"What's up bro?"--3/20/17

Hi everyone! Today was another day that started on the floor, which must have destroyed records on number of bills voted on- this was their agenda, and they got through it in under an hour with almost zero debate. Some days are like this, where they just decide to vote on all of the noncontroversial bills and get them done, and then save some of the bills with more opposition for another day.

Afterwards, I went to the House education committee, which is starting to beat out the Government committee as my favorite committee, because they were discussing a lot of interesting bills. One of the bills was actually about Senior Projects! (well, kinda) SB1156 changes the way that attendance is calculated at schools to what was the common practice and not the actual statute that the Department began to enforce after realizing that what was going on in a couple of schools was not accurate for the calculations that existed in law (which is very important, because how attendance is marked affects the amount of funding the school gets from the state). The new law, according to committee testimony, only really affects seniors, because to be considered a "full time student", you have to complete a certain number of hours of being in a classroom, which is not the case for many students who complete credits early and go get a job or a Senior Project (boom related). The law changes it so that a full time student does not need to reach a total number of hours (720 to be exact), only the number of instructional hours (ie hours in a classroom) so these students aren't forced into classrooms to take unnecessary classes (currently you have to do both, so this law gets rid of the first requirement). The opposition argued that one of the consequences of this law could include schools just putting in filler to keep students there and not actually teaching them. The bill passed anyways, so now it goes to the House floor for a vote, where if it passes it goes to the Governors office for a signature (provided  that the House does not amend the bill, which if so it has to go all the way back to the Senate for another vote to approve the change yes democracy is slow).

But if you didn't care about hearing about legislation (and if so, why are you here?), here is a photo from the committee hearing where you can see my notebook:

wow  im famous

Ms. Mitirovich told us all to put more photos in our blogs, so there it is. My brother told me I need to insert more memes into my blog, so I'll get working on those too since I know you guys might be getting bored of the committee meetings. But if that's true, good news for you! This week is the last week of committees! After this, all the bills that haven't been heard yet are dead (rip), and the legislature will begin to work on the budget until the end of the session.

And now for the quote of the day. It actually comes from Rep. Weninger to Rep. Espinoza in the hallway, which brings me back to one of the most surprising things that once again I have probably already discussed- legislators are people too.  I know, it sounds dumb, but since I have spent the past three months watching these people do great things from afar it's still jarring to hear them call each other bro as I pass them in the hallway. And on that point, I know that one of the things people like to complain about is "dark money" and politicians just going with their party instead of their beliefs etc. etc., but one of the most admirable things I have seen is legislators voting with their conscious. That's not to say that they don't vote on party lines, because they do at times, but whenever a legislator has an issue with the bill they will do what they can to work with the sponsor and fix that bill so that they can support it on the floor alongside the other members. What I'm trying to say is, when they vote it's their actual opinion, there is no secret puppet master telling them to vote the way they do (or at least, to my knowledge). I also think its just funny that they call each other bro.