Last week was rather routine in the General Assembly, at least on the surface. But if you read between the lines of Delegate Mike McDermott’s weekly field notes, you can find some interesting observations.
It starts right up with the hearing on HJ12, a resolution co-sponsored by McDermott and fellow Eastern Shore Delegate Michael Smigiel. First of all, this is just a resolution – there is no attempt to change any law here and the sum total of the actions called for would be the redress of grievances to our Congressional delegation. But only 6 of the 20-plus members of the Rules and Executive Nominations Committee could be bothered to show up, according to McDermott.
However, as I recall from my work on the monoblogue Accountability Project, the Rules Committee is a second committee some serve on along with other work. (That’s why I don’t have any of their votes on the mAP, because their three committee votes are covered elsewhere.) So there’s probably some good reason that many Delegates didn’t attend the hearing; moreover, this isn’t a complex bill. Hopefully the bill will get a committee vote, though, so it will be on the record who supports this rebuke and who does not.