All interns at the Indiana General Assembly have the opportunity to apply for a scholarship provided by Verizon. Four interns are awarded the $3,000 scholarship, one from each caucus. That means one from the House Republicans, one from the House Democrats, one from the Senate Republicans, and one from the Senate Democrats. Well, I’m applying even though my grad school is paid for. If I get it, the $3,000 will go to my school next year, and I can withdraw it from my student account. There are a lot of things I could do with $3,000.
Well, we had to write an essay. Here’s mine!
For nearly four years, I have been a very active part of the Butler University Political Science Department. However, my interest in politics goes back much further than 2003. I was twelve years old when Bill Clinton ran for his second term as President of the United States. It was on this evening in November of 1996 that I was introduced to the world of politics. My father took me to my county’s Republican Headquarters where I observed the announcement of results as they came in. My parents had never been involved in the political arena, but they were supporting a friend who was running for his third term as a State Representative. I was excited for Bill Friend, who won his election, but did not realize that I would one day have the opportunity to work with him.
More than ten years later, I find myself a part of the legislative process. As I worked through high school and college, I was an outsider, looking in, trying to figure out how the legislative process truly worked. Even after an internship in Washington, D.C., I still found that I had difficulty understanding the intricacies of the process. It was this confusion that increased my desire to work in the Indiana House of Representatives. I had seen the national legislature, and I had witnessed the Senate, but I still wanted to experience the fast-paced atmosphere of the Indiana House. This is where my view of the legislative process has been substantiated.
My knowledge of the legislative process has changed to someone who is now living and breathing the process and experiencing it firsthand. I have a firm belief that experiential education is the most valuable opportunity that modern students have available, and it is one which we should not take for granted. That is why I have tried to make the most of my semester at the Statehouse.
Through my time here, I have learned that the legislative process is not outdated, like I once thought. Instead, I now believe that the legislative process is one that can stand the test of time. However, this is not to say that modernization is a bad thing. This is evidenced by the events on Friday, March 23, 2007.
“The network went down.†That sentence is enough to make Dave Warycha’s blood pressure rise immeasurably and cause many government agencies to come to a screeching halt, but not the House. When the network failed, the House pressed on, even though the process was a bit more time consuming. This leads me to the question posed for this personal statement. How does a bill really become a law? The answer is simple: through any means possible.
A bill can become a law quite easily if it is not controversial. The session has been filled with many of these bills. Water is the new state drink. It is now even more illegal to have sex with farm animals. It is possible to commit battery by using body waste. These are bills that are not controversial. They are accepted on both sides of the aisle. The difficulty lies in how a divisive bill becomes law. This is a much more difficult accomplishment.
There is a great deal of opinion regarding how we should create a budget, define marriage, fund Medicare, and manage property taxes. Often, even the caucus does not have a consensus. These are the issues in which we truly see the intricacies of the legislative process. A bill can pass on a party line vote or it can pass with half of the Republicans and half of the Democrats. As long as there are 51 votes, a bill will pass out of the House, but it is still not law.
As we learn in fourth grade, the bill must also pass the Senate and go to the governor. If this does not happen, it still does not mean the bill is dead. Conference committees are where most controversial bills eventually come roaring back to life. Controversial bills are used as bargaining chips at the end of the session. If you want to pass the cigarette tax, then you need to pass my budget. If I want to kill SJR7, then I’ll vote for your Slots bill. Some may call it compromise, but I think it is more like chess. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your Queen to save your King. The only question is, which bill is the King and which is the Queen? This must be answered before the legislature reaches stalemate, resulting in a dreaded special session. No one wants to be here in June for a special session for one simple reason: there are no interns. Let’s face it…interns make session worth the hard work. Just ask Representative Whetstone, the intern who never left.
