Cottleston Pie

I'll skip the long sad story about why there is a third special legislative session in-progress in Texas right now. There is one important issue upon the table: re-districting. The legislature also conducts other business as it has time.

Stopping home for lunch a day or so ago, I turned on the local access cable and watched bills being referred to committee. There were many non-bills, including a bunch of bills of congratulation: one about a woman's 80th birthday, another about the 85th anniversary of a scout troop, and another for a military academy graduate upon this graduation.

Ignoring for a second that this session should never have been called in the first place, does our government have nothing better to do? Texas has enormous budget woes on every level, a number of cities with very poor air quality (at or near nonattainment), a mess of a system for education funding, and a mess of a "Constitution" (second longest in the nation; it needs to be re-written and the bulk of it should be removed to normal statutes). When that scout troop is 125 years old, if any of these problems are better, it will certainly be of no thanks to the work of this legislature.