Do Not Gaze Upon The Minnesota State Senate Like Common Eyeball-Havers, During Debate!

The Minnesota state Senate is a DIGNIFIED PLACE, and they will not have you misbehaving! Yes, the august institution that foisted Michele Bachmann on an unsuspecting world has rules, and you shan't defy them! For one thing, they will be keeping their longstanding ban on members looking directly into each others' eyes, for that is a violation of both decorum and privacy!

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Also, some of their Republican state senators are liable to view it as an animalistic challenge:

On a 15-44 vote, the Senate decided to keep its current requirement that all speakers must gaze at the Senate president.

"I find this particular rule of the Senate, dare I say, antiquated," said Sen. Warren Limmer, R-Maple Grove.

But Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, DFL-Cook, disagreed. When you can look at the senator speaking, he said, debates could become longer and more personal.

"Our decorum would probably not be as Senate-like as we would like to have it," Bakk said.

Gaze upon Senate President Madame Sandra Pappas, you MUST, lest debates become a sanitorium of idle fuckery! She promises to return your gaze, continually and affectionately.

And do not be thinking about quenching thy parched tongue on the Senate floor, for the desks, they are antique! And a water fountain has been provided, just a few steps down the promenade!

Yes, the Senate also voted to retain its rule against drinking water, prompting a miscreant state senator, Torrey Westrom (R) of Elbow Lake, to impertinently respond that "[i]t's not pop, it's not beer. It's just H2O."

"Just H2O," said he. We chuckle at your ignorance, for that, dears, is a slippery slope. First you allow drinking water on the floor, next thing you know senators will be asking their ladies-in-waiting to bounceth upon their knees as they engage in the time-honored parliamentary procedures! Heaven forfend!

Westrom suggested that, perhaps, an exception to the drinking water ban might be made for women currently heavy with child, but the Senate responded: "NOPE, not them bitches either! Now get back to work!"

[ TwinCities.com ]