The Thicket at State Legislatures

Boondoggle: An Innocent Humble Craft

by Karl Kurtz

In "One Person's Boondoggle, Another's Necessity," the New York Times' Michael Cooper explains the derivation of a term that now connotes wasteful governmental projects:

Before it became a bad word, “boondoggle” was an innocent, humble craft. It was the Boy Scouts of America who claimed credit for coining the word, to refer to the plaited leather lanyards that they made and wore around their necks.

That all changed on April 3, 1935, at a hearing in New York City on how New Deal relief money was being spent. A Brooklyn crafts teacher reluctantly testified that he was paid to show the jobless how to make “boon doggles.” The outcry was swift. “$3,187,000 Relief is Spent to Teach Jobless to Play,” trumpeted a front-page headline the next day in The New York Times. “ ‘Boon Doggles’ Made.”

A new, more sinister meaning was born, and the word came to signify government make-work, later referring to wasteful government projects in general. Critics used it to criticize scores of projects, but President Franklin D. Roosevelt took a longer view. “If we can boondoggle ourselves out of this Depression,” Roosevelt said, “that word is going to be enshrined in the hearts of the American people for years to come.”

William Safire's Political Dictionary says that H.L. Mencken is the one who tracked this term back to the Boy Scouts.  But Safire also offers an alternative derivation that was first reported to the New York Times in 1935 by a man who had told the city's Board of Aldermen that "he was paid for teaching 'boondoggles.'  Boon doggles is simply a terrm applied back in the pioneer days to what we call gadgets today...no, it is not named for Daniel Boone...it is spelled differently."

Whatever the origin of the phrase, Cooper's article nicely explains that government projects that are often derided from a distance--like current controversies over federal economic stimulus projects for an airport on an island in Alaska, a skateboard park in Rhode Island and tunnel for turtles in Florida--are viewed as popular and valuable in their local communities.  He delves into the history of some Depression-era WPA projects that were derided at the time but have had long and useful lives.

The article concludes:

Robert D. Leighninger Jr., a sociologist who wrote “Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal” (South Carolina University Press, 2007), recounted the story of a Works Progress Administration official in Arizona who went off in search of boondoggles, and discovered that the towns he visited seemed to like their own projects but questioned those of their neighbors.

“I’ve been hunting all over the state for one, but everywhere I go I’m told it’s in the next county,” the official was quoted as saying in a 1936 newspaper article. “So far I haven’t been able to catch up with a real, live one.”

“Chubbing”: Gone Fishing in the Texas House

by Karl Kurtz

During the last few weeks of Texas' legislative session, minority Democrats in the House of Representatives engaged in a practice known in Austin as "chubbing"—a delay tactic, similar to a filibuster, in which legislators talk at length on every item on the calendar in order to prevent action on a later bill on the calendar. The tactic was aimed at killing a voter i.d. bill that had passed the Senate. This practice caught the attention of The New York Times in "The Talk, and the Talk, and the Talk, of Austin," which focuses on the substance and politics of the issue.

But I'm more interested in adding "chubbing" to my inventory of legislative lingo and finding out the derivation of the term. The Times story doesn't help me with that.

Texas Rep. Aaron Peña has written about "The Art and Etymology of Chubbing" in his prolific blog. He speculates variously that the term comes from the chub fish, which is known for its large mouth, prodigious eating habits, and fattiness, all characteristics that Rep. Peña relates to the "excessive talking that occurs in legislative chubbing."

He goes on, though, to suggest that chubbing may more generally relate to "going fishing," which is "a slow, methodical and patient art" that mirrors "the slow methodical pacing of the lazy passage of time while filibustering." Yet another Peña hypothesis is that "since 1558 the term chub was used metaphorically to describe a "lazy person". This act of legislative chubbing can be described as "taking a lazy or slow approach to asking questions."

In short, while all of Peña's ideas seem plausible, nobody really seems to know where the term comes from. As Gritsforbreakfast concludes in a comment on Peña's blog posting, "It's a phrase propagated for an obscure parliamentary act by one of the most rarified [sic] and exclusive subcultures on the planet - the Texas House of Representatives."

Photo credit: Fishing 4 Fun

Anniversary of the Gerrymander

by Karl Kurtz

This message arrived today on NCSL's redistricting listserv from Kim Brace at Election Data Services, Inc.:

Happy Anniversary to all those involved in redistricting:

On this date in 1812 - Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signs a redistricting law that favors his party — giving rise to the term "gerrymandering."

The shape of the legislative district that Gov. Gerry supported resembled a salamander.  Here is Wikipedia's etymology of the word:

Printed in 1812, this political cartoon illustrates the electoral districts drawn by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the incumbent Democratic-Republican party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists, from which the term gerrymander is derived. The cartoon depicts the bizarre shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts as a dragon. The painter, Gilbert Stuart, likened it to a salamander, and the editor, Benjamin Russel, advised "Better say a Gerrymander." The name stuck.

Sine Die Traditions

by Meagan Dorsch

Each year, our NCSL contributors to the Thicket work hard to post a Sine Die (scroll down if you hit this link) for each legislature as it goes dark.

This morning, I noticed an article posted by Dan Petty at Stateline.org. Dan had a little fun with his Sine Die piece, delving into the traditions state legislatures have for the final day of session. 

Our own Karl Kurtz wrote an article on Sine Die and other Vulgarities, where you can find a great list of legislative localisms (this is also one of the most googled article in the Thicket).

Please enjoy both pieces when you have some time, and let us know of any other (Sine Die) traditions that your state might celebrate!

