I could use a pithy comment after hearing about the Roe opinion. It’s devastating and I’d like to hear from women 50 and younger who have never had to live the horrors of back alley abortions. I have a story that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. This horror story happened right here in Arizona.
Carolyn, can you email me? I want to hear more about this as I continue to sketch out how we cover abortion in the newsletter. rachel@arizonaagenda.com
Hi! Some Agenda readers may remember me from when I worked at the Phoenix New Times back in 2017-2018. I am now back in my home state of Rhode Island, and covering the legislature there for the first time, so I have a lot of thoughts.
The main difference I've noticed is that in RI, basically EVERY bill gets a committee hearing, even if everyone knows it's not going anywhere. It's well-known that bills aren't going to get a floor vote unless House or Senate leadership wants them to — meaning that anything introduced by Republicans or the most far-left Democrats tends to be DOA. But those bills will still get a hearing, and activists on either side will show up and testify for HOURS.
I have very mixed feelings about this! On one hand, I question whether it's the best use of everyone's time (esp. the activists who aren't paid to be there.) But I also love the fact that we get to have these big, kinda-theoretical debates about policy, and hear from people on all different sides. A lot of times, lawmakers will openly admit that their bill wouldn't hold up as law and that they introduced it just to get a conversation started.
It is a bit tricky as a reporter to figure out how much attention to give this stuff, though. I don't want to whip people into a frenzy about something that has no chance of passing (and I'm well aware that even if I make that clear in the story, a lot of people will only read the headline.)
Another factor is that the legislature here is usually pretty reluctant to pass bills the first year that they're introduced — before they can gain any traction, they usually have to get introduced several years in a row, with the same people having the same debates each time.
On the same day that Writer Extraordinaire, Renata Clo, highlights the craziness of the SUSD Governing Board race, Amy Carney, the Hand-Maiden-In-Chief of Scottsdale tweets a warning "to the adults" in the classrooms that - now armed with the right to sue Teachers - "we're coming for you". I suspect there's also a celebratory party at the Carney house this weekend for "Alito's Army".
Here's a question: do other state capitols have inmates doing landscaping work? That has always felt really dystopian to me and I have a feeling it may be unique to Arizona.
The legislature approved $400 Billion to expand I-10 from Chandler to Casa Grande? Is it going to be paved in gold? It will be stolen pretty quickly. Perhaps $400 million is the correct amount. That could come out of this budget surplus....
I was a research analyst in the AZ House, now I'm a research attorney in the Hawaii Senate (my office is kind of a mix of majority research and legislative council - we are one of 3 drafting agencies for the Hawaii legislature but also staff committee hearings). Both legislatures are of similar size and length (HI is 60 days with 9 mandatory recess days scattered throughout), similar number of committees, and that's about where the similarities end. Here are the things that shocked me the most about the Hawaii Senate: 24 Dems and 1 Republican (but the Dems are allover the place on policy), introduce roughly 2,000 bills and only pass out about 200, committees meet MWF or Tue/Thur, or M-F if A bracket committee, joint referrals are super common, committees are run very informally and decision-making on any measure can occur on a different date than when receiving testimony, don't need quorum to hear testimony (often only the chair is present), amendments to bills are announced at decision-making and not seen in writing until the amended version is filed with the clerk's office, debate almost never occurs on the floor (written comments are just entered into the journal) and votes are taken on consent more often than not (no voting screen!), and nearly every single bill is sent to conference committee!!!! The budget miraculously is approved on time every year and sine die always occurs right on time on the 60th day and is usually super boring.
I could use a pithy comment after hearing about the Roe opinion. It’s devastating and I’d like to hear from women 50 and younger who have never had to live the horrors of back alley abortions. I have a story that will raise the hairs on the back of your neck. This horror story happened right here in Arizona.
Carolyn, can you email me? I want to hear more about this as I continue to sketch out how we cover abortion in the newsletter. rachel@arizonaagenda.com
Sure, give me an hour or so.
Hi! Some Agenda readers may remember me from when I worked at the Phoenix New Times back in 2017-2018. I am now back in my home state of Rhode Island, and covering the legislature there for the first time, so I have a lot of thoughts.
The main difference I've noticed is that in RI, basically EVERY bill gets a committee hearing, even if everyone knows it's not going anywhere. It's well-known that bills aren't going to get a floor vote unless House or Senate leadership wants them to — meaning that anything introduced by Republicans or the most far-left Democrats tends to be DOA. But those bills will still get a hearing, and activists on either side will show up and testify for HOURS.
I have very mixed feelings about this! On one hand, I question whether it's the best use of everyone's time (esp. the activists who aren't paid to be there.) But I also love the fact that we get to have these big, kinda-theoretical debates about policy, and hear from people on all different sides. A lot of times, lawmakers will openly admit that their bill wouldn't hold up as law and that they introduced it just to get a conversation started.
It is a bit tricky as a reporter to figure out how much attention to give this stuff, though. I don't want to whip people into a frenzy about something that has no chance of passing (and I'm well aware that even if I make that clear in the story, a lot of people will only read the headline.)
Another factor is that the legislature here is usually pretty reluctant to pass bills the first year that they're introduced — before they can gain any traction, they usually have to get introduced several years in a row, with the same people having the same debates each time.
On the same day that Writer Extraordinaire, Renata Clo, highlights the craziness of the SUSD Governing Board race, Amy Carney, the Hand-Maiden-In-Chief of Scottsdale tweets a warning "to the adults" in the classrooms that - now armed with the right to sue Teachers - "we're coming for you". I suspect there's also a celebratory party at the Carney house this weekend for "Alito's Army".
Here's a question: do other state capitols have inmates doing landscaping work? That has always felt really dystopian to me and I have a feeling it may be unique to Arizona.
The legislature approved $400 Billion to expand I-10 from Chandler to Casa Grande? Is it going to be paved in gold? It will be stolen pretty quickly. Perhaps $400 million is the correct amount. That could come out of this budget surplus....
We corrected that -- just imagine what could be done with $400 billion!
I was a research analyst in the AZ House, now I'm a research attorney in the Hawaii Senate (my office is kind of a mix of majority research and legislative council - we are one of 3 drafting agencies for the Hawaii legislature but also staff committee hearings). Both legislatures are of similar size and length (HI is 60 days with 9 mandatory recess days scattered throughout), similar number of committees, and that's about where the similarities end. Here are the things that shocked me the most about the Hawaii Senate: 24 Dems and 1 Republican (but the Dems are allover the place on policy), introduce roughly 2,000 bills and only pass out about 200, committees meet MWF or Tue/Thur, or M-F if A bracket committee, joint referrals are super common, committees are run very informally and decision-making on any measure can occur on a different date than when receiving testimony, don't need quorum to hear testimony (often only the chair is present), amendments to bills are announced at decision-making and not seen in writing until the amended version is filed with the clerk's office, debate almost never occurs on the floor (written comments are just entered into the journal) and votes are taken on consent more often than not (no voting screen!), and nearly every single bill is sent to conference committee!!!! The budget miraculously is approved on time every year and sine die always occurs right on time on the 60th day and is usually super boring.