CAPITOL JARGON

'Woodchucks,' 'in the hopper,' and other Capitol jargon

To the uninitiated, the language of State Capitol committee rooms
and corridors might as well be Swahili or High German. There,
such words as progress, garbage, and even woodchuck become
entirely new "animals." 

Sometimes the terms are self-explanatory. There's an old folk
tale about a lazy woodchuck dozing atop a woodpile in the warm
sun. An unsuspecting woodsman reaches in for a piece of wood,
mistakenly grabs the woodchuck, and is promptly bitten. The
moral? What you think you're getting isn't always what it appears
to be.

Such was the case in 1971, when then Senate Majority Leader
Stanley Holmquist was accused of trying to push a 'woodchuck'
bill that had nothing to do with wildlife. The bill did, however,
extend the terms of two Republican appointees to the state Board
of Education. Some thought the author was trying to hide his true
intentions beneath the obvious language of the bill, and hence
the woodchuck label. Such a bill with surprise meaning "usually
is to the author's advantage," said the Minneapolis Star in a
related article.

Some of the terms are historical in origin, such as the
legislative "hopper" perched atop the desk of the Chief Clerk on
the House floor. The hopper is actually a wire basket where bills
are deposited while awaiting their first reading before the whole
body. 

The term can be traced to colonial days, when a majority of
lawmakers were farmers. A hopper, in agricultural terms, is a
temporary storage container for grain before it's brought to
market. Today, the term sticks for practical as well as
historical reasons. 

Pat Murphy, editor of the Journal of the House, says that when
training new pages (those who assist members on the House floor),
the term avoids confusion, and can avert disaster. Inevitably,
says Murphy, lawmakers will hail a page and instruct them to
deposit a new bill "in the basket." What they mean is the hopper,
but more than a few fresh pages "have taken that to mean the
wastebasket," says Murphy.

And then there's the Capitol doublespeak, where "possible funding
strategies" become "viable resource utilization models," and
that's no joke. Wade through many government reports and you're
sure to find similar indecipherable phrases.

In the not-so-distant past, the Minnesota Legislature has been
accused of passing "Christmas tree" bills and, more recently,
"garbage bills" in the session's waning days. 

Although both terms generally refer to a bill that includes an
assortment of odds and ends, the term "garbage bill" tends to
refer more specifically to bills where the flotsam is added
during the conference committee process.

While those terms have an easily-understood explanation, another
one seems to defy logic -- or at least common sense. When a bill
is progressed at the Legislature, it doesn't move along its
course.

On the contrary, it is laid over and receives no further
discussion.

But don't think such double-talk is confined to Minnesota.
President Warren Harding coined his own terms, including
bloviate, which applies specifically to politicians and means "to
orate pompously." According to William Safire, in his self-titled
Safire's Political Dictionary, the word was later applied to
Harding's own speeches.

Call it doublespeak, convolution, or even a series of red
herrings, but the language of the lawmaking can be interpreted
with a successful mix of patience and determination. 



Here's a small sample of past and present Minnesota terms:

appropriation: an authorization of funds.

Christmas tree bill: a term used often in the early 1970s that
refers to a measure with several "ornaments," or amendments,
added that are sometimes parochial in nature.

conference committee: a panel of three or five members from each
chamber chosen to work out differences between different versions
of a bill approved by the House and Senate.

[to] conferee: coined by Pioneer Press reporter Gene Newhall in
1961, it describes what members of conference committees do: "to
sit around with a group from your own chamber, (House or Senate)
and confer with, around, and part of the time against the other
group from the other chamber."

consent calendar: that part of the House floor agenda limited to
non-controversial items. (see woodchuck)

dandelion bill: one that "if given an inch, will take a yard."
Coined by former Sen. Jack Davies in 1977.

Forest Lawn: nickname given to the Senate Labor and Commerce
Committee chaired by Sen. C.R. "Baldy" Hansen of Austin in the
1970s. "The final resting place for many bills," said a 1976
newspaper article.

garbage bill: a bill, usually passed in the waning moments of a
legislative session, onto which a number of odds and ends --
usually unrelated measures -- have been amended. It generally
refers to amendments added during the conference committee
process.

hopper: a wire basket atop the chief clerk's desk in the House
chamber where bills are placed to await their first reading.

in the hopper: refers to a legislative proposal that has
officially been filed and has a House File number. 

Mae West bills: a phrase used in the 1930s that referred to bills
that pitted business interests against one another. Named for the
film star's popular quip, "come up and see me sometime." 

micro-manage: to oversee or regulate from a position
significantly removed from the target of scrutiny. Used often
during the 1991-92 sessions.

nose count: informal polling by assistant majority leaders to
determine sense of (dis)approval on a pending bill.

off the hook: turning a member loose to vote as he/she wishes
when the needed number of votes has been garnered to secure
passage or defeat.

omnibus bill: a single bill composed of many other bills.

[to] pickle: halting the progress of a bill by referral to
another committee or by not permitting a hearing. "A polite way
of killing a bill," former Minneapolis Star reporter Betty Wilson
wrote in 1969.

progress: to lay over; stall; delay action on pending
legislation.

regressive tax: one that decreases as the size of one's income
increases. 

woodchuck: a bill having surprise or hidden intentions behind its
obvious language.

wood tick: coined by Rep. Jim Rice (DFL-
Mpls) during a 1983 workers' compensation debate, the term refers
to rural DFLers who opposed more liberal reforms. 

[to] zero: to strip an appropriation of all dollars. Attempted in
the past as a way to eliminate the State Planning Agency, which
is now the Office of Strategic and Long Range Planning.

--John Tschida



Originally published in 1990 in the Session Weekly, a weekly
newsmagazine published by the Minnesota House Public Information
Office.

***Last Update 8/5/94 (jtt) Last Review 8/5/94 (jtt) ***