Rep: State constitution at stake in 'demon chipmunk' lawsuit

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Rep: State constitution at stake in 'demon chipmunk' lawsuit

Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press

Updated 2:46 pm, Saturday, June 25, 2016

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi lawmaker says the state constitution is at stake in his lawsuit against the House speaker over a speed-reading computer voice that's been called the "demon chipmunk."

Democratic state Rep. Jay Hughes of Oxford says Republican Speaker Philip Gunn violated the constitution by setting the machine to read bills aloud at a superfast speed. Hughes' attorney says House members called it a "demon chipmunk" voice.

"No one, not even the speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, is above the Constitution," Hughes' attorney, S. Ray Hill III, wrote in a brief filed Tuesday with the state Supreme Court.

Any member of the Mississippi House or Senate can demand that a bill be read aloud immediately before a final vote on it, according to Section 59 of the 1890 state Constitution. Bill-reading is a common filibuster tactic.


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Rep-State-constitution-at-stake-in-demon-8325021.php

[BobTheSubgenius]

1. What's next for the Speaker?

A burst transmitter, perhaps.

[MisterP]

7. they already decide policy by blastfax, vote for bills without anyone reading them,

and vote for wars without reading NIEs
this is just the next step to a particularly stupid form of machine rule

[Igel]

8. Most people can understand speech at a rate much faster than most people actually speak.

A number of blind people use the "demon chipmunk" feature on a regular basis. It's best used for reviewing or for listening to materials whose content is known. Then if you get to a part that's troublesome because it's complicated, obtuse, new, or dripping implications, you slow down the reader.

No sane person would want to peruse anything legal using this modality unless it's all boilerplate or you're just checking to make sure it says what it's supposed to say.

But this was for filibustering. The goal was to take as long as possible to obstruct, which is the purpose of all filibustering. Filibustering bad good, because being obstructionist in the legislature is bad good. If a (D) had done, this, we'd be chortling.

[davidthegnome]

2. Er... uhm... demon chipmunk?

WTF?

[NutmegYankee]

3. A high pitch computer voice speaking way faster than normal.

Kind of like the disclaimers on radio.

[davidthegnome]

4. Right.

I used to work for a radio station - a couple times, just for kicks, I'd record a few minutes of Limbaugh and give him the special "helium effect". Just never heard it referred to as a demon chipmunk voice before. Until I read the article, I thought this was about actual demon chipmunks, would have been way cooler.

[NutmegYankee]

6. It's probably a joke name inspired by the Alvin and the chipmunks cartoons

Demon because the plaintiff considers the use of this technology evil.

[SwankyXomb]

5. Like John Moschitta on crack