State Legislative Process Episode 4

>>Hello. My name is Bill Sederburg, President of Utah Valley State College. I am not Senator John Valentine, but I am where Senator Valentine works. I am here in the Senate Chamber of the Utah State Senate. The State Senate is vitally important to the citizens of Utah. I discovered that when I served in the State Senate in the state of Michigan. The State Senate is vitally involved in almost every aspect of the citizen’s life. In today’s program, we are going to be talking about the legislative process, the Utah Legislature, but concentrating primarily on the bill making process and the writing of the code. And right here where Senator Valentine works is the official Code of the State of Utah. There are five similar volumes. If you look in more depth you will see all of the fine print. It is this official legal Code that is drafted in this chamber, and trust me, this Code affects every of life. This program is put together as part of our political science department to emphasize state legislative relations, and Professor Rick Griffin is the lead professor. I am going to now turn it over to Professor Griffin, who will give us an overview of today’s lesson.
>>Welcome to State Legislative Process. Nineteenth century German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck is reported to have said, “There are two things you don’t want to see being made: sausage and legislation.”  We are not going to be talking about sausage today, but we will be talking about legislation and the lawmaking process. And I have a sneaky feeling there may be a little pork in this process as well. Our lesson points for today are the steps to the lawmaking process in Utah and the role of leadership in the lawmaking  process. Let’s begin by looking at he basic steps for making law in the Utah State Legislature. The first step in the process is to come up with an idea for a bill. This is seldom a problem for legislators. Legislative leadership, the governor’s State of the State and proposed budget, average constituents, special interest groups, lobbyists, and the legislators themselves all are rich sources for ideas for proposed legislation. The average citizen may be surprised to find out that their idea, if it resonates with others, stands a pretty good chance of being addressed by the State Legislature. Speaking of this phenomenon, political scientists William Keefe and Morris Ogul state:
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>>The second step is for the idea of the bill to be formally drafted.
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>>This non-partisan legislative and legal staff reviews the bill for possible legal and constitutional conflicts. They then write the bill in technical form, and assign it a number. A t this time the bill is also reviewed for fiscal matters, and a fiscal note is attached to it. 
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>>The standing committee in open meeting reviews the bill and hears public testimony about the bill.
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>>In its report, the committee may recommend the bill out favorably, recommend it out favorably with amendments, recommend it be substituted, or explain why the bill was tabled. 
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>>For a bill to be passed, it must receive at least thirty-eight votes in the House of Representatives and fifteen votes in the Senate.
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>>The bill is prepared to the governor in its final form by the office of legislative research and general counsel. This final version of the bill is called the enrolled bill.
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>>He or she can do one of three things. The governor can sign the bill, veto the bill, or allow the bill to become law without his or her signature. Finally,
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>>Remember the basic mathematical equation for legislation in the Utah State Legislature.
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>>Let’s now review the steps of the lawmaking process with Representative Brad King of Utah’s House of Representatives.
>>Representative King, after ten years, what are your observations about the process? How do you take an idea that you might have to help the people in Carbon County, City of Price, and get that idea translated into state public policy?
>>Well, normally either you will have an idea or someone will come to you with an idea, and then you go immediately to Leg Counsel.
>>And Leg is…
>>Legislative Counsel and Research Department, essentially, for the Legislature. And the attorneys and the analysts there will help you to put together your ideas, where it fits in the law, and wordsmith the verbiage so that you can have an actual bill. Then that bill is taken and then numbered as soon as it is approved and everything and it becomes available for the legislative session. Once that starts, all of the bills that have the fiscal impact have to be determined, and then those are sent to what is called the Rules Committee. And the Rules Committee is a very important committee, because they determine which bills will be heard, and by which committees they are heard. And so your bill is then assigned to a committee. You go through the process of working through a public hearing with the committee and they will either approve it, or disapprove it, or make suggestions for amendments to change it. And then if they approve it at the end, then it goes to the floor of, in my case the House, of course, because I am in the House. You have a debate on the floor, you vote on the bill, and if it passes, it goes over to the other House and starts that same process. It goes through their Rules Committee, is assigned to a committee for public hearing, and then is voted on the floor of the Senate. And if it passes that far, then it would go to the governor’s desk for signature.
>>Is the system set up to kill bills?
>>No, but it is a very deliberative system. We will have over eight hundred, probably close to nine hundred bills that are proposed this year, and we will probably get through about half of those. It is a slow process, and that is ok.
>>In legislative studies, Utah is known as a state with a very large percentage of bills that actually pass and become law. In most states, the percentage is probably around ten to fifteen percent of the bills make it through the process. Is it just an expectation here in Utah that if you go to the problem of drafting bill that it is likely to pass?
>>The great majority of bills that we will deal with will not be new laws. They will be tweaking of old laws. And I think part of the reason is that if you just took the portion that we are proposing something new, that we would have a much lower percentage. But overall, most of the bills that we deal with really are a lot housekeeping, and not nearly as many have sweeping changes. 
