Poor Rep Campfield

I just noticed this.  Check it out on youtube.  This is Rep Campfield presenting three bills before a House Committee:

The three bills discussed were:

One to prevent state legislators from naming buildings and roads after themselves.

One to conserve energy by preventing excessive heating of the LP parking garage.

One to introduce term limits.

Only the first measure was actually discussed by the committee.  I’m not the biggest fan of Campfield (he was one of the house members who voted against the Gore resolution earlier this week), but this is a shameful way to treat a fellow legislator.  Notice the “legal” motion used to kill his first bill.

EDIT: I’m told the parking garage isn’t actually heated, so thats why they shot down that resolution.  ^_^

EDIT2: If Campfield really want to save energy here, they should cut down on air conditioning use in the building during the weekends.  On saturday I stopped by to use the wireless in LP12.  The air conditioning was running full tilt and I was downright cold.

Newt

Yesterday I saw New Gingrich give a speech at Vanderbilt University.  It was part of their long running Impact Symposium program. 

He was far more engaging than I thought.  When I think of Newt, I think dour and wonky.  But he was actually an engaging speaker.  I especially liked what he had to say about Barak Obama.  He said people project onto Obama whatever they want him to be. 

Newt also joked about Bill Clinton.  Apparently, Bill once compared himself to those toy punching bags children have.  The ones with sand in the bottom that always pop back up.  The idea of Bill Clinton saying this to Gingrich is something I find incredibly amusing.

Naturally, he refused to excplicitly state whether he would run for Prez or not.  But he had no problem lambasting the rediculously early primary fundraising/campaigning process we currently find ourselves in.

I think if Fred Thompson gets into the race, a lot of the rationale for a Gingrich candidacy will evaporate.  Newt’s negatives are so high, I have trouble seeing him convincing the Republican powerbrokers to support him.

In other news, I think I’ve figured out how to get video from the General Assembly site to youtube.  So hopefully I’ll have some things posted tomorrow. 

Dispatches from Crazytown!

Another post!

I wanted to mention a senate resolution authored by Senator Finney of Blount. This resolution asks that the commissioner of education investigate whether there is a god and report back to the senate. No joke, read it for yourself. It’s not long, just a couple pages double-spaced:

Click to access SR0017.pdf

If the commissioner concludes that the existence of god is unprovable, he is then supposed to address why it’s not taught in schools as an alternative theory to evolution. As if something had to be disproved to prevent it’s teaching in public schools. I may believe the flying spaghetti monster created the earth, and defy you to disprove that. Following Mr. Finney’s resolution, one would have to teach about the flying spaghetti monster in school.

Anyway, I know you are well aware how difficult it is to prove a negative. So I won’t harp on the silliness of this resolution any longer. It’s the epitome of useless showboating over something that should not be an issue.  Tax dollars hard at work, and all that.

Goings on

I know I know, I haven’t posted in a while.

The big news around  the capitol is Mik Williams’ party switch.  There is little tangible result from this, except that the Republicans curiously no longer have a majority.  With a 16-16-1 Senate, no party even has a plurality.  Committee assignments will remain unchanged and Ramsey is still speaker, but Norris should no longer be called Majority Leader.

I’ll take this opportunity to describe exactly what I’ve been doing around Senator Henry’s office.  I research bills pending before the Tax Subcommittee of Finance, compile all the relevant information into packets, then deliver those packets to Senators on the committee.  It’s fairly time consuming, and done jointly between myself and the other employees in the office.

I also run lots of errands and the like.  One day Lakeshia’s foot was hurt, so I had to do all the legwork for Senator Burk’s office as well.  I don’t mind though, as I find moving about the office buildings much more enjoyable than sitting at my desk.

I make it to a couple committee meetings every week, particularly Finance and General welfare.  Here is a recent clip from Finance, featuring a probing series of questions from Senator Kyle directed at the ethics committee chairman.  The ethics chair is named Bruce Androphy, and he hasn’t exactly made a lot of friends around Legislative Plaza:

I got to see this in person, and the tension was palpable.

I promise to be more diligent on this blog in the future.