How I Spent My Legislative Session...

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that I was never as politically astute as a lot of my contemporaries growing up in Woodward.  I was always too busy reading the liner notes on albums to care whether or not the state legislature of Oklahoma was actually getting anything done.  Or, for that matter, why tying increased funding for education to a little known bill that provides behemoth tax incentives to professional wrestlers and professional bass fishermen was at once politically savvy and just so wrong, but I digress.

My point in exposing my tattered credentials as a political groupie is that I readily acknowledge that I may be missing something, but… 

Has anyone else noticed that many state legislators (and not just in Oklahoma) seem to be a bunch of woefully undereducated bullies bent on pushing a personal agenda while keeping their hands deep inside the pockets of various lobbyists, industry giants, and/or snake oil salespeople?  Whew, there, I said it.  I feel better now.  Or, am I painting too broad a brush here? 

As an example, there is the state representative from Idaho who was recently in the news for making a really dumb comment during a hearing on a bill that would ban doctors from prescribing abortion-inducing meds through telemedicine, which is to say a physician conducting a remote exam of a patient. 

The lawmaker was grilling a physician (yep, a real live doctor), who had provided telemedicine services to patients in Idaho, about the efficacy and practice of telemedicine.  The doctor was describing a procedure in which a colonoscopy patient might swallow a small device to give the doctors a closer, remote look at the inside of their colon. 

The intrepid representative asked the Doc, “Can this same procedure then be done in a pregnancy?  Swallowing a camera and helping the doctor determine what the situation is?”

The stunned doctor responded that the scenario described would be impossible since things that are swallowed don’t generally end up in the vagina.

The legislator responded with, “Fascinating.  That makes sense.”

Really?  Of course, he backpedaled when later pressed by the media about the comment.  He said that he was being rhetorical.  Hmmm, bet he had a staffer feed him that word. 

After reading that piece, I began to think of some of the bat-sh*t crazy antics we hear and read about Oklahoma legislators doing.  Since I lack much in the way of political wherewithal, I figured to give our state pols the benefit of the doubt.  As I saw it, after an entire year of dealing with some of the nuts in the state capitol, I’d be bat-sh*t crazy too!

But then, I stumbled upon some very interesting information that I did not know.  First and foremost is that the state legislation is only in session for less than six months of the year.  They break around May and don’t come back until after the New Year.  AND, they get paid $38,400 for that time.  That’s a decent wage for not really accomplishing anything substantive.   AND, apparently, they’re immune from arrest for criminal misdemeanors. 

They’re living the dream, I’m telling you!!!

That’s when I began to think of the state legislature as a welfare society for underemployed or unemployable people.  I’m sure there are a lot of smart people in state legislatures everywhere and that we only hear about the dumbasses. But, I kept telling myself that surely the smart guys would rise above the dumbasses and save the day. 

But, then I realized, eh...not so much.

It appears that no matter how well-intentioned you are when you arrive at the state capitol to earn your $38,400 salary, you eventually fall prey to the aforementioned lobbyists and snake-oil salespersons.  You get involved in cutting deals that include trying to push the bat-sh*t crazy legislation through so you can get your own (possibly legitimate) legislation pushed to a vote.

Where does that end?  Time is wasted on the bat-sh*t crazy legislation…even if it doesn’t make it to the floor for a vote.  Time that could have been better used to get something substantive done.  And, now it’s gone until the next session when the bat-sh*t crazies will come out again.