Happy Birthday Jim Amann, Near-Leap-Year Baby

Thursday February 28, 2008

As we dive into the Leap Year bonus tomorrow, Blog-o-rama realizes that this week’s plethora of activity in the Legislative Office Building means that the session is officially in high gear.
Indeed, next week marks the start of the “JF” season.
Those are the deadlines for “Joint Favorable” votes on bills. While the heavy committees – Judiciary and Appropriations – don’t have to vote until early April, the cavalcade starts on March 6 with the lower-tier select committees on aging, banks and children.
But the Banks Committee has never been more important, what with the state mortgage crisis and all.
Having said that, Blog-o-rama wants to go back a few days, to the House GOP ethics proposals.
During a news conference, House Minority Leader Larry Cafero proposed requiring future political mailers to include information that the material is paid by taxpayers, under the Citizens Election Fund that will take full effect in this year’s General Assembly elections.
Blog-o-rama noted that up in the forth floor of the Capitol, that self-same caucus, AKA the Fightin’ 44, have boxes and boxes of House-minority mailers.
Not only are the boxes stacked like cord wood in the public hallway and are an eyesore, but they have been paid by state taxpayers for years under the rules that allow incumbents to send out seasonal mailers.
Cafero noted the skewering.
Blog-o-rama then asked if he was in a position right then to promise that future House GOP mailings will note that the propaganda is taxpayer-paid.
“That’s a good idea,” Cafero lied politely. When pressed further, Cafero said he’d order the information put on his caucus’s mailers if the Democrats agreed to do the same. Fat chance.
So today, on Speaker of the House Jim Amann’s 52nd birthday, we ask what is the biggest lie casually told in the marble halls of billable hours called the Capitol complex?
“Nice to See You.”
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