The light at the end of the tunnel...

...has been obscured by a cloud of dark, rancid, billowing smoke. And I can't see a thing.

This is a somewhat dramatic description of what the remainder of my week looks like, but at the moment it feels fairly accurate.

It's that time of year...the last few weeks of session. I checked my timesheet from the last two weeks and it was a little painful (with a few exceptions, thankfully):

M - 8:25am-5:10pm
T - 8:10am-6:45pm*
W - 8:10am-6:10pm*
Th - 7:55am-7pm*
Fri - 7:15am-3pm (We had an 8am hearing that morning...ugh. Still works out to almost 8 hours, but at least I had time to go home and take a nap afterwards!)


M - 8:05am-7:05pm*
T - 8:05am-6:45pm*
W - 8:05am-7:05pm*
Th - 8:05am-3:05pm (again...nap time! Also Ready Player One at the IMAX later that night with Matt and Sam.)
Fri - Closed for Easter (Thank God!)


When we get near the end of session, the Speaker of the Legislature schedules "late nights," which means the Legislature will be in session from anywhere between 5pm and 11:59pm.** Most of those nights they debated until 9:30pm-10pm, except for the night they were in session until 11:42pm, which is the latest I can remember.

I am fortunate that I don't have to stay until they adjourn. My coworkers have a couple of nights, either because there was a bill up they needed to assist with or they were working on a project that was needed for the next day. It's one of the reasons why I would never want to be a legislative aide. I can't imagine working until 10pm and then having to be back at 8am.

The last two weeks we had three late nights a week, with a shortened day on the last work day of the week (which was a Thursday last week, because we had Friday off for Easter). As each day went by, everyone understandably became more tired, cranky...and by Thursday moods were foul enough for things to get very personal and a bit destructive on the legislative floor.

It was not pretty.

This week we have four...count 'em, four!...late nights scheduled. I get it, I get it. We are swiftly running out of time before session ends (official last day is April 18th) and there's still a lot that needs to get done. But I am genuinely afraid of what the atmosphere will be like on Friday. We lucked out today and made it all the way through the agenda by about 6pm. I ended up staying till a little after 7pm prepping for a bill that's second on the agenda tomorrow...and one of my coworkers was still working diligently when when I left (UPDATE: she was here until 8:30pm and came in at 6am this morning!).

Tomorrow has the propensity to be hellacious - we have an 8am meeting and then a bunch of contentious bills on the agenda, which means they will be working late for sure. I'm going guess...9:45pm. No...10:30pm. Betcha they go to 10:30pm.

So spare us a prayer, when you think of it. It's going to be a rough ride. 😨


~ Katie


*Designated late nights.

** Normally they adjourn by 5pm. And the Legislature has to adjourn by 11:59pm. I can't remember if it's in statute or just a legislative rule, but they literally can't go any longer...with the only caveat being they could adjourn at 11:59pm and then reconvene for the "next day" at 12:01am. I have yet to see that happen.