I went to some training at the Statehouse sat and here are some of my notes. This presentation was provided by Tim cox: (rules chair in the Utah statehouse 2020). This is a submission to caucus corner.

– Founding fathers setup system to check abusive power.
– They arranged to check and balances by sharing powers between different branches to check each other.
– It has been arranged to be hard to make or change a law. That is intentional
– The rules committee has the ability to help determine who is on a committee and can direct bill to an area that may cadre to a specific need.
– You need to present a bill way before the legislators meet.
– Legislative time frames.
– Seven weeks is intense ad a lot of events happen
– It starts in the first week of Jan and end the first of March. 60 days after the session (may) people can submit a bill for the next year? The earlier the better.
– Bills drafted in mid-may have a better chance of being reviewed.
– Start in late spring/summer-like May, June and through summer. Beyond fall you can have issues.
– First is the idea phase.
– Legislators have different skills and different opinions.
– Some legislators will look at other legislators who may have a strong skill set to understand a policy in that leg skill set.
– Ideas can come from an interest group. It can come from national organizations.
– Ideas can come from citizens.
– Some ideas will come from legislators.
– A legislator has the authority to ask a drafting attorney to put into a law language.
– The second step is to open a file.
– Boxcar: is a secret folder of files that may be bad or good bills so that it can get considered. Eventually, the boxcar needs to move down the track and is viewed by the public.
– The more fully formed the idea that is presented to the billing attorney the better success it has to move forward into a bill.
– The attorney has drafted it the rules will approve it. The bill will be drafted and will be viewed by public notes.
– A physical note will be looked at to what the cost of the budget related to that bill. You want to start your bill with your legislator.
– Your own legislator wants to represent their continuants. If they don’t want to represent the proposed bill, they may refer to another person. Can approach a legislator that has the same mindset that you do.
– How to contact legislators? Put yourself into their shoes. Send an email to your representative. Make sure to tell him or her that you are constituents. Send an email during sessions not effective.
– You can text them. Treat with discretion. More effective during a session.
– A better way is to contact the intern. Call the house and they can connect you to the intern.
– Outside session invite a rep to breakfast. Emails drop down to lower numbers.
– You can attract a lot more bees with honey than with vinegar. Be polite and respectful.
– Green notes: You can send a green note to your rep. that may give you a chance. They might come out on the floor. Influence of how many notes they have. A green note is a form you can have delivered to a legislator as a personal message to him or her. If given a green note to elected or green leadership it has less chance to set a note. Appointed leadership appointed by the house.
– It works better when they are in a campaign run. Work for their team and get to know them. Build a relationship.
– The presenter has his iPhone configured to direct all calls not on my contact list. You may know someone well enough that they become a contact.
– Some constituents have shown themselves to be experts in certain areas. And legislate may call certain citizens that may have expertise on a certain topic to advise. If you can provide credible info to legislators.
– Legislators are information starved and have limited information.
– Back to boxcar: first arrived at rules committees. The rules committee is a traffic cop) is the switchman of the railroad to determine what track the bill goes. Bill has been drafted and has a physical notes rules direct it to what committee it goes to. The rules committee knows who weak and strong committees are.
– One they go to a certain committee they are locked into that committee.
– The rules chair will determine when a bill will be addressed.
– The chair will put it on the agenda. Must be on the agenda for 24 hours before address o agenda.
– Utah website has a bill tracking services on the website. You can listen to the committee and legislators’ debates. You can get alerts. The business committee plus and natural resources committee takes 70 %. Social series also takes a lot. Address medial issues.
– In committee: will be presented the bill. Committee will ask questions. And there is an area for public comment to the committee.
– A lot of legislators will make up their decision before it goes to the committee. You need to let legislators before the committee.
– Before a committee you might be able to talk to someone Maybe you can ask can I walk with you.
– If bills are late on agenda you may be shorted your time to give a presentation. Give handouts.
– What would prevent a bill from getting a number? The attorney may run out of time. Legislators never give it a number.
– 1400 bills setup box cars and 800 will be drafted and about 700 will voted on.
– Titles will be responsible to title a bill.
– If you give your rep a word file with important info highlighted in red its easier for the rep to access etc. that can help a bill.
Green paper:
– Topic/bill number:
– Date
– Time
– To rep
– From
– []is waiting to see you ( door location)
– [] Time message sent in
– [] Please call at phone #
– [] returned your call
– Message
Other processes
– Need friends in both houses.
– Goes out of committee (held) if yes moves on to the floor
– Bills come in the order it arrives and debated on the floor
– If passes it switches over to the other house.
– 85% bills top conservatives and top liberal agree on most bills. In state committee, senate floor. Agreed
– Goes to the Governor to sign it or veto it.
– If Governor does not sign a bill it is yes.
– Bill becomes effective 60 days after the legislation.
– If your bill has a physical note of 10K or higher it goes to the budget committee.
– It governed vetoes it is dead unless house and senate vote by 2/3 to have it passed.
– One law may touch upon the public has access of water.
– A compressed session hopes to have the bottleneck push good bills forward. The downside of a bottleneck downside when we debate under s short time. Last 3 days a bill does not have to go through the committee. Sometimes only two senators can vote on a bill and is not debated on the floor.
– Each Senator represents 40K Utah citizens.
– How to provide info to a legislator?
Short summary: other info available links
Bullet point and one page is your best.
Also, email your rep with hyperlinks.