A Much More Crazy Week

Hello again! For the first time since this blog began, I didn't post earlier in the week and *gasp* I'm not treating you to two blog posts in one week? What? Whatever will you do? I bet you missed me a ton this week, didn't you? You were probably staying awake late at night wondering why Shreya wasn't giving you what you most wanted: a blog post about her really fun internship.

Ignore that GIF. It's being really rude. But anyways, it's ok. I'm here to save you now. Welcome to this week's blog post.

That was really dramatic. Maybe too dramatic. Oh, well.

I did many things this week. On Tuesday, I sat in on two meetings at the Chamber: a Legal, Regulatory, & Financial Services Policy Committee meeting and an Education & Workforce Development Policy Committee meeting.

In the first meeting, people discussed a lot of bills associated with criminal justice, which was really interesting. One of the people who led the meeting took a moment to acknowledge the significant cost of crime on both victims and corporations, saying that this is not a time to be dramatically changing the criminal justice system (through bills and such) in regards to punishments, time served, etc. Luckily, in Arizona, we've had forty-to-fifty-year lows in crime rates, so we've averted many costs of crime. However, the committee members acknowledged the need for some reform within the judicial system. They categorized issues concerning the judicial system into how judges are selected, how they are retained, and what power we give them. The committee members also discussed issues with how the judicial system runs in AZ specifically. For most of the nation, the state legislature serves as a check for the courts, the legislature being the ultimate authority. However, this check and balance is not seen in AZ, where the courts assert that they have the final say on rulings, which is problematic.

In the second meeting, the hot topic was ESA bills (which is pretty much a hot topic in the entire country right now I guess). For those of you who aren't familiar with them, ESAs (Education Savings Accounts) let parents pull their kids out of public or charter schools and continue their educations in a different way (private schooling, online courses, homeschooling, etc. although there are some restrictions) by giving these parents a deposit of public funds in government-authorized savings accounts. The Chamber traditionally supports high-quality, private choice and financial accountability and pre-enrollment academic transparency and so on. An issue the committee discussed was the actual funding methodology for ESAs. They advocated for an extension on the account caps with a go-slow phase-in so that the fiscal impact is predictable.

Then, on Thursday, I helped out at the Lodging & Tourism Unity Dinner (which was very exciting and had some truly amazing salad) that honored Senator Jeff Flake for encouraging the hotel and tourism business in AZ. Sen. Flake was interviewed onstage and he spoke about how good NAFTA has been with regards to trade for North America, saying "we should not scrap it or try to punish one country or another by negotiating it." However, he did agree that NAFTA should be modernized to fit with the way things work now as opposed to when it was created. He also spoke about how important immigration is for tourism in the country and in AZ specifically, advocating that the immigration ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries is unjust, not to mention bad for tourism, and that we need to work away from that.

And then, this morning, I was very excited to help out at the Eggs and Issues Breakfast with Congressman David Schweikert, who, I had heard from the Chamber members, is a very good public speaker. In his keynote address, Rep. Schweikert mostly discussed how AZ is a hotbed for innovation and technology and we need to make use of that creative, innovative spirit for a more efficient government. One thing that stood out to me during his talk was his ideas about telemedicine and calls for a technological revolution. He also discussed a better way forward on tax reform (what he called doing taxes on basically gigantic postcards) to make things easier and more efficient for taxpayers. Another thing that was interesting was his discussion of the nation's immigration system. For positive economic growth, he advocated for a more talent-based immigration system such as the ones Canada, New Zealand, and Australia have. However, he also acknowledged how the system is currently very family-based, saying we need to now negotiate a balance between familial and talent-based immigration systems.

I even got to meet Rep. Schweikert and speak with him for about ten minutes. He was one of the nicest, most down-to-earth politicians I've ever met (out of the grand total of about two politicians I've met in my limited experience). He said his 16-month-old daughter would've really loved (pulling on and playing with) my hair, which was exciting. I mean, it's not every day a member of Congress compliments you on how attractive your hair would be to a baby. And I'm not lying! I have proof!

Yay proof! Anyways, besides being able to meet all these political figures, I'm so grateful for and excited about this internship because I'm learning so much that I didn't know before! It's interesting how pathetically little I knew about policy and politics before this. Being able to see people work on everything from education policies to criminal justice policies to immigration and tax reform is amazing and it's always exciting to see and work with these things firsthand.

Well, that was my little spiel of the week. I'll also speak about where I've come so far with my actual research next week. I hope you all have a great weekend and I'll see you next week for another post!