Moriah's Day 2... and the State Budget!

Today the state budget was passed! And I got to be on the floor of the house for the whole thing.  Pretty interesting stuff.   The only problem is this: basically, the majority party has SUCH a huge majority that the minority caucus had virtually no chance of getting any of its amendments added to the budget.  All of them except one were tabled, which is basically just a backdoor way of letting it die away without having to take an actual "yes" or "no" vote on the amendment.  Session was long today -- we started around 1 (we were supposed to start at 11, but the majority caucus called a recess to discuss an issue they were having trouble getting the votes for), and didn't get out until around 9 or 9:30.  I've been asking my boss lots of questions about everything, because some of the amendments have unusual abbreviations I'm not familiar with, and things are making much more sense to me as time goes on.  The unusual thing about session is that after the first two hours or so, lots of people don't really pay much attention anymore.  I'm not talking about people watching from the gallery, though… I'm talking elected representatives.  Everybody starts getting bored and losing their attention spans once session gets too long, and they'll talk to the people next to them about things either relevant or completely irrelevant to the bill in question, until somebody brings up a particularly interesting amendment.  Then, all the members will quiet down, go back to their chairs, and listen.  It's funny how we expect them to be these crazy people who sit at attention and argue about the bill for days on end, but they only argue about a few things as it goes on;  for a large part of the time, they sit around goofing off, checking their texts or emails on their blackberries, etc.  It's strange.  Just an interesting observation.