Senate Opens Hearing To Determine Whether Hearing Has Begun
Members agree the opening remarks were promising, but several want to hear from the bell before committing.
The Senate Committee on Administrative Readiness has opened a hearing to establish whether its hearing is underway, beginning with testimony from a clerk who says he rang the bell and would quite like somebody to believe him.
Committee chair Dale Mercer called the session after members disagreed about whether introductory remarks constituted the beginning of proceedings or merely the period immediately before proceedings began. Mercer said the distinction mattered because several senators had already used their prepared opening statements and wanted to know whether they could use them again.
The clerk, Anton Bellamy, has submitted a written timeline. It records that he placed a brass bell on the table, struck it once, and heard the chair say the hearing would come to order. Bellamy also provided an audio recording, although committee staff have been unable to play it because nobody is authorized to press a button during the period before a hearing starts.
“I was in the room,” Bellamy testified. “Most of you were also in the room. Senator Price asked me to move the bell because it was in the shot.”
Price said that recollection would be taken seriously once Bellamy had been formally introduced as a witness. Bellamy said Mercer had introduced him 24 minutes earlier. Mercer asked whether the introduction happened before or after the moment currently under review, and the clerk looked toward a door that has become much more interesting to him.
Members have been careful to distinguish the hearing from the earlier meeting that authorized a hearing. That meeting occurred in the same room with the same people, but without the small bottles of water. Senator Eunice Holt said treating them as interchangeable would set a dangerous precedent. She has spent two terms defending the committee’s right to get the water out before anything counts.
The dispute has created difficulties for the public gallery. Visitors were instructed to arrive before the beginning and now cannot establish whether they were punctual. One retired schoolteacher has appealed a late-entry warning on the grounds that there is apparently still time. A lobbyist who arrived an hour after the bell is claiming exemplary attendance and has asked whether the committee can put that in writing.
An independent historian was called to place the events in context. Professor Miriam Sloane explained that meetings generally begin when participants begin meeting. Holt said the answer was broad and asked whether Sloane had considered the Senate. Sloane said she had considered it for several years and was trying to stop.
The committee has also received testimony from the bell’s manufacturer. He confirmed that the bell was designed to announce the start of something, but could not guarantee that anyone would respond sensibly. Members described this limitation as troubling. They have asked his company to supply records of every previous occasion on which the product was struck without producing agreement.
Bellamy’s union representative has requested that the committee settle the issue before lunch. If the hearing has begun, the clerk has been working for nearly three hours. If it hasn’t, he has apparently spent those hours volunteering to sit beside 11 senators who keep asking him to describe a noise.
Mercer acknowledged that the distinction could affect payroll and proposed referring it to a separate hearing. Holt objected that the proposal assumed the committee had reached the stage at which proposals could be entertained. Several members nodded, relieved to hear someone finally raise the procedural concern they had been preparing to raise themselves.
A compromise motion would declare that something has happened in the room without specifying its nature. Staff believe the language could attract bipartisan support, provided nobody includes a timestamp. The motion is now being revised to remove the word happened, which one senator felt unfairly excluded future meetings.
At the rear of the room, a cleaner has begun collecting the untouched water bottles. Mercer asked her to wait until the committee adjourned. She asked when it had started. Bellamy has placed the bell in its box and is watching the exchange with the expression of a man who has found his successor.