>>Thank you, Representative King. Today’s second lesson point:
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>>As we learned last week, the Majority Party in the Utah State Legislature is the Republican party.
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>>Although both houses in the Utah State Legislature are controlled by the Republican Party, there is no guarantee that a Republican member of the House will get his or her bill passed in the other house. Speaker Greg Curtis explains that there are some clear differences between the two houses, and shares with us his thoughts about working with the Senate.
>>Dealing with the Senate. So it gets out of the House, and then you have to go to the Senate. What advice do you give your legislators on the House side as dealing with those Senators?
>>You need to establish relationships with the Senators. A lot of people think it is all about working in your body. You have got to go through both bodies, and you need to have personal relationships with the Senators. And a lot of these people don’t realize in the state of Utah, they think that President Valentine and I are at loggerheads, and you know, he is obviously the most influential person in the Senate, and that we are at loggerheads. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was in the House when I was elected, I consider him a mentor. He is a close personal friend, and so you work with them on ideas that are important to them, but you can still build those relationships, because you have to do those exact same things in the Senate. And you don’t have the luxury of interacting with them on a daily basis. The bicameral system is a brilliant design, because sometimes legislators, based on personal relationships, have a hard time voting against their seatmate’s bill. But when it goes up to the Senate, they are like, “Well, you know, I don’t like this idea this much.” They will be more inclined to vote against it because they will not have that personal relationship.
>>Now half the Senators were former House members. Do you view the Senate as a promotion, to get elected to the Senate?
>>Do I personally? No, I don’t. 
>>I would hope not.
>>By Senators, I don’t know about Senators. I don’t personally. Each body has its own different characteristics and nature. And the Senate seat, my Senator, Senator Mansell, or my past Senator, chose not to run for reelection this past cycle. I had a lot of people say, “Well, you ought to step up, you know, move up.” And I said, “I don’t know if it is moving up to go to the Senate. The nature of the House is different than the Senate.”
>>And describe the nature of the House compared to the nature of the Senate.
>>Well, the nature of the House is two year terms, more members, seventy-five members, less legislative experience. They haven’t been generally in a legislative body, maybe in a city council, in regards to that. It is a little more reactive to politics. It is reactive to public persuasion.
>>Is it more emotional? 
>>Yes, definitely. Definitely, in that process.  So in the Senate, there are four year terms. Somebody gets reelected to the Senate, and they say, “Well, four years is kind of a long time…” Maybe not as reactive, a little bit more, as they like to say, deliberative, slow, and certain things. And so just those different ways of responding.
>>Thank you Mr. Speaker. It is true that being part of the majority party doesn’t guarantee you will get your legislation passed, but it helps, especially if you have the majority leadership on your side. Recently we had a chance to talk with two majority party leaders, Senate President John Valentine and Majority Leader Curt Bramble, to learn more about their roles in the lawmaking process and what it takes to successfully pass legislation. 
>>Thanks, Rick. Today we are talking about the inside operation of the legislature. How does a bill actually become law? How does an idea from a citizen get translated and through the process, so that at some time the governor signs the bill and makes it a law? And we are joined today by two very distinguished gentlemen who have a lot of history and a lot of power in this process. Senator John valentine is President of the Utah Senate, ten years in the Utah house and nine years in the state senate here in Utah, one of the most powerful people in the state. And Senator Curt Bramble from Provo. Senator Bramble has been in the state senate for six years. He is known as one of the most effective legislators in the Utah legislature. He is a go-to kind of guy if you want to get something accomplished. So we are going to be talking about the internal mechanics, if you will, and the process of getting something done. But I am going to start with Senator Valentine. Can you share with us just a little bit about who the leadership structure is in the Utah Senate, and how do you go about selecting those people, and then a little bit more detail about the role of the Majority Leader. And then we are going to hear from the Majority Leader about his responsibilities.
>>You bet. The President is elected by the whole body. The Majority Leader, the Whip, and the Assistant Whip, are elected by the caucus. 
>>What does a Whip do? A Majority Leader makes sense, but a Whip? An Assistant Whip? Do they whip people?
>>Well, actually, they do. 
>They do. It sounds dangerous to me.
>>Their job is to make certain that the votes are there, so they have the duty to meet with the members, to make certain that the votes are present, and particular things that are written on our agenda. So those four members are the ones who are elected. We also have three non-elected members of leadership. 
>>But those people are elected by the caucus, not by the whole Senate.
>>You are elected by the whole Senate.
>>I am elected by the whole Senate.
>>But the Majority Leader would not…we will just jump to Senator Bramble. You are Majority Leader. Did you get elected by the whole Senate, or by the caucus?
>>No, the Majority Leader means the majority caucus. So it is just within the majority caucus. So you will have the elections for the Majority Leader, the Whip, and the Assistant Whip. I was elected by the Republicans in the state Senate.
>>And then is it confirmed by all twenty-nine?
