The Minutiae of Government

We’re coming up on the end of this legislaive session. You can tell, just by looking at our agenda.

The Legislature sets its two-year schedule in January of each odd-numbered year. We’re in session this week, and next week, and the week after that. Then we’ll be back for a few more weeks in April and May (for a limited calendar) and…that’s it, unless we’re called into session the last couple days in December.

End-of-session agendas fill up with the minutiae of government. There will be a few highlights – the Taxpayer Protection Amendment, we hope, will land on an agenda between now and May. Medical malpractice caps, preventing illegal aliens from obtaining drivers’ licenses.

Other than that, well, take a look down the agenda we’re considering today:


Removing a requirement that schools report student absences to the state (because that information is already collected elsewhere), and adding a requirement that schools report the number of hours of instruction;

Specifying when a school bus must activate its warning lights to load and unload passengers;

Details of nonprobate transfers of real property;

Technical changes in the way school districts have to mail copies of reorganization orders.

The minutiae of government.
Granted, there are a few more interesting (some would say more important) items on our agenda today: resolutions honoring Coretta Scott King, and two Wisconsin servicemen. A bill to allow school districts to fire employees with felony convictions – that could be controversial.

And it’s not that minutiae doesn’t make it onto the agenda earlier in the session – it does. Never so much as near the end of session, though. Over the next several weeks, we’ll have a flurry of activity – the Legislature will scramble to put seemingly minor bills on the agenda, whether or not those bills have any chance of being signed into law.

This is what the Legislature does – we deal with the rules of the game. More to the point: we change the rules of the game.

For example:

Twenty-two players are on the field during a football game. The game lasts one hour on the clock – more like three in real life. Seven offensive players have to line up on the line of scrimmage before a play – no more, no less. A touchdown is worth six points, a field goal three, and an extra point one.

We don’t question those rules – those are simply the rules. Every now and then, the NFL will consider a major rule change, like allowing the coach to challenge a ruling on the field.

Much more often, they tinker with things. They’ve tinkered with the challenge rules ever since it was enacted. They tinker with pass interference. They make minor changes to the rules.

That’s what the Legislature does – sometimes we make a big change, or try to. Much of the time, we tinker with the minutiae.


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Lasee’s Notes is a weekly column by Representative Frank Lasee, 2nd Assembly District, covering events in the Legislature and statewide.