Uber-Powerful Senior Senators Lament Sudden Powerlessness, In Face Of Pompous and “Dominating” Freshman Class
Thatcher Moats has a very interesting and in many ways a very funny piece up in the Times Argus today, slugged, “New Vermont Senators Dominate The Floor.” The premise is two-fold: 1) that the freshman class ignored the traditional newbie’s injunction to silence and actually debated issues as they arose, and 2) that in so doing, freshman “dominated” or effectively silenced senior figures in the Senate. That’s comic enough, for anyone who pays even slight attention to the way the Senate operates, or at whose direction it operates.
But the funniest line of all comes from the Senator from Essex-Orleans, Vince Illuzzi. Said Vince to Thatcher, “It’s unusual to have freshmen get up and talk on so many issues. It was primarily the first-term senators who took up most of the time on the floor.”
Now look, people generally regard Illuzzi as an ultra-canny dealmaker, and a past master of Senate procedure, someone with something potentially make-or-break to say about most any bill on most any subject. But few people realize how genuinely funny the guy can be.
Most of the time on the floor. That’s just comedy gold.
on May 25th, 2011 at 12:49 am
[…] Another perspective on the “Runaway Freshman” story we ran down last week: Vermont Edition did a very nice hour on the experiences of three first-time Senators, folks who had never served in the Statehouse before. The episode was titled “Frosh,” and host Bob Kinzel walks Anthony Pollina, Joe Benning and VDB through the best of the session, and the worst of the session. Here’s the audio if you’re interested in giving it a listen. […]