Busy Season Collides with the Silly Season

For the last three days, the House and Senate have been in Session and as we approach the end of the two year Session, bills are flying back and forth between the Chambers with Committee meetings called hastily from the Floor and bills either hurried onto the voting calendar or buried forever in the Appropriations Committee, ready for action, but never to be seen again.
In a two year Session, thousands of bills are filed. Hundreds get a Committee hearing or Committee vote and mere dozens get to the Floor of the House for a vote. If the bill survives and passes the House, it faces a similar route in the Senate. If the Senate amends the bill, it must come back to the House for approval. Any bill not passed within the two years dies, and if worthy, is resurrected early in the next term to begin the tortuous process all over.
Since we are winding down the voting days, there is a mad scramble to position bills for a vote before the voting calendar ends. With the Democrats in charge of the House by one vote, they hold all of the Committee chairmanships and control the voting calendar in the Committees and on the Floor. Republicans control the Senate. Of course, it's also the "silly season," or election time and that means a political calculus ("How will this bill affect our candidates ? How will it affect theirs?") lurks, unspoken, behind the voting calendar too. On our side, one cannot help but think that if the GOP can pick up a few seats, these decisions would be ours to make. Of course, the other side is thinking the same thing!
Normally cordial bipartisan relations are strained; a meanness takes hold that impedes progress for political ends. Still, in the hallways and behind the scenes comments are overheard; things are repeated; the good guys know each other despite the partisan rancor and hope to see us all back together next term.
After three days like that, it would be a relief to come home and put my feet up. Instead, I go to a fundraiser, a "women's event," designed to showcase how very few women are running for the Statehouse. In Pennsylvania, fewer than 11% of the General Assembly are women --that puts us near the bottom of the fifty states--and a few, like Carole Rubley, are retiring this year. We will miss her.
My own re-election campaign and the hoped for election of Lynne Lechter to the open seat in the Upper Merion/Lower Merion area are points of pride. Lots of pride there for Sarah Palin too, even from those who differ with her on some issues. All of the women in the room can sympathize with someone who has gotten bad news from a teen-aged child and said, "You are mine and I love you anyway. We will get through this". All of the mothers in the room think of our own children. One thing is certain--this perspective that needs to be a part of the public policy debate.