Catching up with Congress Matters

Daily Kos Staff

Friday September 18, 2009 · 2:31 PM PDT

2009/09/18 · 14:31

One thing leads to another, you know what I mean?

Congress Matters was actually established on that premise. What I mean is, it was set up to be the place where you could go to get down in the weeds, or follow the twists and turns that explaining one little piece of legislative procedure could sometimes lead you down. And we had a little bit of that today. Let me show you what I mean.

First, I put up our "Catching up with the Senate" round-up. (Catching up is something of a theme with Congress Matters, as you can see.) And in that round-up, I mentioned that Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) had introduced a stupid anti-ACORN bill and was using the Senate's Rule XIV procedure to try to bring it to the floor.

Then I thought I should take the time to show everyone just what Rule XIV was, and how it worked. A newspaper would, if you're lucky, just tell you that the bill was introduced. Maybe mention Rule XIV if they were feeling wonky. But explain Rule XIV and how it works? Never. No way. Only blogs. And really, pretty much only Congress Matters.

So fine, right? Now you know about the stupid ACORN bill and have this new piece of useless knowledge about Rule XIV. Who cares? Well, turns out that there's a relevant and much-talked about reason to know about Rule XIV. Do you know what it is, and to what hot issue it's relevant? You can, if you click over and find out.

And in between the round-up, the wonkery, and bringing it back to practicality (sort of), you can also enjoy:

CA Berkeley WV's "Judges? We Don't Have to Show You No Stinking Judges!"

And Congress Matters' very own Midday open thread (thanks to Casual Wednesday), with links to a bunch of crazy stuff, and everything! Just like kos used to make!

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