An open letter to the Senate President Pro Tempore

Dear Guy who vaguely reminds me of a slightly thinner drew Carey:

Why can you not start your committee on time? Your Agenda's say 9, but here we are at 9:20 and you have yet to start. Has it not occured to you that you've got nine bills in work session? If you were to call your committee to order right now, you would not be able to give each bill even ten minutes.

Also, I wonder: Where is your committee? How do you ever conduct business if you can barely even get a majority of members to show up in the same place? People come and go, never once venturing to take their seats. Flex that gavel arm, chairman, let's get this party started!

Sometimes, a chair will at least get on the mic and say "we're running a little late" or "hey, this meeting's not really going to start until quarter to ten." Or "Screw it, I'm cancelling this and going to smoke a cigar." But not you, you prefer to walk back and forth, in and out of the room, coming and going as if there were nothing about to happen in here.

I must admit, though, you're efficient once you get going. Somehow, even though your counterpart committee starts an hour-and-a-half earlier and has double the number of members, you get done in a speedy fashion. You are on-task once you get going. But please, get started on time.

Love,

dts