Monday, March 30, 2009

You May Be Poor

Rep. Joseph Mitchell (D- Mobile) is one of my favorite legislators. The guy is a straight up comedian. According to Sebastian Kitchen's article "Capitol Beat" Rep. Mitchell did a stand-up routine last week when the Black Caucus filibustered over the removal of sales tax from groceries.

You may be poor ...

When members of the black caucus were filibustering on Thursday, state Rep. Joseph Mitchell, D-Mobile, used a Jeff Foxworthy-style routine to define who poor people are.

"You're poor" if you have jumper cables where a tire is supposed to be, he said, and you are poor if you have to boil water to wash your clothes. If your main source of dental care is a string and a door, "you might be poor," Mitchell continued during the filibuster.

"If you have names for individual rats, rodents and chickens, you're poor," he said.

Mitchell, when he first got to the microphone, apologized for his attire in the chamber. He said he had switched to his gym shoes after he got his feet wet when he had to walk though some puddles outside.

A colleague told Mitchell "if you wear white shoes on the floor of the Alabama Legislature, you're poor."
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What would we do without levity in politics? I think politics would be completekly unbearable without Reps. like Joseph Mitchell.




1 comment:

Don said...

A few years ago when I went to the State House to address the Constitution and Elections Committee in support of the Initiative and Referendum constitutional amendment, when the meeting ended Representative Mitchell sought me out, shook my hand, and thanked me for being there to support the legislation. Another representative whose judgment I respect told me that he considers Mitchell to be one of the more astute members of the House of Representatives.