The highs and lows of the legislative session

Impressions on the sausage-making factory from a "newbie"

by Megan Rhyne
Executive Director
Virginia Coalition for Open Government

Though I’ve attended legislative committee meetings for the past several years as VCOG’s associate director, this was the first year — as executive director — that I immersed myself in the session. Everyone knows the comparison between making laws and making sausage. What they don’t say is that some sausage is better than others, both while it’s being made and while it’s sizzling in the pan. With your indulgence, then, I’d like to share what I considered to be the good and bad ingredients that went into this round of sausage-making.

The Good Ingredients

Legislative Assistants. These ladies (and most, if not all, are women) are the first line of a General Assembly member’s defense team. Somehow they keep order from behind their cubbie-bunkers, taking business cards and passing them on to the legislative aides, diligently typing up the member’s correspondence, and greeting first-time visitors with a smile and an offer to help. Lobbyists can be quite demanding (all the while pretending very hard not to be), which would probably occasionally ruffle my feathers if it were me. But never once did I see an assistant treat anyone with anything but respect from the first day of session to the last.

Legislative Aides. Similarly, I was always impressed with how welcoming most of the aides were. The LAs know nearly everything about Senator’s or Delegate’s bills: who’s interested in them, where they originated, what the member thinks about them, when they will be heard in subcommittee or committee, how to turn water into wine. Seriously, like the legislative assistants, the LAs manage to be helpful and authoritative without guile. Despite having a murderous schedule and an undoubtedly back-breaking workload, rarely did an LA ever make me feel that he or she was too busy to talk to or help me.

Moments of recognition. I like to think I’m not a starstruck naďf, but there is something oddly satisfying about finding yourself in an elevator  (or more likely waiting for one, see below), chatting and joking with a Senator or Delegate. These elected officials see hundreds of people throughout the session, hear hundreds of bills, listen to hours of testimony. So when one of them recognizes you, or takes time to make amiable, if inconsequential, small talk, well, it just somehow seems special.

The unexpected. There was the LA who strode through the halls with her pooch in her shoulder bag.  There was the discovery that an LA’s wife may have been a student of my mother’s, and that an assistant was a longtime friend of another relative. Then there was the time I rounded the corner in the maze of member offices to be greeted by a ceiling raining down spangled Valentine’s Day finery, dainty sweets arranged on a platter, and Del. John Cosgrove unchaining “Unchained Melody” into a microphone. It was a sound check; just the warm-up of a bigger to-do later.

The Bad Ingredients

The elevators. There are six of them. There are nine floors. There have to be at least 3.6 million people trying to use them. Going two floors up or down without a stop feels like going 100 m.p.h. on the Autobahn.

The number of bills. Even the most diligent legislator has to find it difficult, if not impossible to be fully informed about all of the bills and resolutions they rule on. The sheer number of bills (over 1,500 total, even with the House’s self-imposed individual bill limit) means that many bills get hurried through the subcommittee and committee process with no discussion other than a brief description of what the bill is supposed to do. Which brings me to

Impatient committee/subcommittee chairs. With this rush to clear the bills from their dockets, some committee/subcommittee chairs seemed annoyed when there was opposition requiring a longer vetting process. Some seemed to get even more annoyed when someone wanted to speak in support of a bill without opposition. In more than a few meetings, I heard chairs admonish speakers to be brief, not repeat what others already said or to stand up to be acknowledged instead of speaking. I saw eyes roll and heard heavy sighs when another speaker approached the podium. And I saw one committee member run his hand across his throat in an attempt to get the speaker to wrap up her comments. A full docket is motivation to be as efficient as possible, but efficiency should not trump the public’s opportunity to weigh in on legislation that could affect them. Many of us are registered lobbyists who should “know better,” but we’re usually not the ones being urged to move it along. Instead, the frequent target of the chairs’ impatience is the small business owner, teacher, fire fighter or ordinary citizen who has taken time off from work, traveled to Richmond, waited patiently for her bill to come up so she can share the prepared comments she undoubtedly rehearsed in her mind a dozen times. These people should be heard, not rushed; not made to feel that they are gumming up the works; not put on the spot by being asked to “say something different.” Some committee/subcommittee chairs get this. But not all.

The waiting. Wait for the bill you’re tracking to be put on the docket. Wait for the floor sessions to end. Wait for the elevator. Wait for the committee meeting to begin (only to be told that your bill is being passed by for the day). Wait for dozens of bills to be heard before the one you’re interested in comes up. Wait for the elevator. Wait for the clerks to tweak the electronic voting boards that have fritzed out. Wait for the LA to see you, so you can then wait for the legislator to talk to you. Wait for the 20-minute debate over a bill that is eventually passed unanimously. Wait for the elevators. Wait for the elevators. Wait for the elevators.