Among the Legislative Executive Board’s diversions yesterday in Pierre was a review of how to make a bill. Here are the flow charts designed by the Legislative Research Council to explain the Legislative process:
It’s not rocket science, but the complexity of the process as depicted here does suggest that voters should elect the smartest people for the job, public servants who can actually explain bills instead of just doing what their party leaders tell them to do.
These flowcharts were part of a discussion of improvements to the bill drafting process. Among potential upgrades under consideration is switching from WordPerfect to Microsoft Word/XML. Really, LRC? You guys haven’t switched to OpenOffice yet? Save the taxpayers a few thousand dollars in licensing fees and go open source!
HEIDELBERGER SAVES STATE MONEY ~ ( Vote Cory – End Of Story)
Q ~ Will this be an open book test, Mr. H.? #SchoolhouseRock
Should check out LibreOffice while you’re at it. It is built on the original OpenOffice code base and seems to be updated and maintained more often, actively, and enthusiastically.
Nobody is accusing the Council of Legislatures to be the most efficient operation out there. These are the fellows who spent hundreds of thousands on a gold drinking fountain that almost nobody uses.
I could advocate LibreOffice, but then Al would run a radio ad saying I’m talking about Che Guevara. 0:-{)
Yet for all the apparent inefficiency of that flowchart, part of me thinks that making sure bills run slowly through the pipes in Pierre has some advantages. Every twist and trap in that plumbing is another pause, another hour, another chance we get to catch legislators in the act and stop bad legislation from passing.
LRC should turn that flowchart into an interactive online map to show where any given bill is at any moment… plus, for fun, a setting allowing us to plot every bill at once and show the general state of the Legislature’s digestive system.
Yes, the LRC should have an interactive online map showing us the bowels of the legislatures and where all the law bills are on that chart.
Mr. H, that’s probably your best idea yet.
Hey! When they build this new fancy computer and ask people for input, let us all tell them we want the interactive bowel map!
interactive bowel map—I knew that would appeal to voters who think with their stomachs first. Pass the gravy….