Fresh sausage being made

The old saying, attributed to German Chancellor von Bismarck I believe, is that laws are like sausages, it's better not to see them being made.

Well, for those of you with a voyeuristic streak, an interest in the political process, or who want to get a view of the sort of people who inhabit the statehouse, there's a place to watch floor and committee "debates" live from the capitol in Springfield.

To their credit, the Illinois Legislature provides both live audio and video (with audio) streams of both the House and Senate.

At this hour (11:16 PM Wed.) the budget crunch is going strong and they're scratching and clawing and horse-trading like mad in the annual mad dash to try to pass the state budget.

Take a look. It's not always exciting, but tonight was interesting.

The House video feed is here and features video from committee meetings as well, and you can see the pols in all their fairly unvarnished splendor.

It also gives you a taste of just how grindingly boring, tedious, extremely important, but mind-numbingly dull the budget process can be. But if you watch closely, you can see the tricks and tactics being played, and it can be fascinating.

The House is still going at this hour, but the Senate doesn't have any feeds going live.

The Illinois Legislature page provides links to all this stuff. Go here and click on the Audio and Video links under the House or Senate.

The Senate video feed is here.