In Texas, Y U No Have Time?!, Tonisha discusses the length of the Texas Legislature's regular session. She points out that after 140 days the legislators drop everything they're doing and the session is over whether business has concluded or not.
In her post, she presents several good points in her argument as to why the sessions should be longer. In the third paragraph, she discusses the way that legislators roam freely around the room in, what appears to be, a rather chaotic manner while a vote is taking place. During this process, legislators often go to the desks of those who are absent and cast votes for them as well; this is referred to as "ghost voting." Even after several attempts to resolve this issue, including fingerprint machines conveniently located throughout the building, it remains an ongoing problem.
I agree that it would be beneficial for the legislature to have longer sessions and possibly even to become full time. That would also prevent the governor from easily vetoing bills, with no chance for an override, after a session has adjourned. However, as Tonisha pointed out, there is not much interest in changing the session length. I believe this is because Texas is a very conservative state and many Texans still believe strongly in small government. Ergo, more time for politicians to sit around making laws can't be a good thing. Because of this, I don't think there will be any changes to the length of sessions any time soon.
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