Actually, I should be begging your pardon. I was too busy loving the system to read your post on that day.

Yes, under Rule 5, Section 52, your theory could come to pass. IF there was no record vote. IF a majority of members manage to do this before the end of session that day. IF the author of the bill doesn't find out, move to reconsider the vote, and then force a record vote. IF it managed to sneak past 3rd reading. IF the Speaker put a bill that had in reality failed to pass on the message to the Senate. IF the bill managed to get through the Senate unamended so that it wasn't subject to another vote by the House. IF the Speaker and Lt. Gov. had signed it. IF the Governor didn't veto it.

That's all the "ifs" I can think of, right now. That's a lot of "ifs."

To my knowledge it's never happened.

Chill pill time, Bubba.