Wednesday was a day spent mostly in the office. It allowed me to get some blogging done, as well as explore the ncleg website and do more bill summaries for the lobbyists. The website ncleg.com has everything on it to understand and track the state government. On the home page, you can listen to the Senate and House chambers and hear people speaking on all sorts of bills, they even have it archived so you can listen to arguments on recent bills that you are interested in. They have a calendar that shows every bill and amendment that is coming up in the next couple of days or has been done recently The bill pictured above was surprisingly controversial and important during the house session. It attempts to terminate the contract between the government and the people that built the toll roads and maintain them. This seems ok, tolls are annoying, but it would prevent any new roads from being built for a long time. With no specific revenue coming in for the construction of new roads, it would take almost thirty years under the current budget structure to set aside the amount of money necessary to build a new road. With such a sharp increase in population and thus road congestion in NC, we sort of need new roads.

Thursday was a short day for me since I lead to leave early to go to debate nationals, but it was still one of the most fun a had. I got to do some real work and I learned a lot of things about people that I did not know were public record. We started out the day by going to a Senate finance committee and then we planned on going to the Judiciary committee immediately afterward. However, the Finance committee ran late, and no one else was around to cover the meeting and take notes on any changes to the legislation that might affect clients. So, Andy sent me to the judiciary committee and I had to take very good notes and analyze amendments on an agricultural bill regarding farm taxes. While I was there, they attempted to amendment the punishment in the bill regarding unwillingness to pay new taxes and the threatening of tax collectors. Some of the committee members attempted to change the punishment from a class 1 misdemeanor into a felony. I’m really not sure why this was such a big deal to the lawmakers, nor the firm, but it was, so I took lots of notes and gave them to Andy after the meeting. It was exhilarating. We then went and sat down and were going to cover one of the meetings by just listening to the audio feed. I was confused why we hadn’t always been doing that until the audio glitched and we had to go into the room so that we didn’t miss anything. We have to cover the meetings in person because most of the committee rooms do not have audio, and almost none of them have a video feed. Despite the fact that the technology exists and it is very cheap to do so, congress has not put in the audio or video feed in almost any of their rooms. And for a body that is supposed to be completely open to the public, that is a little strange. I asked Andy if they did not have this technology because they really didn’t want to let the public know what they were doing, he said that that was definitely one element going into the decision, but it wasn’t the biggest reason. Congress is always accused of being wasteful and over spending, but even when that is true, it is regarding public spending on mostly private enterprises. The congressmen all believe that if they voted to spend money on themselves and things for the government, then the media and the public would accuse them of misusing funds and spending money on themselves and thus lose reelection. So, the congress believes, seemingly correctly, that it is better for the public to think you are untrustworthy than for them to think you are using their money for anything other than helping them. After the meetings, we returned to the office and Andy showed me the voter registration data that he uses to do a lot of research and find out about people’s records. You can find what party people voted for in every primary election they have ever voted in, their addresses, their age, how many times they have voted, what parties they are, or have ever been registered to. It’s kinda scary, I’ve now looked up all my teachers and some of their voting records are very surprising.

I began my work experience by standing at the base of the massive Wells Fargo building and feeling incredibly intimidated.  After a few moments, I gathered the courage to walk in and get on the elevator to the 23rd floor. There I met Andy Walsh, whom I was to spend the next 2 weeks with.  Andy is a Cary Academy alum that graduated in 2008. Andy went to NC State where he was student body president and the recipient of multiple service awards. Currently, he is a Government Relations Assistant at the Smith Anderson law firm and the President of the Cary Academy Alumni Association. When I arrived on the 23rd floor the secretary called Andy down from his office and he took me on a tour of the building. The 23rd floor is purely dedicated to meeting rooms for clients and the office of the managing partner. This is designed to make clients feel special and give the lawyers an excuse to never clean their desks. Andy’s office is on the 24th floor which is where we went next. The Smith Anderson Law firm has 4 full floors in the building and the views are incredible, but the 24th floor is where everything gets done. Andy introduced me to his four-person team. Dana, Kara, Richard, and Andy make up one of the most effective lobbying teams in the state. While Andy is not a registered lobbyist he still contributes heavily to the lobbying effort. After our tour of the building and after I had met everyone, we went to the General Assembly building or the GA. This is where we will spend most of our time over the next few weeks. This is where most of the Senators have their offices and where the Senate and House chambers are located. Mondays are a very slow day for the Legislature, so after the tours and introductions, we called it a day and I began my 54-minute drive home.

After having a long day of committee meetings, the Congressmen and I were both grateful for a late start and a long relaxing Senate Session. It was very cool seeing some of the bills that I had watched be discussed in committee be discussed on the actual Senate floor. The first bill on the docket was the motorcycle bill that I had seen earlier in the day. Unlike in committee, there was no debate on it, they voted for it almost immediately. The actual voting process was not really what I expected I thought it would be like High School congress, where everyone for the bill stands up and is counted and then the same thing happens for those against the bill. I expected the process to be somewhat slow and formal. Instead, it was all electronic, at every single senator’s desk, there are a red button and a green button that allow them to vote for or against the bill when a vote is called for. The entire voting process took 10 seconds, it became law, and then they moved on. They then went through a series of the locals bills I discussed in my last post. They passed almost 8 of them in quick succession. No one asked questions, everyone was polite, it was sort of weird. I asked Andy if this was what it was always like and he told me no. Normally there was a lot more debate, and the Senators were a little bit more abrasive. However, the Senate was passing the budget the next week, and so all the Senators were trying to keep each other happy so that they can get funding for their counties and projects when the budget comes around. It was very interesting to see things become law just so people wouldn’t get mad at each other.

The senate also recognizes a lot of visitors during the session to honor them. They announced the names of a former Senator in the audience and his family. They announced the names of some elementary school children that were visiting, as well as some community business leaders. Every senate session, they have a doctor of the day that they recognize and honor. They have high school students page for them, whom they also announced. Pages carry briefcases for the congressmen and get people to sign the visitors papers. At the end of the very long session, at about 4 o’clock, a resolution was introduced to honor a former colleague that passed away this week. Almost 30 senators gave speeches about how much she had affected their lives, and how much they were going to miss her. It was very emotional.