The State of Wending
Wending became the fifty-first state when a federal clerk filed its founding boundary form in the ADMITTED drawer instead of the PENDING one. Reversing that admission requires a correction form that is itself pending in the same committee, so federal admission is settled while the boundary file remains open. The review is now older than the reviewers. This is why Wending can be absent from a shipping menu and still have two legislative chambers.
Those chambers meet at the Half-Dome, the statehouse whose dome went pending mid-construction, so it sits open to the sky and tarped in winter. When the rotunda leaks they call it the Sieve. Eleven fixtures work; Fixture 12 flickers under a maintenance ticket older than most of the staff. Governor Marty Bouchard runs the executive branch. The House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem preside over their chambers. Clerk Gord Pelletier keeps the Book at Window 4 until 4:30 and could close Wending's side of the boundary review in the correct ink, if that did not mean rushing. He cannot undo federal admission.
STATE MOTTO: TO BE CONTINUED · LICENSE PLATES READ PROVISIONAL · THE FLAG FLIES AT HALF-MAST BECAUSE THE HALYARD JOB'S ON THE LIST
Who Does What
The executive runs the state. The 51-seat House and 9-seat Senate make its laws. The clerk and compliance office make sure nobody enjoys it.
The Executive
Signs or vetoes bills, appoints officers, and absorbs blame for potholes. The Governor does not preside over the legislature.
The General Assembly
Sixty legislators across two chambers. The House Speaker and Senate President Pro Tem are selected from the live membership and lead their respective chambers.
Clerk & Compliance
Gord maintains the civic record. The Office of Interparty Compliance audits the caucuses but fields no candidates and holds no seats.
The Assembly
Six caucuses hold sixty seats. One seatless office audits them. One goose controls four House votes.
Its four House delegates support one cause: elect the actual pharmacy-lot goose as Governor of Wending. There is no second plank.
The goose cannot consent, so the Party has all of its opinions for it — inventing its positions, issuing statements on its behalf, and holding rallies the goose does not attend. When the goose wanders through by coincidence, the Party calls it a landslide of momentum. In-house it is "the Candidate" (naming the real bird is, itself, in committee). In a hung House its handful of seats can decide any bill — sold only for goose-related considerations: repave the lot, a resolution recognizing the goose's tenure. It never actually governs. It has no hands, so it cannot take the oath on the roundabout plans, and the Committee on Rules refers the question to the Committee on Merging, where it stays. Then it runs again next cycle.
A closed boundary review means final paperwork means it's over. Keep the file provisional, forever.
Everyone runs as an "Acting Candidate." Headquarters is a U-Haul that has idled in one spot since 1987 under a laminated sign reading "TEMPORARY, DO NOT MOVE." Natural ally of anyone blocking a vote; the Compliance Office's favorite target.
Every problem, like traffic, is best handled by going around it repeatedly until someone finds an exit.
Meetings are held while physically circling Mile Zero — a motion isn't official until it completes a full lap — which leaves the Party the perpetually-hung swing bloc every coalition courts and none can pin down. "Roughly two weeks from a firm decision," always.
Zipper at the cone, at the final inch. Pity the coward who merges early.
Every statement cuts off mid-sentence, refusing on principle to yield the floor until the very last possible wor—
Doesn't govern. Issues Notices of Deficiency against every party that does — the system's built-in antagonist, present in every storyline.
Fields no candidates. Audits the goose's filing, rejects the Provisional permit, flags the Grudge Society's fruit-basket receipts. Once rejected its own registration, for being submitted in blue ink.
A fully-funded legislative bloc organized around a single remark, made once, at a bridal shower, in 1987.
Barbara has never been informed and, at last check, sits on the Committee — she thinks it's about drainage. The Grudge Preservation Society finds them dangerously soft, on the grounds that they might one day want closure.
Reconciliation is surrender. A feud, properly maintained, is a civic asset.
When two families near a truce, the Society anonymously sends one of them a fruit basket — a known act of aggression in these parts — to reset the grudge to zero. Considers the Barbara Committee alarmingly close to healing.
CURRENT CAUCUSES · HOUSE: PROVISIONAL 14 · VANGUARD 11 · ROUNDABOUT 9 · BARBARA 7 · GRUDGE 6 · GOOSE 4 · SENATE: PROVISIONAL 3 · VANGUARD 2 · ROUNDABOUT 2 · BARBARA 1 · GRUDGE 1
Election Night, From the Booth
Same crew as the hockey. Same vocabulary. Bucky Merle & Sal Tarantella call the returns.
Election Night covers 51 House races, 9 Senate races, and the Pothole Commissioner, called exactly like a game. Precincts are periods. A race too close to call goes to a recount — which is overtime — and re-narrates the same result slower, with more ceremony, until the margin is official. A weather-delayed poll is a rain-out, called straight. Governor Bouchard's approval rides the broadcast like a streak: a filled pothole is a goal, a botched filing a penalty. The Goose Party's gubernatorial filing is perpetually referred; it is not one of this cycle's counted races.
BUCKY: Pharmacy-Lot Precinct reporting — it's a seven-vote margin with the overflow box still out. Seven-vote game here late.
SAL: And Bucky, she's leading among voters who parallel-park on the first try — a demographic that has never been wrong in an odd year.
BUCKY: Overflow box is in — and we are tied. We're going to a recount.
SAL: Overtime. You love to see it. Fundamentals win recounts, Bucky — positioning, hydration, and getting there first at the four-way stop.
Recurring Officials
Four fixed offices; legislative leaders come from the live 60-member Assembly. Every one of them could play third-pair defense.
Governor Marty Bouchard
Weary, well-meaning, sounds like he could kill a penalty on the third pair. Takes the oath with one hand on the laminated roundabout master plans — sworn upon precisely because they will never be finished, making the oath technically eternal. His approval lives and dies on potholes and on things he did not do and cannot fix. Feuds with his duplex neighbor over the shared driveway, which is, of course, a merge question.
Gord Pelletier
Keeper of the Book, and the human embodiment of the open boundary review. He could close Wending's side with a signature in the correct ink, but that would mean rushing, and Gord does not rush. He cannot reverse the federal admission. He will be at Window 4 until 4:30.
Bert Demers
Campaigns on the potholes personally. He has named them. He has feelings about each and considers "just filling them" a betrayal — his challenger wants them all filled, which Bert calls "erasure." Perennially failing, humiliated daily by the goose's well-run lot across the roundabout.
Toivo Ostberg
Has said "we're about two weeks out" for nine years and means it every time — fresh conviction, no memory of the last time. His grievance is with the public, who keep driving on it while it's nearly done.
A LISTENER FOLLOWS ONE BILL, ONE FEUD, ONE ELECTION NIGHT — NEVER ALL SIXTY SEATS. THE OTHER FIFTY-NINE ARE STILL REAL. THE COMMITTEE ON MERGING IS STILL MERGING.
Back to the Dial
The Half-Dome empties Wednesday and Saturday nights for the hockey, and quorum fails when it snows. In the meantime, the frequency is always on.