Week of March 9th

For the last 45 days every day I have been getting up at six in the morning and getting home at six at night. I have learned more in the last 45 days how the laws are really made then in 5 years of college. Since there was only floor time this week during the day I spent a lot of time outside the House and Senate galleries waiting for Representatives or Senators to come out and talk with us. One of the biggest disappointments of the session was around 11:25 on Thursday night. They Senate and House both ended early with bills still to be debated and I the first thought that crossed my mind when the vote to strike all the enacting clauses from unread bills was, "Horse SH!%. Those lazy, good for nothing, blankety blanks. They were elected to do a job and they only have to do it for 45 days and now they are cutting out early." Needless to say I was pretty upset. A few of the bills I had spent countless hours researching and lobbying for never even got to be debated in both houses and I was upset when they ended without debating them. However there is always next year to retry sending some bills through. I also sent some green notes in this week to the majority leaders in the House and Senate expressing my thoughts on Utah's resolution on the Federal bailout. The note I sent into them read something along these lines. Even a 6th grader would realize that you can't make more money by going into more debt but this is the Obama administration's answer. See it's great to get out there and campaign like you're going to start all these programs, help various groups, and promise money to everyone. But that money has to come from somewhere. I know it Socialist Utopia land it magically appears when pixie dust gets snorted by a multicultural unicorn with a PHD in Diversity and Sensitivity. Here in reality land it's everyone with a job paying other people to not get a job." I was sitting in the House gallery when the Majority leaders got my green notes and it made them smile and laugh. Over the course of the 45 days I became acquainted and worked closely with several Senators and Representatives and have learned that a lobbyist is only as good as his word.

Like I said last week however I still agree with Otto Von Bismark when he said, "If you love the law and sausages it best not to see either being made."

Week Of March 2nd

This past week has been filled with tons or really neat things. All of the committee meetings got finished on Tuesday so now there is only floor time in the Senate and House which means that I am spending alot of time up in the galleries and taking notes. It also means that I am writing lots of green and blue notes to send into senators and representatives. It seems like on Tuesday that I wrote well over three hundred green notes to send into the house on three or four different bills. One of the neat things that happened this week though is for the secrete ballot bill there were only five representatives that we didn't know how they were voting and they were the ones who really could decide if the bill passed or failed. I only sent in green notes to those five representatives. I used a quote by John Q. Adams that said,“Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote was never lost." One of the representatives that I sent this note into got up on the floor of the house and read my green note and quote that I sent him. The next day I sent him another green note that had a quote from Otto Von Bismark, "If you respect the law and love sausages never see either being made." (I didn't tell him it was from Bismark) and thanked him for reading my note and told him he gave me a little more hope that representatives actually read the things that we send them. Even though we only have one week left of the legislative session it doesn't seem to me like things are starting to slow down. If nothing else it actually seems like things are starting to become more frantic and hurried. Another thing that happened this week was that several school groups came through the capitol and met with our lobbying group for a few minutes. We talked to them about what liberty and freedom our and I talked about what I had learned as an intern. Right now I think we have around 45 kids between the ages of 14-17 that are coming up to the capitol throughout the week to intern for us. A few weeks ago they made me a supervisor which means I am supposed to watch out for the kids and make sure they don't get into any trouble. This week has been really fun but I am not looking forward to writing more notes to send in, maybe I can see if they will just let me email the senators and representatives instead.

Week of feb 23rd

This week has been full of surprises. I got to speak to my Representative this week and encourage his support of a bill that opts Utah out of the Real ID act. After speaking to him for a few minutes he invited me to join my local caucus. I also talked to my senator about why she supported a certain bill that I didn't like. I also spent time talking to a good percentage of the members of the House of Representatives about a bill that would prohibit illegal aliens who are going to college to still get in state tuition if they commit any crimes. So it effectively prohibits them from working while going to school. I also spent time on the phone with Jack Thompson figuring out information for the Truth in Advertising bill. I called the ABC in Utah and figured out what their penalties were f or dealing with those who sold to minors. I also went through all of the bill currently before the legislature searching for any bills that were dealing with parts of the code dealing with selling or providing sexually explicit materials for minors. I was doing this per the request of a legislator who didn't have time to get his bill ready for this year but still wanted to get what he needed accomplished, so he asked if we could find any bills currently in the legislature that he might be able to amend and add his bill to. I only found two bills that dealt with this issue. I emailed all of the senate several things that we wanted their support for. I also spent a good deal of time following Gayle around and doing whatever she needed done. The other issue that is still simmering in the back ground is the issue concerning Sen. Buttars remarks about homosexuality. Over all this week was a busy week.

