Reality Stranger Than Fiction

With less than two weeks remaining in Texas’ legislative session (140 days every two years, so time is precious), the Texas Legislature is arguing whether or not noodling – the art of fishing with one’s hand, instead of the usual lure and pole – should be legalized. And they’re debating such lofty issues as whether to allow restaurants to remove those posters of how to give the Heimlich maneuver.



The Texas Legislature has not passed a school finance bill (mandatory), a redistricting bill to incorporate the new census numbers (mandatory), or a host of other critically important legislation yet the Texas House and Senate are spending their time debating if “Noodling” should be removed from the list of Class C misdemeanor crimes in Texas.

There are several signals that a special session is imminent (Sen. Finance Chairman Ogden recently said special session “likely”) so it appears that legislators failed in their constitutional duties to pass a budget in the almost five months allotted.



That’s right: members of the legislature failed to agree in the 140 days allotted them by the Texas Constitution on how to pay for Texas’ state services over the next two years so they’ll almost assuredly have a special session this summer – at taxpayer expense - yet they somehow have the time to debate noodling and removing Heimlich posters during the last two weeks of this regular session……sometimes life really is stranger than fiction.