We are halfway through the session now, so today we are doing a little dance that we call “crossover”. Crossover refers to the switching of bills from one side of the legislature to the other. So far in the Session, the Senate has been working only on Senate Files and the House has been focusing on House Bills.

(Why are bills in the Senate called files? I do not know why, but they always have been. Does anybody have the answer? )

This will be the last day for third reading for bills in the original house. Third reading is the final vote on a bill in a particular house. The Senate has 34 Senate Files for the final vote today. The House has 26 bills on third reading and another 15 on second reading…meaning that the latter House Bills still will need a final vote in the House tomorrow.

After today in the Senate we will only be working on House Bills and after tomorrow, the House will be taking appropriate care of some of our fine Senate Files. There is a lot of joking in each chamber that we do not have to work as hard now because it is only a “House Bill” or vice versa.

The workload after crossover is typically harder on the Senate and easier on the House because of the number of bills from both houses. When you think that the House has 60 members and the Senate 30 members, you begin to get the picture. Add to this the fact that Senators have a three bill limit during a budget session. The 3 bill restriction does not apply to Representatives.

There are lots of jokes about which house works harder during the session. The Senators are by and large a bit older than the Representatives and on occasion we have been accused of not being overly industrious. Now on this, I cry fowl. Senators do work very hard, especially if we are able to get in our naps after lunch. I will confess that there really has been a few times when a Senator has fallen asleep on the floor.

The workload issue sometimes flairs as a real issue. As the session progresses stress builds and tempers may flair. A particular hard day is the day known as “the last day for a bill to be heard in the second house.” If a bill does not get heard by the second house by the close of this day, it is dead. And the person in each house who controls the agenda of bills being heard is the Majority Floor Leader. It is a dramatic moment when the Majority Floor Leader cuts off debate on this last day for a bill to be heard in the Session. A long list of bills may be left stranded when the Majority Floor Leader stands to address the Chairman and say “Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee of the Whole Rise and Report.” These words kill every bill left on the list to be considered.

One year the Senate Majority Floor Leader did not like the House Bills stuck on the bottom of the list to be considered on the last day so he made the motion to rise and report a little early, killing quite a few House Bills. Several of us used the early adjournments to cruise over and see what the House was doing to our files. This was a bad idea.

As more and more Senators showed up at the House, it was obvious that the Senate had adjourned. The House Majority Floor Leader and the Representatives got a little upset. An announcement was made that “Here the good Representatives are hard at work on Senate Files and the Senators have stopped working early, killing all of our House Bills left.” The House soon adjourned as well, giving the same treatment to a bunch of Senate Files.

There was a reception that night, and the members of both houses were tired, grumpy and ready to go home.