January Pennsylvania Senate Journals

Pennsylvania State Senate Journals for January 2007

The Senate was in session for 9 days. The Senate Journal issues for January are now available on the web and I’ve skimmed through them for interesting comments or events. Here are the dates and the number of pages for those journal issues:

Jan 2 (35 p)
Jan 16 (10 p)
Jan 17 (7 p)
Jan 22 (8 p)
Jan 23 (3 p)
Jan 24 (5 p)
Jan 29 (8 p)
Jan 30 (10 p)
Jan 31 (5 p)

So, as you can see, not a whole lot happened in the Senate in January. The committees may have been very busy but when the Senate was in session together not a lot was going on. Most of the January Senate Journal issues were long introductions of guest, resolutions being passed, and so forth. The January 2nd issue is comprised mostly of election results. On January 16th Lt. Gov. Knoll gives a speech, in the issue for the 17th there is a list of Senate committees. Not a lot of discussion. There were, however, a few points of interest.

In case you were wondering, January 2nd is Senator Joe Scarnati’s birthday and everyone sang to him. Sen. Robert Mellow commented (p. 4) on what a “very young, attractive, energetic candidate Sen. Scarnati is.” Can we all agree to use another word for attractive? Personable, charismatic, vital, appealing – any of these would suffice. One person calling another attractive in a work setting is maybe not such a good idea.

The same issue notes that there is a committee to escort the President Pro Tempore elect to the rostrum. Are they worried he’ll be mugged along the way and needs protection? If there is a budget assigned to this committee I’d suggest we do away with the whole thing.

On the 29th Sen. Vince Fumo makes another long impassioned speech about the war in Iraq (p. 5)

On January 30th Sen. Andrew Dinniman brought along his friend the Ambassador from Kenya who addressed the Senate (p. 5). Given Pennsylvania ’s place in the world economy this sort of exchange should, in my view, be encouraged.

Leaves.

On the 16th Senators Pileggi, Tomlinson, Ferlo, Tartaglione and Fumo requested leaves for legislative or personal reasons

On the 17th Senators D. White, Greenleaf, Tartaglione, Waugh (returned), and Tomlinson requested leaves.

On the 22nd Senators Mary Jo White, Washington and Punt requested leaves.

On the 23rd Senators Punt and Greenleaf (returns) requested leaves.

On the 24th Senators Punt, Greenleaf, Gordner, Armstrong and Fumo requested leaves.

On the 31st Senators Earll and Armstrong requested leaves.