No where in the legislature is our power as legislators more evident than on the Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee. There more than anywhere we are like godzilla-sided toddlers roaming across the landscape of government, too tall to see the detail of what's below, too big to look in the windows and figure out through the course of a year what's really going on. We rely on staff and I picture them some days like all too generous parents, gently trying to keep us from doing damage while providing us with everything we need in order to do what we will do each day.
With a single motion we can unexpectedly lay people off as we did with the office of species conservation last week. In my pink onesies I burped out the final deciding yes vote and they were gone.
With a single motion we can build a bit of a fervor around something and kill a whole agency as we did with the women's commission this morning. The $23,000 agency is gone. I was the only Democrat to vote yes for getting rid of it. My reasons were very different from my colleagues who claimed budget constraints and duplication. I voted to eliminate the Women's Commission because it is an absurd joke to expect a $23,000 agency with one part-time staff person to achieve pay equity and end disparities in the status of women in Idaho. Ending inequalities is not supposed to be like playing house. I don't think we as a legislature should get to put forward this agency to help us pretend this state government really cares.