Hecate:
Thanks very much for the relatively jargon -free Insider Budget Briefing Alert. I’m using it to explain to my 7th graders how the guys up at the State House in Boston decide things. Frankly, I’m horrified that the real decisions are made in literally a back room, and the public is not able to even watch and listen. When did this all start? When I interned at the State Senate 12 years ago, it took three weeks sometimes to get the budget through the House, while the Senate took a full week of debate – line item by line item.
Disgusted in Dorchester
Hecate says:
About 5 years ago the House developed these rules hoping to create a more inclusive and transparent process to the Members themselves. The Senate used to call in "bundling" in your day. (Remember the two piles named ought to pass or ought not to pass on the last night of the Senate Debate?)
Those three week debates in the House, Monday through Friday from 11:00 am to 11:00 pm, finishing up with an all night session on the last Friday before a long weekend, were tests of endurance and stamina and little more.
The leadership still convened caucuses (caucii?) in the Speaker's office, or the Majority Leader's office with a few selected Members trying to achieve some kind of consensus about how to handle major controversial issues like local aid and taxes, while all the rank and file Members debated proposed amendments to individual line items on the Floor. The Republicans were always ready to debate endlessly the smallest increase in a line item and the smallest cut.
These new rules do open the caucuses up to all the members and do provide some transparency on leadership decisions, and do force individual Members to participate in the caucus system or stop complaining about closed door leadership decisions.
Who is Hecate?
Hecate is a Greek Goddess who served as a guide and coach at the crossroads of Hades, where after crossing the River Styx, Greek souls found themselves facing three choices: the Elysian Fields, abode of the great and heroic; the Fields of Asphodel, for all who had led a blameless but ordinary life; or to Tartarus, a sunless land of punishment for criminals.
Hecate's best known role in Greek mythology was guiding Persephone, the goddess of spring, on her annual journeys between Hades and Earth. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Hecate is portrayed as a nurturing and protective guide for Persephone on those annual journeys.
