Giving Thanks to the Staffers Who Make Us Look Good
At this time of the legislative session, it is appropriate to give thanks to the legislative staff. I call them the Brain Trust. These fine people are the glue that holds us together. They endure interminable meetings, get called on to draft amendments "on the fly" during committees, and are expected to know everything about ten or fifteen bills on a committee agenda.
Each senator has a legislative assistant, who schedules, answers phones and mail, supervises interns, makes sure the senator is at the right place at (sometimes) the right time, and generally runs the office. In the house, two members in the majority and three in the minority share a legislative assistant.
Committee chairs also have a committee administrator who sets agendas; makes sure advocates, testifiers, and authors are notified of meetings; keeps track of facts, names and faces and bill referrals and re-referrals; schedules meetings and rooms; and so on. They are probably on speed dial, or at least in the Blackberry, of every lobbyist, advocate, and department liaison.
Each committee has an attorney or two who researches information, helps write bills and amendments, and tries to make sense of what legislators say they want. They prepare "side-by-side" comparisons of companion house and senate bills for conference committees to use as they consider whether to adopt house or senate language. Right now, the senate counsel for finance divisions are working on caffeine, adrenaline, and no sleep. As conference committees meet late into the night, senate counsel often stays hours after the senators have gone home so everything is ready for the next day's meetings.
In addition, the finance divisions also have a fiscal analyst who balances the books, suggests alternatives or ways to implement suggestions, puts together the spreadsheets that are used in conference committees, and usually walk through the spreadsheets during conference committees.
Then there are the Revisor's staffers. At this time of year, they work all night to draft, edit, proofread, and organize the bills for legislators to use. They seldom get credit for the work they do, but we couldn’t exist without them.
Rep. Michael Paymar of St. Paul and I co-chaired the conference committee on public safety. Every day we see how talented our staffers are. We have come to agreement on the bill, and it will be considered for final passage on the House and Senate floors soon. Our conference committee members were State Representatives Michael Paymar, Debra Hilstrom, Steve Smith, Tina Liebling and Joe Mullery and Senators Tom Neuville, Leo Foley, Mary Olson, Julie Rosen and me — Senator Linda Higgins.
So today I'm using this forum to introduce and thank the good people who helped put together the Public Safety Omnibus Bill, House File 829:
- Libby Wyrum and Nicque Mabrey, legislative assistants for Rep. Michael Paymar and me
- Sarah Kepple Johnson and Carissa Masloski, our senate committee page and intern
- Melanie LaComb and Alice Seuffert, committee administrators for House and Senate Public Safety Budget Divisions
- Patrick Baldwin and Regina Garza, committee administrators for House Public Safety and Civil Justice and Senate Judiciary committees
- Jeff Diebel and Rebecca Pirius, House researchers, and Ken Backhus and Kathy Pontius, Senate counsel
- Gary Karger and Chris Turner, House and Senate fiscal analysts.
Thanks to you all. Enjoy the interim without us!