>>Yes, what we do is at the beginning of the session, one of the things we do is we open up and we provide for the adoption of rules, and we provide for the adoption of ratification of the votes taken.
>>So the whole Senate votes. And so you would ratify the Democratic leadership, as well, then.
>>That is correct. 
>>And so you have those four leaders that are kind of the core of the leadership team.
>>On the majority side, that is correct.
>>Do the Democrats, or the minority party, have the same structure?
>>They have pretty much the same structure. They have a Minority Leader, they have the Minority Whip, Assistant Whip, but they have a fourth member of leadership, which they call their caucus chairman, or caucus representative.
>>Caucus manager.
>>Caucus manager is another name they have used. So those four become their four members of leadership.
>>Ok. So you get together as leaders and decide what to do. What is the responsibility of the Majority Leader for you?
>>Well, the Majority Leader is the hammer.
>>The hammer. We have the hammer right here.
>>Let me introduce you to the hammer.
>>The big H, or something. So what do you mean by hammer?
>>His responsibility is to run the caucus, to make certain the caucus stays together, to help the caucus’s agenda get through the house, to get through our body as well. He serves as the lead on the negotiation team. He actually chairs the negotiation meetings that we have with the House. The House Majority Leader chairs and the Senate Majority Leader chairs, and that is the negotiation table of where those budgets are worked out.
>>So Senator Bramble, that is quite an introduction. The hammer. chairing these committees, inside player. Share with the audience, and with me, a little bit of how you get something accomplished. You have got the budget to put together. You have got bills. You are undoubtedly bombarded by everybody wanting their legislation adopted as the number one priority. 
>>You are. And in the legislature here in Utah, there is the principle of thirty-eight, fifteen, and one.
>> Thirty-eight, fifteen, and one. It takes thirty-eight votes in the House, it takes fifteen votes in the Senate, and it takes the governor’s signature to pass any legislation.
>>Basic political math. Thirty-eight, fifteen, and one.
>>Simple majority in each of the bodies. And so take a Senate bill. Let’s back up and talk about setting the agenda for the caucus. We have twenty-one Republican Senators for the next two years.  In our caucus meetings, the rank and file, the members who are caucus will let us know as a leadership team what they would like to accomplish. And so we will set a caucus agenda.
>>What kind of message are they giving you right now? When you meet as a caucus, what do you guys talk about? You have got twenty-one people sitting around the table.
>>Well right now, the last caucus meeting we held last week, was educational. We wanted to bring our caucus membership to speed on the revenue projections, what to anticipate in terms of available resources for the next session, and little bit about the structure of how we will go about determining the budget. We are going to meet on January ninth to have a planning session, a Senate planning retreat, to establish the legislative agenda, to set some bench marks, and make long-range strategy for legislation. Not just this year, but down the road. 
>>So you are using the caucus as a basic educational method, as well? So you bring in the state budget people, and other authorities, to talk about these issues?
>>We bring the governor, his GOPB, the governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. Quite often we will have other department heads come in a brief us on the state of their particular department. And then we use that as a foundation for our discussions on state policy. 
>>And this legislative session, as a lay person looking at it, it seems like it would be an easy session, because the state has quite a bit of money. But at the same time, some people say, “Well, let’s give it all back in tax cuts,” other people say, “Well, it really isn’t a surplus because we have been under funding certain things over the years. So let’s spend it all.” Other people would say, “Well, let’s put it into a rainy day fund.” What is the process that you use to kind of sort out all these different ideas and variables?
>>Well, I think one of the fundamental challenges, you have to look at what should government be doing. And there are some basic principles that we need to look at. Utah has a spending cap, and this will be the first year that we have been subject to a cap limit on appropriations.
>>Let me ask you this, a self-serving question. Is it really a spending cap, or a spending prioritization legislation?
>>No, this was a bill that was passed three years ago. Representative Greg Hughes was the House sponsor, the chief sponsor of the bill. 
>>Senator Bramble was the Senate spokesman. 
>>Oh, was that you?
>>I was the Senate sponsor.
>>I am a biased responder to the discussion here.
>>The purpose of the spending cap, we passed it in a time when we had unprecedented budget downturn. After September 11, we had huge financial challenges in the state of Utah. And we were fortunate. We hadn’t deficit spent, we didn’t put ourselves in a hole. We were able to balance the budget every year, unlike many states. I mean, the state of California had a thirty-five billion dollar deficit. That is four or five times our state budget, total state budget. And so while we were in the middle of these economic downturns, we said, “You know, we don’t want to grow government more than a formula.” And the formula includes population and inflation. So this is a true spending cap that we…
>>But then the legislature exempted K-12 and transportation. 
>>We exempted public education.
>> So that is not a cap. 
>>Well, it is. Health and human services.
>>Ok. 
>>Higher education. Natural resources. Corrections, and a host of all of the other functions of state government are subject to that spending cap.
