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."