I Didn't Break My Pinkie Promise!

See! I promised I would write again about what I do today at my internship site, and I haven't failed you (yet). Today, I sat in on a public affairs meeting at the Chamber. Arizona Senator Kimberly Yee came in and started off the meeting by discussing the 2017 Senate Majority Program. This program exists in hopes that it can serve as a framework of objectives to create opportunity and prosperity in Arizona. One of the most important goals of this program is to foster economic development and job growth, something Arizona has been very good at in recent years! Another important goal is to develop a strong education system. This involves the recent Prop 206 debate of rolling out funds for the prop and so on. This same idea goes hand in hand with a structurally balanced budget (another goal of the program) that can focus on K-12 education. Alongside this, Sen. Yee briefly discussed the idea of rewarding teachers who travel long distances to teach with bonuses, something Governor Doug Ducey supports.

One thing that caught my attention during Sen. Yee's talk was her discussion of voting and elections. She recounted her experiences during last year's elections in which the waiting lines to vote itself were so long that people were actually deterred from voting. It was interesting because people were actually much more involved in the recent election than in previous years, but despite their passion, the elections remained inaccessible to them. Sen. Yee spoke to the idea that a reform of the voting system is something that the Majority Program hints at significantly.

I'll end with one last tidbit of interesting information. During the meeting, the Chamber discussed the recent hot topic of Arizona's disability laws. Senator John Kavanagh and Representative Maria Syms have introduced legislation to tackle the problem of unnecessary lawsuits. In the last year, businesses faced several lawsuits claiming a violation of the Arizonans with Disabilities Act. These lawsuits usually result in huge payouts for the suer because, I imagine, of the sensitive nature of disability legislation. Sen. Kavanagh and Rep. Syms introduced two bills that would help combat this issue. Senate Bill 1198 tries to tackle the issue by giving businesses 60 to 90 days to fix compliance issues with the Disabilities Act. The bill would make it so that lawsuits can only be filed if businesses don't make any move to correct their violation of the law. House Bill 2504 focuses on the actual attorneys. It would allow courts to fine those who sued businesses just for the payout. 1198 is a pretty controversial bill at the moment, but people seem to be responding somewhat favorably to 2504. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

Now onwards to my research! I plan on surveying the general public, elected officials, and lobbyists themselves about their perceptions surrounding the role and importance of lobbyists. The survey will probably contain seven to ten questions with short vignettes detailing a lobbyist’s work followed by a numbered scale from one to ten. The participant would then rate his/her perception of the lobbyist (one being “very displeased” and ten being “very appreciative”). More obscure stories will be given to lobbyists and legislators participating in the survey to minimize bias in their responses. At the end of the survey, participants will be asked to rate their overall understanding and impression of lobbyists along with their opinion of how significant they believe lobbyists are to the legislative process. The survey will also ask lobbyists how they believe they will be rated by the public.

So far, I have gathered a few anecdotes about lobbyists that I plan on using in the survey, but I'm still on the hunt for more obscure stories for the lobbyists and elected officials. Hopefully, I will be able to release a survey for the general public very soon. So look out for that. And make sure you take that survey! Because that would be nice and helpful. Unless you want to be unhelpful. In which case, I don't really know what to say to you.

Don't be that person.

Oh! And I hope you all have been enjoying the "What Day Is It?" section (to the right) that I've been writing/updating every day. With pictures. Just for you. In the wee hours of the morning. All to make your day happier. So be very grateful. 😁

Anyways, have an awesome weekend and see you next week for another funtastic post! Get it? Funtastic? Like fantastic except more fun? Ok, I'll stop now.

A Less Crazy Week

Hi everyone! I hope your week is going splendiferously! This week at my internship site, I took a bit of a breather. I had so much fun jumping right into the thick of things during my first week that I completely forgot to do the smaller but still very important stuff. Like setting up my computer. And meeting everyone in the office. Yeah, I kind of messed that part up.

But it's ok! Because I made up for that this week. My mentor has been away for a couple of days because he's been at Mexico discussing the importance of the Arizona-Mexico trade relationship. I learned about and discussed this relationship a bit by attending the #LetsGrow event (which I blogged about last week) and writing an article about it for the Chamber. However, I'm hoping I get to learn more about how exactly the Chamber's negotiating the current status of NAFTA and the Arizona-Mexico relationship in the next few days.

Getting back to the point, I made up for being an antisocial knowledge-hoarder taking notes feverishly in the corner by meeting everyone at the office this week and helping out wherever I could. Everybody has been so completely, wonderfully nice to me; it's great to be able to work around such intelligent, kind people. Like I said before, I slowed down a bit this week and did what I probably should have done my first few days. For one thing, I actually did all the (boring) set-up like getting issued a computer and a Chamber email address (actually that part was pretty cool) and finding out where the bathroom is. You know, normal-people stuff.

Also, I took pictures of the place! Isn't it pwetty?

When I walked in today, there was a big board meeting going on so, like the good little intern I am, I restocked the refrigerator with sodas that weren't expired. Yay for me! But anyways, in terms of the actual work I did this week, the Chamber uses a software called ChamberMaster. It helps chambers with managing events, groups, billing, and so on. To get acquainted with who the Chamber's clients are, I categorized some of their most important businesses and companies through this software. It was interesting to see the massive range of companies the Chamber dealt with—there were businesses involved with everything from education to real estate to law to correctional facilities (aka private prisons).

Anyhoo, that's what I did so far for this week. I'll blog again tomorrow about what I'll be doing for the rest of the week. Also, for those of you who are interested, arguments for Prop 206 will be heard by the Arizona Supreme Court on March 9th, so I'll keep you updated on how the full effects of the new minimum wage law will play out. Finally, I'm getting some headway on designing the methodology for my research question, which is exciting. But I'll delve deeper into that tomorrow. Pinkie promise!

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for tomorrow's post!