Where oh Where Has the Insurgency Gone?

Eiland made an effort before lunch to put Craddick on the spot, asking whether there would be a break for dinner or whether he should order dinner to be brought in. Eiland wasn’t interested in food. He was interested in how long Craddick intended to keep the members in session. When the House blew up on the last night for passing House bills on second reading, a number of members were enjoying libations and were emboldened by same to challenge the chair. Since then, Craddick has been following sound advice that nothing good can happen after 5 p.m. If the House doesn’t meet late on the next two nights, a lot of bills are going to die. Normally the House works late on these nights, but these are not normal times. Craddick is trying to make it to sine die without being removed from the chair, and the less time the House is in session, the less opportunity the insurgency has to remove him. He’s not about to let a bunch of Senate bills stand in his way. If Eiland was trying to light a fuse, it didn’t happen.

This was not a particularly significant moment, except that with each passing day, Craddick has more time to shore up his position and the insurgency loses credibiility, at least on my scorecard. They are making the mistake of fighting over the bones — the next speaker — before they catch the chicken. Where is the urgency in the insurgency?

The members are looking at every nuance as they make up their minds. And the failure of the insurgency to act will not go unnoticed.