On the 2nd day, we went to a host of different committee meetings in a wide variety of rooms and buildings. By the end of the day, I had been to 5 different committee meetings, each one different from the last. There were a lot of surprises for me today. A lot of things I assumed about the state congress were not true at all. Contrary to what you read on a general basis, the legislators are very cordial with one another. They all have jobs to do, and being rude to each other based on party lines would just get in the way of doing what they have to do. The clearest manifestation of this is how the committees deal with local bills. Most of what the congress does is not controversial at all, most bills deal with issues that only affect one legislator’s district. So, rather than debate the bill, they do each other a courtesy and immediately vote to give the bill a favorable review and send it to the senate or house floor. This was another thing that surprised me about the committees, the speediness of the committee. I assumed that the committee is the place where the bills are amended and debated and fixed and then sent to the floor for voting. But the committee had decided what they were going to do long before the bill came up for discussion. Even when there was disagreement between the parties, the majority just called for a vote before much debate had occurred, passed it, and moved on. The largest committee meeting we attended was the appropriations committee that decided how much money goes into bills. This room also had the most debate. The bill that was on the docket was one that will make it illegal for parking garages to prohibit motorcycles from parking in them. It also prevented “discrimination of any kind against motorcyclists.” After the author of the bill gave his opening statement, another Senator asked him if he would yield for questioning, he did, as they always do, and asked him a very interesting question/ statement. He said, “This is ridiculous, in this state because of legislation you passed, people can be discriminated against for what bathroom they go to, or what their base identities are, but god forbid someone be mean to a motorcyclist because that’s just wrong, this is ridiculous, why?” The Senator standing was quite taken aback, so he moved on to the next more polite question.