Today, we visited the legislative assembly and watch the senators of the judiciary committee debate three bills. The first two were minor corrections to previous laws that would make them easier to implement without disrupting the already established norms in those areas. Each of these bills passed without opposition. However, the next bill was a different story.
We learned of a change to the schedule of the judiciary committee 45 minutes before the actual meeting. They decided to push off two bills and add an abortion bill (a bill that would limit abortions based on sex, disability, and race) to the list, which was a surprise to Professor Markham and even the staff themselves. There were many tear-jerking testimonies about the bill, but it seemed that there was no debate from the senators. One senator strongly opposed the bill, but no one argued with her. I later found out that she was the only one that opposed the bill, so no one bothered to defend the bill against her criticisms. I found this very interesting and learned that senators do not always want a confrontation and sometimes even look to avoid a direct confrontation with one another.
-Travis