>>We are getting off target, though, a little bit. Let’s talk about the process. All these are variables going into it. How do you set the broad category? How many dollars might go to tax cuts, how many towards spending cap, how many towards other…
>>Well, the spending cap is a cap. You have to define the spending cap first. That sets the total amount of budget that will be spent for the year. We know that transportation and public ed are exempt from that. So even within that, before you can go to your appropriation sub committees, you have to establish how much is going to be available to be prioritized. And that is going to be the first step.
>>Is it like a funnel? I mean that each decision kind of builds on each other, and then it kind of starts to take shape as it goes along with that.
>>It does.
>>So let’s say that you decide that there are going to be a hundred million dollars worth of tax cuts. Senator Valentine, would you go to a member of the caucus and say, “Senator Waddoups, or somebody, would you introduce this tax cut bill?” Or how does the mechanics work that way?
>>Actually. President, it could happen that way. But generally the caucus will have determined its agenda, including…
>>Who will sponsor it?
>>We will make a decision on whether we want a hundred million dollar, a hundred and fifty million dollar tax cut, and then there will be individuals within the caucus that will have been championing that particular piece of the broader puzzle. And they generally would be the one that we would look to to sponsor the bill. Something like a major tax cut would most likely fall to the Chairman of the Senate Revenue and Tax Committee to sponsor it, or at least a member of that committee.
>>Yes, you are right. Many times the leadership team, including myself, will go to that member and ask them to carry this caucus position onto …
>>So it there is a higher education issue, you might go to Senator Bell, who chairs the Higher Education Committee to do that.
>>Very, very true.
>>What if you have a controversial bill? How do you muscle it through the legislature, Senator Bramble? You know, if not everybody is going to agree with it, so…
>>Let’s take a controversial bill, a driving privilege card. Utah had given illegal aliens driver’s licenses beginning in 1999. We had attempted to repeal that for several years, and couldn’t get the votes to do it. There was a problem in that an individual who was here illegally, using a driver’s license, could essentially use that driver’s license as a form of validation in society. And the original proposal was very controversial. We had several days of demonstrations up at the capitol where you couldn’t move from room to room. The way we are able to pass that bill, the first step in any legislation, is to work through exactly what the proposal is going to be down to the specifics. Actually getting a written proposal, because you could talk generalities on a bill.
>>So the idea is get it from a theory to a piece of paper.
>>To a specific proposal.
>>To specific language.
>>Once you have gotten that, then it is important to bring in the leadership team of your body. The first place I would go is to the leadership team, to the President of the Senate, to the Majority Leader, to members of the body. 
>>And say, “Does this idea sell? Are you comfortable with it?”
>Right. We are assuming that this isn’t an idea that came up through the caucus and was part of the caucus agenda.
>>Ok.
>>Because the caucus agenda bill already assumes…
>>It has already gone through that process.
>>It has already gone through all of that. 
>>It may be controversial in a bigger sense, but at least the caucus is supporting that idea.
>>So do you get hit up with these ideas from time to time?
>>All the time.
>>All the time. I know I spent a day with you on the floor last year, and I was just amazed in those few hours, three or four times legislators came to you, “What do you think of this?” And they were hunting for cues.
>>This time of year, prior to the session, the leadership team, the president and myself, the other elected members of leadership, we are getting requests for bills multiple times a day. I could field as many as fifteen or twenty calls today.
>>One of your colleagues saying, “What do you think of this?”
>>Either from colleagues, from lobbyists, from industry, from administration…
>>From constituents?
>>From constituents.
>>Where do the bulk of bills come from?
>>Yes, all of the above.
>>All of the above.
>>All of the above. So assume you have this controversial bill, and it is a bill that didn’t already come through the process. So the first thing you want to do is get the leadership team, brief them on where they are going to be…I mean brief them on what the bill…
>>That is what you would like to believe. “We are going to brief Senator Valentine on where he is going to be.”
>>Brief them, and find out where they are going to be, ok? 
>>Ok.
>>If they support you, that is great. If they don’t, it makes it a little more challenging.
>>Do you measure their intensity of opposition?
>>Some do.
>>Because I would imagine that there are some bills that you might not care for, but you would say, “Well, I am not going to really get worried about it.”
>>And there are bills for whatever reason that sometimes the leadership team will oppose. They will either be neutral or they will oppose, but those bills may still move forward. But once you get the leadership team briefed, then it is appropriate to begin talking with members of your caucus individually. It may be appropriate to bring it, depending on the magnitude of the policy decision, to put it on a caucus agenda, and present it to the caucus as a whole. It is also appropriate to talk to stakeholders outside of the legislature?in the case of the driving privilege card, talking with representatives from the Hispanic community, many of the activists, Hispanic Chambers of Commerce, the Council General from Mexico, and brief all of the potential stakeholders who may support you, or those who may oppose you, to get their input. And once you have done that, then you are ready for prime time. You are ready to take the bill, present it before a committee. You want to make certain you have talked to the committee before the bill gets there.
