Back home.
Those of you who read the article posted earlier would already know this, but today the minority party senators did not attend session, This left the senate one vote short of having a quorum for a budget bill, which is 3/5ths. On non-fiscal bills a simple majority is required. We were under a call of the house, which is a rule, where if 5 senators desire, they can shut down the proceedings until all Senators have been brought to the floor, no Senators may leave the Senate until all 33 Senators are present. This lasted until about 4:00ish, when the Senators closed the session down and were escorted out of the building.
I did end up doing the door again, which while quite exhausting and more chaotic was much easier than staffing the hearings over the last few days. Since only legislators and staff (and press) are allowed inside the Senate, I spent the day checking press credentials and staff ids. A handful of people would come up and ask questions, and quite a few people got a bit of a civics lecture from me, explaining some of the complexities of how the Senate conducts business.
It did get a bit ugly in the late morning when protesters attempted to congest the entrance to the Senate to prevent Senators from arriving on the floor. Their attempts were slightly misguided, and were mostly directed at the completely wrong people. At one point I did lean across my table and told people the man they were chanting at was a non-partisan committee clerk. They later staged a sit-in in various hallways to try to prevent us from moving people around the building. This was only mildly successful, as our capitol is a bit of a maze, and we all work there, and know how to get around.
Some of my co-workers had some bad encounters with protesters who, not knowing who we are and what we do, saw people dressed in blazers and ties, and assumed they were their opposition. One girl got shaken, and a guy got hit, i'm not sure how badly. We started having our pages take off their blazers and ties when they left the floor.
By late afternoon this had calmed down a bit, and the area in front of the Senate became deserted once the session was postponed, as the protesters made their way back into the rotunda.
I had a ton of cameras pointed toward me throughout the day, stills and video, i'm not sure if people just find me an interesting picture, or if they were trying to keep me in line by recording me, one of my co-workers yesterday had a camera shoved in his face as he was giving a lady directions, and completely disarmed the recorder with his pleasant helpfulness when they demanded to know what he had just told her. The biggest thing I've noticed is that people have some incredible misconceptions of government.
So once again, I'm back to work tomorrow. The protesters are still in the building, and a group of senators are still in another state. I don't know what will happen tomorrow, I only hope people continue to keep their cool. I think out of the 25,000 protesters today, there were 9 citations issued, which is the first day there were any.
I will admit I shuddered when I saw a single 10-12 year old strolling around with a guy fawkes mask.
edit: my boss made the new york times, the hilarious part is that we constantly tease him because he is almost always sweating, regardless of the temp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/18/us/18wisconsin.html?_r=1&ref=politics