20 Feb 2009

Over the last few days I have finished and polished a power point and talking points for one of the legislators. Today I got to hear some of my talking points and see my power point used in the piece of legislation that he is proposing. The bill passed committee and more than a few of the legislators thought my power point was really awesome. One of the other things that was neat about this bill and helping the Rep. was that I got to work closely with another lobbying group, the ACLU was also supporting the bill and it was neat to work with them to. Other than that I have spent the last few days following Gayle around, waiting for people outside of the House and Senate Floors to pass information to them and contacting legislators from other states to see what information they have where they are supporting similar legislation to what Eagle Forum is. I have learned so much in the last few weeks.

18 Feb 2009

I have spent most of the day organizing talking points and an info sheet for a legislator regarding the real id act that he can use in his committee presentation. I also made a powerpoint for him and added a video. While it doesn't sound like much to get it where it looked nice and professional took a good part of the day. However looking at it now I am suprised that I actually came up with something like that.

17 Feb 2009

I spent most of the morning with Gayle and listened to debate on if a ten dollar fee increase in how much a marriage license costs is justified to pay for domestic violence shelters. The bill was killed in committee because the members of the committee did not believe that funding for that program should come from an increase in how much it costs to get married. The other bill that we were interested in was the house resolution that dealt with Utah not recognize the Real ID act. This bill was passed and should be debated on the house floor tomorrow. It was neat to see that resolution in committee because I did alot of research for the Rep. on the issue and saw some of my research in the bill.

We spent the afternoon in a committee meeting where the question of should co-habiting (Homosexuals) people be allowed to adopt children. There was spirited debate from both sides. The bill was killed in committee with a 1 voting yes and 5 no. What Rep. Sandoval said regarding it in summation of tabling the bill summed up pretty much everything the negative said in, "There are consequences to the way people choose to live their lives. Not being able to have kids is one of those consequences." I paraphrased but that is pretty close to what he said. Overall it was a pretty exciting day.

12th and 13th Feb 2009

Well the last couple of days have kept me pretty busy. Yesterday I was assigned a new duty and that duty was for me to be Gayle's shadow. So far it hasn't been horribly hard. I sat in the Senate Judiciary Committee and listened to debate concerning making some of the state gambling statutes mores strict. Rewording a law that allows people who get protective orders against them can appeal those orders after one year instead of two. There was also two bills that got rid of the statute of limitations for sexual assault, rape and sodomy against children. I then spent the remainder of time once again researching information about Gay's being allowed to adopt. The information that I researched was then used on a talk radio show. I spent the afternoon in House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee. The bills we went over were HB221, HB151, HB 299, HB290, HB281, and HB317. By far the most interesting bills in this agenda were HB290 and HB281 which deal with wireless communication devices being used in motor vehicles. However once again I was surprised by how long and how much money is talked about and given out in appropriation committees.

10 Feb 2009

Helped write notes to all the members of the house to urge them to vote no on Sb117



I also worked again on research for full-day vs half day vs stay at home with mom for children who were of age to go to kindergarden



I also ran some information about violent video games and the deceptive trade practice act from a rep to Gayle



I researched Gov' Huntsman's statements about civil unions



Read more about bill HB267



Made friends with sen stephenson intern

Feb 05th and 6th

Yesterday afternoon was full of appropriation meetings and appropriation meetings are full people who will scratch, claw and bite at each other over even one dollar. I spent most of the 5th doing research for the common ground initiatives and found some good articles on Same Same Adoption and parenting. One of the most striking comments made by one study pronounced that we should not allow same sex adoption because the accounts in gay culture and literature that encourage pedophilia. Another concern from another report was what would be the effect of two lesbian mother's who were for lack of a better word, "Anti-Man" in raising boys. It gave an incident from the book "Lesbians Raising Sons" which is a collection of essays by lesbian mothers of boys which reveals numerous cases of boys who, by their mother's admission, exhibit symptoms of gender identity disorder. One of the mother's defends her adopted son's cross-gender behaviour and castigates society for not accommodating him. She herself is pleased with it: "He has watched the college girls who student-teach, the video mermaids, the female heroines of the silver screen. He knows how to toss his head just so, to tuck a lock behind his ear, to suck on a strand that reaches the mouth." When he is asked if he is a girl or a boy, she encourages him to say "Well it doesn't matter to me what you think… whatever you decide." The school also accommodates his problem. "The kindergarten class was asked to line up,
boys on one side, girls to the other, for races. My son stood in the middle a little dumbfounded that such a request was being made, then slid himself to the girls' side. Afterwards a confused Mr. M. went to the teachers for clarification. They recommended he no longer divide the children by gender and that was that."(Most of the above 13 lines was taken and paraphrased from(Science, myths and same-sex parenting: Dale O'Leary"
On the 6th I set in the House Government Operations Committee Meeting and left after hearing SB 27 and tried to make it over to another committee meeting before it got out and found that I had arrived to late. For the rest of the Morning I listened to and took notes from the House Floor.