>>When you take a bill like that, how many people will actually be engaged in looking at the bill and weighing in on the subject?
>>I think with the driving privilege card it was several dozen that gave input on it.
>>The key inside players?
>>There were several.
>>How many bills go, Senator Valentine, how many bills go through in the quiet of night, or something, with relatively few people being aware of what it going on?
>>It depends on the nature of the bill. If it is controversial, those never just slip through. 
>>Things just don’t happen.
>>If it is a technical correction, maybe there was a mistake from a prior session, we have a freshman carrying a bill for the experience, yes, those are going to go through with hardly any muscle at all.
>>So you are now engaged in all sorts of people.
>>And you take their input. 
>>Take their input.
>>Some are going to oppose it, but that is moving through the process. You then take the bill, the bill is already to be introduced, and you ask it to be scheduled on a committee agenda.
>>Hopefully you have gotten along well with the chairman of the committee.
>>Right.
>>And you really actually ought to go to the Chair first. You talk to the Chair, explain what the bill does, explain kind of the process of what you want to go through, maybe talk to some of the members of the committee, as well. That is your job.
>>To get away from the driving privilege card, we are doing that right now with a telecommunications franchise bill. Major players are on diametrically opposed sides of the bill, and we are beginning that process right now to move it through the system. 
>>As it starts moving through the system, it becomes more of the text book type of operation. It goes to the committee first, and then to the floor, and then to the other chamber. How do you get the votes of errant senators? One thing about you, Senator Bramble, I see you on the telephone more than any person I have ever known, and you are always talking to this legislator or that legislator. Isn’t there just a lot of work and a lot of interpersonal relationship in getting this support?
>>There are. And I think that one of the things that is over rated is the idea of deal-making, trading votes. I don’t see much of that happening. What I do see is that good ideas have to stand on their own. The principles being presented, the proposition has to be a solid proposition, and it will eventually win the day.
>>I am surprised that you said you have not seen a lot of vote trading. It seems to me that goes on a fair amount, doesn’t it? Am I wrong about that, that somebody says, “Well, I’ll support this appropriation if you support that appropriation”? It may not be on substantive bills, but certainly in the budget process. And I think the final budget will be a little trade-off game?
>>The final budget is always a trade-off, but is not as direct as some people would say.
>>As some people would say.
>>It is not just “I’ll trade this vote if you give me a vote over here.”  It is more of a broader brush thing. “I am really interested in higher education funding.” And somebody else says, “I am really interested in tax cuts.” “Well, if you will reduce the tax cut as a body, and we increase the funding for higher education as a body, we can get this budget to go together.” That kind of stuff happens. Individual trading doesn’t happen.
>>One last question. I am a newly elected legislator. What advice would you give me as a newly elected legislator how to be truly effective on the inside game of getting your legislation passed?
>>Do your homework.
>>Do your homework.
>>Read the bill. Talk to as many people as you can on all sides of the issue. But more importantly than anything, do your homework. A lot of perceptions are built based on the idea of being effective. Effectiveness is just hard work. It is anticipating the objections, but it is doing your due diligence. I would suggest to any new legislator, or anyone thinking about coming into the legislature…
>>It really shows through very quickly, doesn’t it, when a legislator hasn’t done their work.
>>It does.
>>You have just heard from the master how it is done. And that is how it is done.
>>Senator, would you agree?
>>Absolutely.
>>So if you have a real interest, become more knowledgeable about that topic than anybody.
>>Than anybody else in the whole body.
>>And you will have a better chance. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. You are two truly great legislators, and very effective in your jobs. Thank you.
>>Thank you.
>>Thank you, President. 
>>Thank you, President.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a Democrat in a Utah State Legislature? Could you advance any legislation? Could you really give your constituents a voice in government? Representative Brad King, the House Minority party Whip, answers these questions and more.
>> We are chatting with State Representative Brad King. Representative King has served in the Legislature for ten years, starting his eleventh year in the Utah Legislature. He represents the Price, Utah area, which includes four counties. I don’t remember all four of them right now. Carbon is one, and Wayne.
>>Carbon, Emery, San Juan, and Grand, and a little sliver of Wayne.
>>And you are currently serving as the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives. Let’s start with a little bit of a discussion about what is a Whip. And there aren’t that many Democrats in Utah to whip around. So talk a little bit about the role of the Whip, and the leadership function.
>>Thank you. The Whip is the number two position for the party. I sit with four others in leadership, and I am kind of the lieutenant for the Minority Leader. And my job is to kind of get the troops going in the direction they are supposed to go, make sure communication takes place, and that people are fulfilling their responsibilities. And in the olden days, I guess if that didn’t happen, there was an actual, physical whip that was used. But we don’t do that.
>>You don’t have any whipping going on in the floor of the House of Representatives.
>>No. No whipping.
>>It must be challenging to be a Democrat in such an overwhelmingly red state.
>>Challenging, yes. But it is a lot of fun. You asked what the basic difference is, and that is that the Democrats have a lot more fun. 
