Author: andrewl435

This was our longest day yet! We kicked it off with a Senate Health Committee hearing on a bill to ban abortions based on the results of a prenatal Down’s Syndrome test. Needless to say, with both senate questions and public speakers, the room was emotionally thick. After the hour was up and the Committee room had to be transferred finance I met up with Aryan, who was working in the office of Representative Harris from Mecklenburg county. He had been tasked with searching through the 2019 budget for nonrecurring funds that Mecklenburg could lose if the a new budget isn’t passed by July, so we sat in the lobby of the General Assembly and compiled numbers in Excel before lunch.

After lunch, I shadowed Ms. DeVivo in a more casual meeting of just lobbyists working together (mostly) on the charter school legislation and we went to the analog bill archives in the library to find Governor Cooper’s voting record on charter school legislation when he was still Senator Cooper in 1996.

Andrew L.

Here’s Aryan holding his homework.

Not a single one of the Legislature’s new chairs would be broken in today because the entire building was deserted — the weather was just a little too nice to end memorial day weekend quite so soon. Luckily, Ms. DeVivo and I made the most out of the quiet halls, touring around the General Assembly. The building has a theme of red velvet and polished brass, which she noted to me when we looked into the galleries of each chamber. From there we swung by the second floor where she showed me her old office from her time as Chief-of-Staff to the Speaker of the House. In the Speaker’s suite was a nice man who took us to the floor of the house chamber and let me hop up on the podium and get a feel for the gavel with which the Speaker calls the House to order. On the way back, we met the House Principal Clerk who is in charge of maintaining all of the parliamentary procedure that the House is run on.

Everyone we met today was super cool, maybe we’ll run into them again.

Andrew L.

This is me looking tiny at the podium in the House chamber (the gavel is much bigger in person).

The Legislature generally only works Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Thus, Thursdays are dubbed “Legislative Fridays” which makes today a legislative Saturday, and unless something is particularly pressing, legislative Saturdays are pretty slow.

Andrew L.

Here’s the view out the window of the third floor library in the Legislative Office.

Today we skipped the Legislative Building and started with a meeting over lunch at Café Carolina in The Village. Our meeting was to discuss the same charter school bills as yesterday, but this time it was with two lawyers (and a few lobbyists from before). After getting a scrumptious tuna salad, Ms. DeVivo and I sat down with another lobbyist, though there was a last minute schedule change so we had a few minutes. We chatted for a few minutes, and it actually turned out that the lobbyist’s son played tennis with a graduating senior from CA! Pretty cool.

Anyways, the rest of our lunch entourage came in, ordered food, and got to discussing bills. Most of it was the lobbyists presenting the bills to the lawyers by explaining their clients problems and wishes, and then lawyers gave feedback on problematic language that would the legislation hard to get through the General Assembly.

Andrew L.

I didn’t get any new pictures today, so here is a short clip from yesterday of a protest outside the General Assembly on biomass emissions (featuring original song “Where’s Cooper?”).

The first thing on our agenda today was a meeting between three legislators and a few lobbyists each representing different charter school management groups. But, we got in a little before that meeting started, so while Ms. DeVivo was doing important things I loitered in the legislative office’s library, which was very nice; however, after perusing through a copy of Black’s Law Dictionary and the fifth installment of one set of EPA regulations, I may be reconsidering a legal career.

The conference room that our meeting was in seemed like it hadn’t seen light since before the pandemic, but everything went along. Just like yesterday, everyone in the meeting was remarkably amicable as the lobbyists presented bills and the legislators questioned them. What really stuck me, other than the gravity of the problems facing our charter school developments, was the charming, gregarious nature of almost every single person in the room. I’m not sure if this is due to the removal of drowsy teenagers or that there is something truly unique about the Legislative Office, but my meetings at school are poles apart from this active friendliness, whether it be superficial or genuine.

Either way, it has already been incredibly fun to watch Ms. DeVivo navigate this dynamic ecosystem in just my first two days.

Andrew L.

Anti-abortion protesters in the front quad of the Legislative Building as we walked in.

Today was my first day in person, and from my first step past security it was total immersion in a whole new world. Even before we had our first official meeting, just walking around with Ms. DeVivo was eye-opening. It seemed like she knew person we walked past and had something important to discuss with every second person we saw.

This is a bit of a down week in the Legislative Office, but to start it we were tracking a bill in the House Health Committee meeting that would make organ donation consent evergreen. Before the meeting started I met multitudes of people, each with their own clients, constituents, and connections to the committee’s proceedings. The meeting was lighthearted, everything went according to norm (at least I think it did, I’m not too sure what the norm is but it seemed normal to everyone else), and each bill presented passed unopposed.

Tomorrow, we are meeting with legislators on behalf of a charter school organization.

Andrew L.

Today was my first day and a lighthearted one as such, and I really just worked in preparation for tomorrow. Ms. DeVivo, my primary mentor, gave me detailed instructions on what the rest of the week in person will look like and towards the end of the day sent me a bill that we will be working on tomorrow, Tuesday, with the bill’s author, an old friend of hers. Coincidentally, the bill would provide reforms to the organ donation system, which overlaps with research I am doing for another activity this weekend. Hopefully each can better my understanding of the other, and I look forward to our work!

Andrew L.