An Irish eye on the capitol: Nebraska's clerk of the legislature has kept order from more than 30 years.

• Author: Reed, Leslie
• Position: Patrick O'Donnell

A combination of symphony conductor and traffic cop, Patrick O'Donnell is the man behind the podium in Nebraska's George W. Norris Legislative Chamber, the only unicameral legislature in the nation.

State senators bring him bills and amendments to file. He announces amendments and motions as they come up for debate. He calls out senators' names if a lawmaker requests a roll call vote. He advises the speaker of the Legislature when a member invokes a parliamentary rule or challenges a decision. Using a rapid mumble that ought to be patented, he reads aloud many bills in their entirety as required before a final vote.

And the clerk of the Legislature keeps watch.

He spies the senator consulting with a well-known lobbyist just outside the glass chamber doors and alerts legislative leaders that something's up. He checks out the senators' guests seated inside the chamber to make sure there's no one there who might exert improper influence on the debate.

Woe to the staffer or news reporter who fails to observe the rules of decorum, perhaps by chatting during a roll-call vote or by approaching a lawmaker on the floor while the house is under call.

They will look up to find O'Donnell bearing down upon them, fire in his eyes and Irish temper at full boil. In the days before smoking was banned in the Capitol, insiders said they watched the puff-puff-puffing of O'Donnell's tobacco pipe to gauge the peppery clerk's mood.

"I'll tell you, Patrick--with just one look--can put you in shock," says his friend Don Wesely, a former state senator who now works as a lobbyist. "He can be very effective in making his point."

"He knows the system and knows how to keep a session running smoothly," says Senator Pat Engel, chairman of the Legislature's Executive Board. "Pat's almost all the time monitoring everything, following procedures and maintaining decorum."

Former Senator Doug Kristensen says O'Donnell's just might be "the toughest job in the world. He's part priest, he's got to hear everybody's confession. People say to him, 'You've been here, what do you think?' but they're really saying 'I don't know what to do, help me.' For all practical purposes, he is the legislative process. He's been there and shaped it."

And that legendary temper? Engel says it comes with the package.

"He's 100 percent Irish and that pretty well takes care of his shortcomings," says Engel, who is also of Irish descent.

O'Donnell is a bit rueful about those confrontations. He often...