No end in sight, so no boxes in Iowa House

DES MOINES - According to the Legislature's session timetable, lawmakers should be adjourning the 2015 session today.

That won't happen, but a sign that the end is in sight is the appearance of boxes lawmakers use to pack up their belongings before heading home until the 2016 session. In the Senate, the boxes were assembled Tuesday and stand ready for senators. In the House, the flattened boxes sit, unassembled, in a corner.

Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha, sees no reason to bring out the boxes at this point even though Friday is the 110th day - the last day for most of the high school students who serve as pages, who assemble and personalize each representatives' box.

'When it's time,” Paulsen said Thursday when asked when the boxes would be assembled.

That will be when the House enters the last 72 to 84 hours of the session, Paulsen said.

There's nothing scientific in deciding when it's time, he said. 'You feel it. The air changes.”

As far as the lack of decoration, 'I think we can manage,” he said.