The RPM Challenge - Big Ball O' Bullshit

Big Ball O' Bullshit

Tuesday, 27 May 2008

For those that don't know:

Texas legislation works like this:

1) The job pays about $18K a year

2) It meets for 3 months every other year

There's a reason for this. It means you can't support yourself being a TX senator or rep. You also just have to be able to leave your job and head to Austin for the three months at a time. In other words, you have to already by independently weatlhly to represent Texas.

Well, the Texas State Board of Education voted Friday on the new English standard. This is the the standards teachers will use to teach English. It's been in the works for three years with the teachers proposing one document and a hired consulting firm proposing another. Friday was the big vote on which to adopt.

Here's what happened. Less then an hour before the vote a NEW document was slipped under the hotel room doors of the reps. When they went to the meeting the chair said "we will not discuss the new document we all have a copy, let's vote". They ended up having a short dicussion with many reps realizing there was no way for the "people" (you know the ones they are supposed to represent) to have a chance to give any input on this brand new document that just replaced three years of work.

You guess it -- it passed.

Just letting you all know so you'll know what you're smelling when you head south.

Comments (4)

1 Written by Sister Savage, on 05-27-2008 17:19
Yes. I can see how that's quite crap.

On the other hand, we currently have a Prime Minister that NOBODY elected.

2 jeez.
Written by Tuesday(is a girl), on 05-28-2008 10:47
that IS a big ball o'.

when i grow up i want to be independently wealthy. *hmph*

3 Politics
Written by Endicott Road, on 05-28-2008 20:55
I'm not surprised that this happened. I could go on at length, but I'll make this mercifully short. Democracy? For whom?
ER

4 It happens all the time on a federal lev
Written by Alternate Modes of Underwater, on 06-02-2008 06:02
They smuggle all the juicy stuff into the fine-print of a piece of legislation at the last second so legislators don't have a chance to read it.

The trick is to do it with a piece of legislation that is needed, where it would be a major blow to delay passing it.

For instance, if you have an important economic stimulus package that MUST be passed, they'll slip in the "mandatory to kill all babies" legislation somewhere in the middle, and it will still pass.

The RIAA is notorious for paying off Senators to do this sort of thing for them.

It shouldn't be allowed - it's a joke to the entire legislative process.