>>And talk to us about that. What is having fun for a Democrat?
>>Well, we play a unique position, actually, as a minority and as a super-minority here in the state of Utah.
>>A super-minority?
>>A super-minority, meaning that we have less than a third. If you have a third, by Robert’s Rules of Order and Mason’s Rules, which is actually what we follow, there are things that you can do as a minority party that tactically help you. But if you have less than a third, you are pretty much on your own, because you can have debate cut off, you can’t stop those kinds of things with a two-thirds vote. So it really is a very challenging thing. You have to be great at reaching across the aisle, to make things happen, compromise, and bringing people on board really is a big one. But because of that, really, one of our major responsibilities as the minority party is to act as the voice for the voiceless. And I always say that we are the Jiminy Cricket of the State Legislature, that is, that we try to act as the conscience of the group and remind people that there are voiceless segments of our society, and try to represent those folks.
>>So how do you see yourself doing that in legislative session?
>>Well, probably the biggest way that we do that is we propose an alternative budget. It is a budget that does not get approved, and will not be voted on, but the principles and the priorities that we espouse often are adopted by the real budget, as it were, and we hope to point out things where we see weaknesses in the majority budget.
>>I know in other States, minority legislators will often be so frustrated because they will have a great idea but instead of them being able to run with it and getting their legislation adopted, somebody out of the majority party grab’s the idea. Have you ever had that happen?
 .
. It can happen. A few years ago I ran a bill to reject a pay raise, actually, and that was picked up a little bit later by the other side and passed. It happens.
>>And nobody gave you credit in the press releases?
>>No, but then if I wanted credit, I probably wouldn’t be here as a minority legislator.
>>As a minority legislator, do you have to make a decision to get along and go along—remember that phrase? Or do you kind of throw firebombs out there and stir things up?
>>I would say that there are several different ways that you can approach it, and some prefer to go along and get along, and make whatever compromise that they can. To me it becomes a matter of do I want to make a noise, or do I want to make a difference. And sometimes the only way you can make a difference is to make a noise. But other times you can compromise with the other side and get part of what you want, anyway. And it depends on the situation whether or not to throw bombs or to cooperate. 
>>Let’s talk a little bit about committee activities. So much of the work of the legislature is done in committee. You have been here more than a decade now. You are starting more than a decade. What have you seen as the most effective strategies in working with committees, or in serving on committees yourself?
>>Well, committees really are very important. And ninety percent of the work is done in committee. And that is why it is very important, because that is where bills get shaped, and fixed, and beat up, and sometimes destroyed. And the committee’s responsibility, and it works this way most of the time, is really quite non-partisan. It is to improve on what comes to you, and there are those who take their committee assignments very seriously, that do make a great deal of difference. And their name will never appear on any piece of legislation. But their imprint will be there, because they go through with a fine toothed comb, and they ask questions, and it really is what makes our process work. 
<< What would be the three pieces of advice you would give a freshman legislator in dealing with the committee process?
>>The first thing that I would do is to encourage them to be active participants in the committee process.  On the floor, I would say to most freshmen, you know, listen, and talk next year. That is not exactly true.
>>You did that as a freshman?
>>No. I wish I would have. But really there is so much to learn on the floor. It is where people expect to make a difference, but it is not where a difference is made. And the committee place, if you are sincere about your working as a legislator, is the place you really can make a difference from the very first. And it is by reading the bills and asking intelligent questions, trying to help the sponsors improve their bills.
>>So that is rule number one. Rule number two?
>>Rule number two is to make sure that you have a good relationship with the chair of the committee. The chairman sets the agenda, and that becomes a very important thing, and could be an area of impedance if one were not careful. But normally, it is not a problem. But it is always good to have a relationship.
>>What about working with staff?
>>Staff is probably the other thing that I would talk to the freshman about, because the staff are the key to all of this. And to have a good relationship with the staff not only helps you when you need something in a hurry, but they are the ones who do the actual wordsmithing. If they have a good relationship with you and understand your intent, they can do a much better job of drafting a bill. And if it is more what your intent is, it is easier for you to defend and work through the committee process.
>>We are turning the table a little bit tonight meeting with President Bill Sederburg. Usually, President, you are the one that is running the interview. Now we have you on the hot seat tonight. >>It might be easier doing the questions.
>>Well, first of all our viewers might not know that you yourself are actually a former legislator.
>>Right. I served twelve years in the Michigan Senate, elected at the age of thirty-one, and one of the younger Senators. I got elected as one of fourteen Republicans in a thirty-eight body chamber, and so we were in a very distinct minority, much like the Democrats are here in Utah.
>>I see. So you have empathy for our Democrats here in Utah.
>>I do. I remember sitting on the floor of the Senate my first week, and one of the old-timers in the Senate kept saying, “Bill, remember, what goes around comes around.” And that was such a useful phrase, because he always treated me with great respect as a minority member, and when we finally got control of the Senate, and I became a majority member, I remembered to give the same courtesy to the Democrats that we wanted to have as Republicans.
