The Personalities of Committees
https://soundcloud.com/capimpactca/the-clinic-episode-7-the-personalities-of-committees
On today’s episode of The Clinic Keri and Michelle discuss their experience navigating budget subcommittee hearings in the Assembly and Senate. What stood out most to Michelle was how the two different subcommittees felt like they had different personalities.
That’s largely a result of the Committee Chairs running those committees, but an interesting observation. The primary different between the two committees was how the respective Chairs wanted to receive testimony. In one, the Chair was more lax with enforcement of the generally accepted two-minute rule for testimony and wanted to hear people’s personal stories to add context to their budget asks. In the other committee, the Chair was much more strict with the two-minute rule, and wanted to be impressed with the facts.
All in all, things seemingly went well in those subcommittees, and Keri and Michelle came out of those hearings with a further refined approach to their budget ask. We talk about that change in greater detail in the podcast.
We also revisit our earlier conversation about stakeholders and supporters of AB 1784. That list of groups is growing, which is good news for Keri and Michelle, but that was not always the case. There was a period of time where it seemed momentum was stalling around their bill. In the podcast we talk about some of the approaches that Michelle and Keri considered at the time – and are still considering – inject new energy into the bill.
Like I said, the list of supporters is growing, so the need to actively try to inject more energy is on hold for the time being. And as Michelle and Keri prepare for finals and the Bar Exam, it’s probably for the best that they sit back (a little bit) and react to requests rather than take the usual hyper-proactive approach that they’ve going with so far.