The legislature is like...: in response to last September's article looking at that old metaphor about the similaritities of making laws and making sausage, readers come up with metaphors of their own.

• Position: Brief Article

Last September we asked our readers to respond to an article by Alan Rosenthal that examined the metaphor comparing the legislature to a sausage factory attributed to German chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898).

That age-old expression," There are two things you don't want to see being made--sausage and legislation," has been around a long time. Rosenthal claims that it doesn't apply to today's legislatures. So what does? We asked our readers and here's what they came up with:

"A legislature is like a summer camp. In both settings the participants produce things, learn skills, gossip, ally with kindred spirits, receive letters from home, answer those letters, play tricks on each other, listen to their counselors, occasionally stay up late at night and, when the allotted time has elapsed, return home." --Retired Wisconsin Legislative Staffer Jack Stark

"Trying to keep legislators on board to approve complex legislation is like trying to put cats in a wheelbarrow. When one is appeased, others jump out." --Submitted by Ohio Finance Director Brian M. Perera

"I prefer to think of the legislature as an oriental bazaar: 120 rug merchants in their little stalls, each trying to hawk his own product, curry the favor of constituents and bargain a little better than the guy next door. The leaders are just the ones who understand the needs of the other merchants and can supply them." --Bob Fairbanks, former editor of the California Journal

"Ice fishing is a little bit like lawmaking. Anyone can do it. But not everyone wants to put up...