Covering the Special Session

I officially went full-time at the radio station and my first assignment was the special legislative session called for by the Governor to address a $272 million budget shortfall. So I go into the first sub-committee meeting, thinking I'm all cool, up at the legislature, and then by about the third hour of talking I am completely confused. I start thinking, oh my gosh, I can't do this, I'm not smart! They use all these abbriviations that you have never heard before, and just when I am about to get frustrated, one of the senators interupts the people presenting and says that he is completely lost, to boil it down for him. Yay! I'm not stupid! I thought that it would be great to cover the legislature and come to know these great representatives of the public, but can I just say that for the most part I really don't like them. In sub-commitees I couldn't believe how disrespectful they are to the people presenting, they cut them off and say things like, I don't care the bill isn't going to pass. The other thing is that most of the legislators are barely listening, they are playing on thier blackberry's or talking to each other. I went to a caucus and I could barely hear the people presenting over the people who are SUPPOSED to be listening! These are the people deciding our laws? I know you can say that most of them have already made up their minds on the bills, but are we so high and mighty that we aren't willing to listen? Heaven forbid they might change their minds. As my sister Marin put it, there are two things you never want to watch getting made, Sausage and Laws.