Safire's Political Dictionary

by Karl Kurtz

The new 2008 edition of William Safire's Political Dictionary, first published in 1968, is a great resource for political junkies--legislative or otherwise--and just plain fun reading.  Here are three things I learned from a randomly selected page:

• hizzoner--This jocular word/phrase likely to be applied to any big city mayor first became popular in New York in reference to Fiorello H. La Guardia.  Chicago added its own twist when Mayor Richard Daley (the first one) came to be called "Hizzoner duh Mare."
• Hobson's choice--I had always thought that this referred to any difficult political choice involving a tradeoff and that it was probably derived from some obscure philosopher.  But no, Safire says that Hobson's choice in politics only refers to a situation in which you vote for one candidate or do not vote at all and that it is improper to use it to refer to a general political dilemma.  And it is derived not from philosophy but from a 16th century stable owner in London, Tobias Hobson, who required that all customers who wanted a horse could take only the one closest to the stable door.  By this means he could assure equal use of each horse.  "From whence it became a proverb, when what ought to be your election was forced upon you, to say Hobson's Choice," in the words of Sir Richard Steele in The Spectator, No. 509.

Delawarisms

by Karl Kurtz

Body Parts People. A collection of organizations like the heart association, lung association and cancer society that join forces to lobby for health measures, such as the smoking ban. Their selling point is their virtuousness, which is second only to Mom and apple pie.

Leg Hall. Legislative Hall [photo], the center of Delaware's political universe in Dover. Its shorthand name is pronounced the way the Body Parts People would.

These are two of the delightful legislative localisms you can learn about by reading Delaware Grapevine's "Legislative Lingo."  Many of the terms in this article, like "just housekeeping," "player" or "wired," are not localisms but part of legislative parlance everywhere.  But many others like "body parts people," "Big Head," or "Thurman's office" are unique to legislative life in Dover.  We're delighted to add these to our own collection of legislative localisms.

We continue to welcome readers' contributions of their own legislative lingo.

The Well of the House

by Karl Kurtz

The information request of the day at NCSL is, What is the origin of "the well of the house?"  Legislative junkies know that the "well" is a term that many legislatures use for the area in front of the speaker's rostrum from which members address the chamber, as shown in this photo of the U.S. House of Representatives.  (Some senates also refer to the well but less often than houses, because the smaller size of senates means that members often speak from their own desks.)  But where does the term come from?

I began researching this issue by looking in dictionaries. Interestingly, none of the unabridged dictionaries that I checked give a definition of "well" that relates to a legislative chamber.  Googling "the well of the house" generates lots of references to the term, including a nice description and photo from Arkansas and this musical note from Pennsylvania: "Leopold Stokowski once conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra from the well of the House."  But Google doesn't produce an online dictionary definition of "well" that mentions legislative chambers, much less any clues as to its derivation.

The closest thing to a dictionary definition of "well" that relates to legislatures comes from the Oxford English Dictionary (the full version that I have at home and have to read with a magnifying glass, not the online compact version), which provides one meaning of the word as "The space on the floor of a law court (between the judge's bench and the last row of seats occupied by counsel) where the solicitors sit."  That's pretty close to the legislative version of "well."

I consulted with John Phelps, former clerk of the Florida House, and Alfred (Butch) Speer, clerk of the Louisiana House, about this question.  Together we have some ideas but no definitive answer to the question.  John said that he had once asked the U.S. Architect of the Capitol this question and was told that they had nothing in their files on the origin of the term.  So here is our speculation.

An Alternative Definition of Sine Die

by Karl Kurtz

In a previous post, Sine Die and Other Vulgarities, I used Pennsylvania's curious use of the term "sine die session," meaning the lame duck session that it holds after every biennial election, as a jumping off point for a discussion of legislative localisms--terms that are unique to a single legislature.

In a story in Stateline.org, the head of a conservative Pennsylvania think tank that opposes lame duck sessions has a new definition of sine die: “The most common question I get is, ‘What does sine die mean?’ I always tell people it’s Latin for ‘Screw the taxpayers.’”

Criticism of Pennsylvania's regularly scheduled post-election session results from an unusually large number of lame duck legislators who were defeated in primaries or are not running for reelection.  Even before the general election, which could wound the wings of a few more incumbents, 49 of 253 (19%) legislators will not be returning.  Critics say that allowing them to make decisions in a session after the election removes an element of accountability that having to stand for the next election brings to the legislative process.

One of the lame ducks, Rep. Mark MacNaughton (R), who is offended at questions about his accountability counters with, “Lawmakers are elected to do a job, and they’re going to do that job until they leave office.”

For my take on this issue, continue reading after the jump.

Sine Die and Other Vulgarities

by Karl Kurtz

In almost every legislature in the United States, to "adjourn sine die" marks the formal ending of a biennial legislative session.  In common legislative parlance the word "adjourn" is often left out, and the Latin phrase, which literally means without a day, is turned into a verb, as in "We will probably sine die on Friday."  It is almost always pronounced SIGH-nee dye, which Wikipedia refers to as a "vulgar but accepted" pronunciation, as opposed to the more proper SIN-nay DEE-ay.

Now comes an AP story, Reform advocates criticize lame-duck session for Pa. lawmakers, that brings to light a new, and as far as I know unique, meaning of the term.  In Pennsylvania, the session that regularly occurs after elections in November but before the new legislature is seated on December 1 every other year is referred to as the sine die session.

This adds to my collection of legislative localisms--phrases that are used in only one or two states but not universally.  Here are a few more of them: