People ask me if it ever gets to me, bashing my well gelled skull against the polished granite of this place. I don’t give up easily but at the end of the session it is over, there is no hope but next year, the will of frustrated voters, a gift from the courts, acts of congress or something as yet beyond me. I know how to recover in the interim, how to take this feeling and turn it into determination, bring it to the voters and help them to take it to the ballot box to create change in this place. But for now we are stuck here with little but sinister excuses for policy before us.
Yesterday I left the building on the verge of tears and walked in this morning trying to swallow the lump in my throat. We could go home now, bang the gavel now. Call it damage control. We would forgo hurting state retirees, encumbering the constitution, shifting burdens, letting developers charge hidden taxes and yes admitting that the majority are again this year leaving many still in harms way. That the Governor and Republican leaders have waited this long to address transportation funding of all kinds means we will likely do this badly, in some sort of forced or leveraged way.
Here on the floor with a list of bills in front of us, I whisper to the white ceiling that we could go home now, before we vote. Make the clerk stop reading. Turn off the computers, empty our desks, hug, shake hands and be gone. The state would likely be better for it.