>>Take us back. What made you to run for office in Michigan?
>>Well, I think it is something that is kind of in your blood. I was class president back in high school. I was active in politics and campus politics. The only election I ever lost was as a candidate for the president of the student body at good old Mankato State University. And then I decided, why mess around with that? Why not jump right into the political arena? And so from an early age I have been very involved in partisan politics and politics generally. So I was in Michigan. We needed a candidate to run for the Senate. I was the Republican Party Chairman for our county, and one of the jobs as County Chairman was to recruit candidates. Our candidate that wanted to run wasn’t very qualified, so my friend said, “Bill, put your name out there.” I did that, and then the incumbent was indicted for political racketeering. And that helps. That’s a good way to get elected, because suddenly you are a viable alternative. 
>>You don’t look so bad.
>>You don’t look so bad. No. We had a candidate one time run for the County Commission, and the slogan was, “No Worse than the Rest.” And that was the campaign slogan, no worse than the rest. And so maybe that is why I got elected.
>>Tell us a little bit about the differences between Michigan’s Legislature and the Utah Legislature.
>>Well, one striking difference is that the leadership in the Michigan Legislature was much more based upon committee chairmen. And the committee chairs really were very powerful figures, somewhat similar to Washington. And so when the leadership got together, it was really a matter of getting all the committee chairs or significant committees to sit down and divide up to budget or work on various pieces of legislation. Here it is much more centralized. There is the executive appropriations committee, and the leadership of both the House and the Senate get together and kind of make a lot of the major decisions. And so in Michigan, I chaired a number of major committees, and so I was involved in the leadership, but not necessarily serving as a Whip or a Minority Leader or a Majority Leader.
>>I see. And more professionalized in Michigan, as well.
>>Oh, absolutely. I am really struck that this is truly a citizen Legislature. When I served in the Michigan Senate, I had five people working for me as staff people, I had a suite of offices, it was a full-time job. We relied on it for our family income, it was a total commitment on the part of the family and myself, and so you notice significant differences. Here citizens come up for forty-five days and are willing to serve. So it is quite a different animal. 
>>Tell me a little bit about your district.
>>Well, I represented the capital city and the capital county. So it was Ingham County, 250,000 people, including Michigan State University, and the state government, and the capitol, and also General Motors had a huge Oldsmobile plant there. And so the largest groups were the University, state employees, and then General Motors employees. 
>>Take us back to your first bill as a legislator. Tonight we are talking about the lawmaking process. What kind of experience was that for you?
>>That was so exciting. I remember very clearly. We had an energy crisis in those days, and I had a bill that dealt with giving power to the governor to deal with the energy problem within the state. And the Democrats, for whatever reason, the Democratic leader decided that it was ok for Republican to take this bill. And I will be forever grateful for that purpose. So I got the bill, we got it scheduled in committee, and we had to make amends to the Committee Chair and all of that. But the bill finally passed. But the interesting thing that I learned about that was that it had to be signed by a certain date to deal with this energy crisis at the time. And the state police had to come to the capitol, they picked up the actual linen copy of the bill, and they drove it out to the governor’s mansion. And the governor had to sign it before twelve o’clock that night to take affect to deal with this particular emergency. And it was a reminder that in the process, the legislation is actually on separate kinds of paper. It is called linen. And that linen paper actually makes its way physically through the process. And that hadn’t really dawned on me very much, but in that case it couldn’t be a copy, it couldn’t be something that was e-mailed to the governor for the governor to sign. It had to be the actual piece of paper that physically made it through the process. The governor got it at 11:30, he signed it, and I got my very first bill. 
>>Did it go up on the wall in the study?
>>It did. One of the things they have in the Legislature is that you get your first bill framed, at least in Michigan, and then the pen that the governor used to sign it got put in the frame as well. So I still have that. I am very proud of that. Probably nobody remembers that anymore, but it was very exciting for a freshman legislator. 
>>Some of the Utah state legislators have more of a reputation than others of moving legislation through. What are some traits that you noticed over your twelve years that really helped in the process?
>>Well, two traits, really. One is energy and hard work. It just takes a lot of energy to talk to all the people that you have to talk to. It takes diligence. It takes perseverance. And so you see people like Senator Bramble in the State Legislature who is known for carrying legislation. Part of it is just that physical energy and diligence in pushing your particular bill along. That is characteristic number one. Characteristic number two was you really have to be knowledgeable about the bill. You can be asked questions by the press, by your colleagues, by the governor’s office, by attorneys, and so you really have to be knowledgeable about that particular piece of legislation. I remember the worst experience I had in the Michigan Legislature was I sponsored a bill that said you could not build a house within a hundred feet of the Great Lakes. I thought that was a great idea. There had been some erosion going on. I thought this was an environmentally sound bill, and I introduced it. And it got to committee, and the committee just tore me up in the testimony. I realized I really didn’t know what I was talking about, and my colleagues thoroughly enjoyed giving me a hard tome about it. And so I quickly learned that if you aren’t willing to be an expert on the topic, don’t introduce the bill. 
