Has anyone else noticed how innocuous the daily House calendars have been? General State is short and filled with bills of little consequence; debate proceeds at a snail’s pace, maybe six bills covered in a day. Major State is primarily for Sunset bills.
I do not believe this is happening by chance. It is the strategy of the leadership. The last thing the Straus team wants is a lot of vigorous debate between R’s and D’s and long lines at the back microphone, nor do they want want to give the tea party members anything to get riled up about. So the calendars will continue to be boring and inoccuous under the watchful eye of Calendars chair Todd Hunter. I’m not guessing about this; I aired my suspicions to a Straus insider and got an affirmative answer. No long calendars. No contentious bills that could blow up the session. No chance for the tea party freshmen to do their thing. Let’s just get the hell out of Dodge. That’s the plan, man.
