As I was looking around some of my favorite BLOGS I found this at Cindy Locklears insideout site. The following paragraphs disturbed me greatly and explains just how the majority circumvent the democratic process and avoid holding any open meetings and eliminate any input from the minority Republicans.

Conversely, my concerns with the Dems’ approach were significant:

Without any democratic process or discussion, the Dem Leadership made the decision to divide the 12 Dems into two “working groups”. By doing this the debate on whether the meetings should be open to the public (ie, no group had 8 or more participants) was avoided. Of further interest was the fact that Konst, Iannello and I were all in one group (with the additions of Loughran and Reynolds);

Marinelli, Mazur, Holt and Kennedy in the second; and Whyte and Smith functioned as the team leaders and bridges between the two working groups. While I was both suspicious and reluctant of the approach, I participated in the discussions to fulfill my responsibilties to the Dem Caucus and give this bifurcated process the ‘benefit of the doubt’. However, it seemed to me that by corralling Konst, Iannello and I in one group (the ostensible ‘reformers’), the mainstay of the old guard could hammer out the ‘real’ amendment without interference.

My suspicion was that we would slog through the process but with no open dialogue between all 12 of us and a deadline looming, we would be presented with a product at the “11th hour” that would be an unacceptable “Frankenstein” of concessions, horse trading and sidebar deals.