While it might seem that sitting in the statehouse would be the best vantage point for up to the minute news on what is going on in the statehouse, it's not. As legislators, we might be in committee when something big happens. We might be the last person on the Senate floor working away at an inbox of 5000 emails. We might be meeting with a constituent in the hallway and miss the great conversation in the lounge, where Senators who do not have offices sometimes sit on old furniture to drink coffee or read the paper.
If you really want to know what's going on you probably read Betsy Russell's Blog or you wander around the state house and ask questions. Sitting in one place is the last best way to learn anything. Bathrooms surprisingly are excellent ways to catch up. That's because the House and Senate share bathrooms and they are one of the few places law makers from both Houses mingle. The chambers may be 40 feet apart physically, but in every other way they are light years distant from each other.
The Legislative Services office on the first floor where bills are drafted is fascinating for news. While, by rule of the legislature, they can't and won't tell you anything about who is drafting what or what is being drafted, you do get to watch who walks in and out and chat with them about what they know and why they are there in the dark reaches of the statehouse.
If you are not in legislative leadership, which I am not, of course you would want to visit the Majority and Minority leader's offices. But They are on the second floor in their offices and we don't see much of them. Honestly I've gotten more info out of my Senate JFAC Co-Chair, Dean Cameron, than out of my leadership this year. Dean is often happy to help me figure out what at the moment is going on amongst the factions and who is behind which budget proposal for the next day. Sadly though what he says is has usually changed by the next morning when we vote, so I've made a note to chat with him next year right before our morning JFAC committee meetings.
Republican leadership in their dark back hallway will tell much in sarcasm. Ask a direct question, get a very telling cryptic non-answer. Often very helpful if you know the language and facial expressions. Of course you can not walk right into a Republican caucus meeting because those are still closed meetings with secret handshakes and rituals of consensus I wouldn't like to know. Our Democratic open caucus meetings, as open meetings, do not usually reveal anything anyone did not already know. That is why they are open. We don't say things we don't want the media to hear. Fortunately the media will share the gossip with us when they visit. Which is handy but odd but useful.
Of course this open caucus thing got a bit out of control this year. In the House, Dan Popkey, whom I like, apparently sat in on an open Democratic strategy discussion and then went off and asked a Republican chair woman what she thought of the strategy before the strategy could be put to use. Call me wierd but when I was a reporter I think I did see myself a bit like the starship Enterprise exploring the galaxy under the prime directive. Report but don't interfere or do anything that would change the outcome of the news.
So, this morning, I think it is fitting to consider the legislature an alien planet, this place with foreign rules, pomp, circumstance, odd language and traditions. Surely though the House and Senate are separate planets, or alien races stuck on one planet with starkly different languages, beliefs and diets. The governor's office would be yet another alien race at war with the first two. And if we continue our century-long planetary war, the people of the galaxy will go hungry or roadless or unstimulated. Perhaps they will grow tired and invade the planet of state themselves, bang the gave and call it done for the year.
In any case it is hard to know what is going on in here unless you travel and speak several alien dialects. I suggest Betsy's Blog. She seems to travel light speed and have the best universal translator in the universe.