They've just about run out of inconsequential bills to argue about, so now they argue about adjournment. Late Friday, it took the House six votes to decide to come back this week to finally put this session out of its misery.
"You know, sometimes when you stay up there long enough, you just go brain dead," Rep. Richard Floyd, R-Chattanooga, said after the evening's marathon of petty bickering. "It just happened that all 99 went brain dead at the same time this time."
Said House Speaker Kent Williams: "We weren't accomplishing much of anything at all. It was an ugly scene."
You could say the same thing about the past two years. The 106th General Assembly will go down in textbooks (or at least in the minds of all of us poor bastards who have been forced to watch) as one of the most absurdly ridiculous in history—and that's saying something.
The humiliation of Jason Mumpower, the hypocrisy of Paul Stanley, and Sherri Goforth's charming depiction of the president as a spook—ah, the memories just keep flooding back, don't they?
That was all from the fun-filled first year of this general assembly. This year's session was even stranger if that's possible. For a while, it looked as if lawmakers actually would take bold action to increase the state's infant mortality rate. They rejected national health care reform and advocated an innovative medical barter system in which we would trade turnip greens for organ transplants. They debated at length legislation to save humanity from the Antichrist. And who could forget Rep. Glen Casada's elegant solution to the unemployment problem? Find a damn job!
