{"id":660,"date":"2013-01-23T18:20:00","date_gmt":"2013-01-23T18:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2013\/01\/23\/times-a-wastin-lawmakers"},"modified":"2013-01-23T18:20:00","modified_gmt":"2013-01-23T18:20:00","slug":"times-a-wastin-lawmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=660","title":{"rendered":"Time\u2019s a wastin\u2019, lawmakers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a title=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/01\/23\/slow-start-to-legislative-session-part\/\" href=\"http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/01\/23\/slow-start-to-legislative-session-part\/\">http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/01\/23\/slow-start-to-legislative-session-part\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Texas Legislature meets every other year for 140 days. That\u2019s about five months\u2019 time to get lots of business done for a state of 26 million inhabitants and one of the world\u2019s largest economies.<\/p>\n<p>Yet as it always happens, our 150 state representatives and 31 state senators lollygag around for far too long, getting into a rush at the end to try to wrap up the business for which they have so little time to complete.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s happening again in this session, apparently.<\/p>\n<p>I have been watching this spectacle unfold since 1984, when my family and I first moved Texas, first to Beaumont and then to Amarillo. I simply don\u2019t get it.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe I shouldn\u2019t be surprised, given that we pay our \u201ccitizen\u201d legislators so little money. They earn $600 a month. In addition, they get a per diem expense payment while the Legislature is in session. It\u2019s less than $200 daily and it\u2019s supposed to cover ancillary expenses related to the job, such as lunches with special interest representatives and the like, office supplies, staff expenses \u2026 those kinds of things.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s probably unrealistic, then, to expect our legislators to hit the ground at a full sprint when they\u2019re sworn in at the beginning of the session. I don\u2019t doubt that our state lawmakers \u2013 Reps. John Smithee and Four Price, and Sen. Kel Seliger, all of Amarillo \u2013 work hard while they\u2019re in Austin. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s just that the collective legislative body seems to cram so much work into so little time. Do they have time to read at the last minute the volumes of text contained in legislation? I suppose that\u2019s why they have staff members and chiefs of staff. It\u2019s <em>their<\/em> job to do the heavy lifting, which includes plowing through those gazillions of words.<\/p>\n<p>Still, a part of me wishes the Legislature could get down to serious business earlier than it does. The result might be thoughtful laws that make sense, which is a key component of good government.<\/p>\n<p>That assumes, of course, that Texans still believe in such a thing.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/2013\/01\/23\/slow-start-to-legislative-session-part\/ The Texas Legislature meets every other year for 140 days. That\u2019s about five months\u2019 time to get lots of business done for a state of 26 million inhabitants and one of the world\u2019s largest economies. Yet as it always happens, our 150 state representatives and 31 state senators lollygag around for far too long, &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=660\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Time\u2019s a wastin\u2019, lawmakers<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}