"You just made an argument for the bill"--3/1/17

Happy April! I can't believe that I have been at the House for two months now. Today I went back to some familiar faces at the Senate Finance committee as they heard all of the House bills that went through the Ways and Means committee. The passed [BILLS], none of which involved much debate except [BILL], which if I'm honest I didn't understand too much. If any experts in the AZ tax code are reading, please help.

After lunch, I went to the floor, where (you guessed it) they were doing more second and third readings of bills. One thing I've noticed about legislative debate is that though often times legislators completely disagree over an issue, they still remain very polite and civil (but of course, this is part of the rules). I also wanted to show you guys what a reading looks like, because someone in the comments was asking about this process:

I think I may have a future career as a reader, I think I would be great at it. But anyways, these readings are just another example of all the formalities included in the legislative process.

After the floor, I went down to the Senate Government Committee, which was a first, because Mr. Klugman, the assistant to Rep. Ugenti-Rita, told me that there wasn't much going on in the House Appropriations committee (which, since I haven't said this before, huge shoutout to him for always trying to keep me entertained). Here is where I heard the quote of the day, which was during a debate about Sharon's law (which states that anyone firing a gun within city limits can be found to have been criminally negligent and can be convicted of a felony; this new law being debated wants to change that language to replace "criminally negligent" to "intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly"). I'll leave the whole debate with the quote so you can get the whole context of it (it's kinda long, but I still encourage you to watch it).


I chose this not only because I found it amusing, but because I wanted to show the importance of community testimony in committee proceedings, and to show the value of constituents explaining their positions or experience on/with a bill. Also, as another commenter asked, just anyone can sign up to speak, so I would encourage all of you to come down and visit me sometime to argue for something you are passionate about.