A Full-Time Waste

This has been another week where I have to wonder if it is really necessary to have a full-time Legislature.  Now that the biennial budget work is done, Legislators are free to tackle the really important issues...like designating Aaron Rodgers Day--and honoring the inventor of the Cheesehead.

Like many great pieces of legislation, Aaron Rodgers Day rose up from a "concern" by a citizen.  A woman in Stevens Point started a Facebook page demanding that 12-12-12 honor the Packers quarterback.  A lawmaker was alerted to the Facebook page and thought "Celebrating the jersey number of Aaron Rodgers should create thousands of jobs--we need to do this!!"  Would it be possible to set up a Facebook page demanding a crackdown on Wisconsin Food Share fraud?  http://www.jsonline.com/watchdog/watchdogreports/120550974.html

By the way, as a Steelers fan, I will celebrate 12-12-12 as Terry Bradshaw Day (four Super Bowl titles to one for Mr Rodgers).

And then because there were no other problems to deal with in the state, the Legislature passed a resolution honoring the inventor of the Cheesehead.  Now I don't know about you--but the Cheesehead as "Symbol of Wisconsin Pride" is actually "Symbol of Wisconsin Embarassment".  Believe me, the people watching sports in other states aren't laughing with us when the TV shows fat, shirtless guys with a cheesehead on.

The most outrageous example of lawmakers with too much time on their hands came from Senator Glenn Grothman who wants to list single parenting as a "cause of child abuse".  Really?  We're going to go there in this political climate?  Alienating about one-third of all Wisconsin households as "child abusers" should make things real easy for Republicans later this year.

As I have mentioned before, there are Legislators that have actual jobs outside of Madison.  And I think you will find that they tend to be the least hard-line in their partisanship--and the most productive in their legislation.  That's probably because they actually are in touch with their constitutents and only have time to concetrate on what is important for Wisconsin--not just things to justify their full-time salaries.