VIDEO: Democracy at work in Illinois

[VIDEO] This video of Illinois State Representative Mike Bost has been making its rounds on several blogs especially Newsalert, Capitol Fax, and Chicagoist. Here's a description below:

FINALLY, Illinois State Representative Mike Bost has finally had enough of politics as usual in the State of Illinois and wants to know why they don't READ THE BILL. Bost erupted on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, after Mike Madigan and the party leadership called for a vote on a new pension reform proposal.

House Speaker Mike Madigan had only introduced the bill that same morning. It passed on a six to three vote and moved to the House floor for discussion within a couple of hours.

The bill is hundreds of pages long, and Bost says lawmakers should not be voting on a proposal without first reading it.

Of course we go back to Capitol Fax for some more context:

Here’s an idea: Elect more Republicans, get a majority and then you won’t have to complain so much. Also, most of the rules that Bost is complaining about were put in place by Republicans in 1995, and he voted for them.

But he does have a point that major legislation like this shouldn’t be unveiled at 7:50 in the morning and moved right away, unless, of course, both leaders agree to do it (like they did the last time pension reform was passed), then it’s OK I suppose. Or not. Whatever.

The title of this post is almost facetious. I would often like to think of our leaders as calm, cool, and collected. At the same time since we are in a period of crisis in this state we need some fire and unfortunately there doesn't appear to be enough examples of this. Although we do want to see anger from our leaders hopefully they wouldn't let their potty mouths fly in the heat of a debate!