Legislative Post-Game Wrap-Up/Pre-Game Show-Thursday, Jan. 14, 2010

According to the Legislative Record, nothing happened yesterday.

Of course, in the case of the House of Representatives, we know that committee meetings took place.

So, El Somnambulo, you may ask, why does the record not reflect this? Glad you asked as it gives me yet another teaching opportunity. Yay!

Once the House breaks for committee meetings, it often does not come back into session at the end of the day. Hence, committee reports are not read into the record then. Hence, officially, nothing happened. However, the ‘legislative day’ is different from the ‘real’ day. When the House comes back into session today, they will still be on yesterday’s business. Thence, the committee reports will be read into the record before the legislative ‘change of day’. Which is why, hence or thence, my two pence say this makes sense.

There’s another less harmless reason why the ‘legislative’ day extends into the next day, and it happens fairly frequently. Roll call is taken for each legislative day. Any time during that legislative day, you can be marked as ‘present’. If you’re a legislator who doesn’t attend a given day’s session, you can still be marked ‘present’ the next day if they haven’t ‘changed’ the legislative day yet. Legislators get a per-mile travel allowance, and it’s based on (a) the round trip distance to and from their house to Legislative Hall, times (b) the number of days that you are in attendance. So, you can still get mileage for a day that you missed by simply being marked present the next day before the legislative day has changed. Many legislators will say “Marked Present-No Mileage”, and, in fact, legislators sometimes get to Dover for committee meetings after the House has adjourned, and that’s legit. However, a few still don’t bother to show up on committee days but get the mileage allowance anyway. Plus they get a better ‘attendance’ record than they deserve.

OK. For those of you still awake, time to go to today’s preview. Of most interest to me is what’s not on the House agenda today. Since no bills were worked in the House on Tuesday, one would have expected the same agenda, plus maybe a few additions, to be before the House. However, two bills that I criticized in my Tuesday preview have been removed from the agenda. Both SB 60 and HB 252, castigated extensively right here, no longer appear on the House agenda. Not sure why, but I know that my influence, if any, is more of the reverse barometer type with the legislators, so there’s no cause & effect between what I wrote and their removal. Still, it’s encouraging.

Rep. J. J. Johnson’s HB 284, described right here yesterday, is on the agenda, and would seem like a ‘no-brainer’.

Also,  a bill sponsored mostly by the Middletown area below-the-canal delegation, HB 30, which would increase the ‘voluntary school assessment fee’ (isn’t that an oxymoron?) on developers to help pay for school construction costs, is on today’s agenda.

In other news…the Senate lives! There is actually one, count it, one, bill on today’s agenda. Rep. B. Short’s HB 202 is designed to protect policyholders in the event of any liquidation of a life and/or health insurance company. A  good bill, IMHO. Good thing we also have such an effective Insurance Commissioner to enforce th…ruh roh.