Legislative Bingo - The story behind the story

By Mike Madrid

This morning the Sacramento Bee ran a story about lawmakers playing a silly game on the floor of the legislature called "legislative bingo." The game goes something like this: a lobbyist, staffer or another legislator gives another lawmaker a "word", usually a very arcane word that has little or no bearing on anything related to the legislative process. The lawmaker who is given the word then has the challenging task of incorporating the word or phrase into his or her floor speech when arguing for or against a bill. Sounds harmless enough, and it is, but imagine the frivolity that ensues when words like: Darth Vader, Woody Woodpecker, Gorgonzola and 'leather and lace' begin to make their way into the record of public debate on pressing issues like health care, water issues and education.

A brief history is in order to set the context of how this game came to pass. Like many a good idea, funny or otherwise, this 'game' did not come about in the legislature or through the creativeness of a lobbyist or staffer in the capitol.  No, it's origins came about during the Gore vs. Bush recount following the 2000 Presidential election...

While every television camera in the western world was focused on Broward County, hanging chads, and disenfranchised voters a few curious things happened. First, this landmark event essentially marked the beginning of the irrelevant 24 hour political news cycle. That is, political reporters and station editors knew they had to cover something political around the clock even though there was often nothing to report. Second, for the first time (and perhaps the only time since) political talking heads were at a premium - that is, there were not enough "political experts" to opine about circumstances they were unprepared to cover. Suddenly,a handful of professional political consultants were getting calls from CNN, FOX News, MSNBC and all the broadcast networks to weigh in. But again, in the political business you don't have to know much - just a bit more than the other guy to be an expert.

Not long after, every political operative in the country's chattering class had had their 15 minutes of fame.  As each day passed, it became increasingly apparent that the recount was still going to last a few weeks if not months. Reporters, sensing that viewers nationwide were expecting the latest developments in the "constitutional crisis", started to get nervous.

Political consultants were more than happy to fill the void and share their brilliance with a riveted nation. But, even for the most seasoned political consultant, there is only so much brilliance one can share on a situation that the country has never experienced before, and even less when it requires actually reading the constitution. 

Now, obviously the stakes were huge here, but at its core this stuff was boring. Kind of like the end of the legislative session. In fact there are a lot of similarities: the end of a campaign and the end of the legislative session are really the best times to see overpaid folks in thousand dollar suits panicked, groveling and pretending like they have control over a situation when they really have no idea what the hell is going on or how to influence the outcome.

At some point a mischievous Democrat presented a Republican (or maybe it was the other way around) with a challenge to break up the monotony. At the beginning of each news cycle, a polical media spokesperson would send the opposing team a list of challenging words and visa versa. Then, as a measure of who is more talented, each side would attempt to work those words into their responses to questions posed by television reporters. The team whose words were most aired in TV sound bytes would win the game that day. Losers would buy the drinks.

"Media Bingo" was born.

Now granted, its not really bingo - but does anybody in the business really need a better reason to drink?

Of course not! And to prove that point, I was sharing this story with a group of lobbyists some years back while watching the marathon end-of-session speeches that apparently require every lawmaker to weigh in as an expert on every topic under the sun.

"Why don't you guys break it up a bit and have some fun?", I asked.

"I'm pretty sure I can get a few members to drop some words into a speech," one offered.

"I know I can," challenged the other. Voila! Media bingo became legislative bingo and a new round of political fun was born.

The game has been around for a few years now. During end of session, most legislative staffers in the building watch floor sessions on their television sets, and start drinking wine and eating sushi at 3 in the afternoon. Invariably, their attention turns to a member sharing his or her brilliance on the floor at any given moment. Everyone "in the building" (that's the capitol building for those of you not in Sacramento) has their favorite memories of a member saying something absurd or mentioning something completely out of context for the topic on which they've risen to speak.

Some members have risen to legendary status on account of their wackiness or absurd rantings.

You've gotta ask yourself now - was that member really out to lunch, or were they slyly racking up points and claiming the bingo prize for that legislative session?

Originally played by just a handful of folks, it appears that the game has now "tipped" with a rumored 50 members asking for a word to incorporate into their floor speech. It even made the front page of the Sacramento Bee (albeit in a critical way). It was inevitable I suppose.

But look at it this way -I mean, if anyone believed that the legislature was incapable of "post-partisanship" behavior one only need look at the taped recordings of debate on the floor. I mean, when was the last time a Republican rose to speak in opposition to a Democrats bill and ended up laughing while doing so?

Those who know me know that I don't know much about the legislative process. I'm a political guy who isn't even sure how a bill becomes a law. But I do know that while this may not have been a particularly productive session by the amount of bills passed, it sure set a new standard for the way members across the aisle get along.

And if we learned anything from the Gore vs. Bush contest, it's that Republicans and Democrats working together and laughing along the way ain't that of bad a thing.

Comments

[Victoria Pointer]

I love the way you write and report the facts. Thank you and keep up the good work!

[Michael Kassing]

Let's see if they can work SizeMonkey into a speech!

Something like; "In California the health care system is taxing all to the point of breaking. The SIZE MONKEY that burdens California is growing to the point that the angle of the dangle is inversely proportional to the heat of the beat."

How's that for a start!

Michael Kassing, Political Speech Writer