More reflections on the House Budget mess

With a few weeks to reflect on the craziness that was the House Budget process, I'm still impressed by the dramatic shifts in direction and willingness to spend millions on pet projects, while simultaneously refusing to budge on a bipartisan plan to help 35,000 working poor parents gain access to health care (without costing the state a dime).

As the session wrapped up, I spoke with a number of House members to get their takes on the legislature's recent work. In most all of the discussions, the revised stimulus spending bill (HB22) came up as key example of the dangerous and foolish ideological stands by House leaders, the shameless violations of House rules to push through bad legislation, and inconsistent and confusing leadership from Speaker Ron Richard and Floor Leader Steve Tilley. 

*The Ron Richard clip at the end is from a two-part series on the Speaker broadcast by KODE on May 11 and 12.