When I ran for office years ago, folks often said they never knew “what went on in Columbia”. They either said they didn’t pay attention or didn’t know how to find the information about their representative.
Nathan’s News readers already know where to go to (here or of course the State House website ).
If you’re so inclined you can even watch live-stream video of House and Senate via ETV and…. thanks to the new transparency rule changes adopted this year , the House and Senate Journals now show more recorded votes than ever!
For those that don’t have the time (or care, really) to watch live, here’s a clip from a few weeks back when I spoke on an “alternative budget” amendment presented by some of us in the House and the Senate.
Not only did the amendment fail, the House wouldn’t even agree to take a measley 24 hours to review it and just CONSIDER the idea of an alternative to what we received earlier that day at lunch. Nathan’s News readers already know that the amendment before this one (which was basically “the budget” put together by a few folks from House/Senate) was handed to us at lunch and we had to vote on that just hours afterwards . Again, with no time to review/consider/discuss with constituents and others.
Sometimes legislation takes years (cigarette tax, restructuring, etc); but other times the train gets on a fast track and…well….not sure which way is better now that I think of it.