3 Feb 2009

Winston Churchill said, "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has not heart; and any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains." During the past few days I have spent the majority of my time glued to my computer screen either copying and pasting legislator names and emails to a list of what committees they are on or doing research for HB 17 which deals with Expedited Patient Therapy(EPT) or Patient Directed Patient Therapy (PDPT) which basically deals with provided someone who has an STD specifically Gonorrhea or Chlamydia with medicine for there unnamed partners. One of the unintended consequences of this bill which could be potentially disastrous is that "If this bill becomes law, a person could get a prescription with your name on it and drop it off at a pharmacy that electronically sends it to your insurance company. But you might have no idea the prescription exists.
A dishonest person could name you even if you did not have a sexual relationship with him or her. And, unfortunately, the one-time dosage of the recommended antibiotic is specific to this disease; thus it is clear to a pharmacy and insurance company that the prescription is for chlamydia."(Lousie-Anne McNutt, timesunion.com) There are also other unintended consequences of this bill passing that make me leery of it.
One of the other things I have done is set in several committee meetings. Those meetings were Political Subdivisions Committee where the most controversial issue discussed involved impact fees accessed to public and charter schools. The other meeting I went to was the Commerce and Workforce Services Joint Appropriations Subcommittee where the budgets for the Alcohol Beverage Commission, Finical Institutions and Public Service Commission were discussed. To sum up this meeting I can only think of the words that Ronald Reagan said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."

The Rest of the Week

In 1956 H.L. Mencken said, "Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule - and both commonly succeed, and are right." I was to see this in actuality throughout the rest of this week.



I got up the next morning and caught the bus at the same time and fell asleep almost as soon as I got sat down. On Tuesday I went to several committee meeting and by far though most boring of the meeting was the Revenue and Taxation committee. The only bill that I thought was worth anything was HB0023 which proposed to force counties, cities, townships and districts to lower taxes when they no longer needed that money and had a surplus.



After this meeting I then went to the senate floor and listened to the second reading of about ten bills. The two that stick out in my mind was one to limit what kind of ATVs are street legal and how big their wheels can be and the other dealt with areas where gangs hang out.



The following day I spent most of my time working in the office running bills and reading bills. I also spent time researching a bill that proposes Expedited Partner Therapy which allows a person who has chlamydia or gonorrhea to also get prescriptions for their partners.



On Thursday I spent a good deal of the day researching the benefits of full-day kindergarten versus half-day kindergarten and the statement made by Gov. Huntsman that children in Utah who were enrolled in Full-Day kindergarten were doing six times better. I also went to the house Health and Human Services sub committee meeting and the bill covering Criminal Abortion that I needed to listen to was circled till Friday.



Overall the experience that I gained this first week of my internship left me looking forward to the rest of the session. However this optimism was also tempered by the realization of something that Winston Churchill said, "Some men change their party for the sake of their principles; others their principles for the sake of their party."

First Day

When my alarm went off at six o'clock in the morning my immediate reaction was to think, who would ever get up this early in the morning. However I rolled out of bed and stumbled to the shower to wake myself up. After my shower I dressed quickly and started the car so that it could warm up a little before I left. My wife drove me to the bus stop near the round about at UVU. I stood there in the early morning watching my breath in the chilly morning air waiting for the 801 bus. When the bus finally arrived I was grateful to find that not only did my student ID work as a bus pass for the express bus but also that I didn't have to stand up the entire ride to Salt Lake City.

When I arrived in Salt Lake the bus dropped me off next to the LDS Church office building and I proceeded to start my trek up the snow encrusted hill toward the State Capital. After my ten minute hike I arrived at the Capital. It was my first time ever walking into the capital building and I stood and looked up the impressive building where our state laws are made.

After asking a Highway patrolman where the cafeteria was and making my way there I was greeted my a friendly table of Eagle Forum members.

After Michelle told me some of the things she wanted me to do I was then told to go to the house floor to watch the opening ceremonies. Elder Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve said the opening prayer and I watched some Air Force bubba's screw up the color guard. They weren't instep at all and one of the guys put his rifle on his left shoulder when the command was right shoulder arms.

After listening to the starting of the house I then went back to the office and helped to print out the Daily Order of Business and started to research what bills I was interested in following.