>>You have better do your homework.
>>You really have to do your homework. I know the average citizen is probably cynical about that, but if you are going to carry a piece of legislation, you have to be prepared to talk about it. And if you can’t talk about it intelligently, it is going to be very tough to do.
>>Did you find lobbyists to be helpful in the process?
>>Absolutely. Lobbyists are very interesting because they are absolutely critical in the process, because they carry information from throughout society and bring it in to the capitol. The average citizen is just worried about going across the street and going into the capitol building and lobbying. So lobbyists really bring a lot of information with them. What is interesting about lobbyists is how subtly they change and worm their way into relationships. And so by the end of twelve years, you start to feel like, boy, some of your best friends are lobbyists. And you don’t know exactly how that occurred. But my predecessor whom I beat for the Senate made the comment, he said, “Bill whatever you do, keep the same friends at the end of the legislative experience that you had at the beginning of the legislature experience. Because if you ever get to the point that you think your friends are all these lobbyists, you realize that you are being manipulated by the lobbyist core.” And I watched that very closely, and I saw many legislators who would swear at the process, “Oh, I have got a good friend over there who is a lobbyist.” They are just effective at being subtle in the process.
>>Tell us a little bit about what it is like to work with leadership in a bill.
>>Frustrating. Leadership has such a responsibility over hundreds of bills. So the Utah Legislature will probably pass four hundred pieces of legislation this year. The leadership has to sign off on each of those bills. And so they are always juggling numerous legislators. I recently met with Senator Valentine, for example, and he had like ten sheets of paper with a laundry list of budget issues that were before the Utah Legislature. And in his role as President of the Senate, he has to balance all of these various interests. So if you are the legislator, you have to go to the legislative leadership and get on the list, and talk to the leaders about what you want to do.
>>Are there any secrets to building that good relationship with leadership?
>>Oh, absolutely. And some you may not really think about much. One is that legislative process is a little like football. That is, you have two teams that are kind of moving the ball up and down the field, and you need to be on the winning team. You need to have the halfback and the quarterback supporting your cause. So you start working with the leadership, working with the powerful people in the Legislature, get them to be on your team, or have you join their team, in moving the ball up and down the field. So you have to work with them, you find ways to adjust to them, and to partner with them.
>>Did you learn any lessons from hard knocks with dealing with leadership?
>>Yes. There are many times where you don’t get your way. One of the great frustrations about the legislative process is that it is really a process of saying no. I fought hard to get on the appropriations committee. I was finally put on the appropriations committee, and I thought, “This is great. I am going to spend, at that time thirteen billion dollars. I am really going to have a great time spending thirteen billion dollars.” What I discovered was my job was to say no. The very next day, I was appointed to the appropriations committee, and the very next day I had fifty people call that wanted to meet with me, and they said, “We want a budget increase for education, or universities, or social services, or prisons,” and you find yourself in a position of saying no about thirty times more than you can say yes. And so when I look at the legislative process, especially the budgeting process, it is largely a winnowing out process of how you say no, and how do you do that gracefully.
>>What is the thing you miss the most about being a state legislator?
>>What I miss the most about the Legislature is that the capitol and the capital city is the hub of communication. You can spend, as I think we will in this class, a day on the Capitol Hill, and you will be able to find out what is going on in Logan, you will find out what is going on in St. George, you can find out what is going on in Blanding. All the information flow comes right to the capitol. And when you are involved in that process, you are really at the center of change within the state. And when you leave it, it is kind of hard to get out of it, because you kind of miss being at the center of the action. So I always encourage people if you want to be in the center of action related to policy, there is only one place to be, and that is the capitol building.
>>Does you wife and family miss it as well?
>>I would say no. My family has split. My wife and son do not really care for politics so much, and are not political types. Myself and my daughter, we are political types. And so you have kind of a split family that way. So Joyce was quite excited when I left the Legislature and got into a different line of work.
>>Well President, we are glad you left as well, because we get to have you here as our president. And we are going to be chatting with you a little bit more as the semester goes on. Thank you so much.
>>Thank you.
>>It is time now for the term of the day. 
>>[graphic]
>>A caucus is:
>>[graphic]
>>Let’s go to legislative expert Pev Squire for the answer.
>>Caucus is a word that we use to describe different groups within the legislature, the most obvious being a party caucus, where the members of the Democrats of the lower House or the Republicans of the lower House will caucus together. That is, they will have a meeting together to make decisions about what the party’s role or party decision might be. You might find other caucuses. Women might have a caucus, members of minority groups might have a caucus, different industry groups, regions in the state, might have a caucus. 
>>[graphic]
>>Next week we will be discussing representation and apportionment. What are the trustee, delegate, and politico views of representation? What must State Legislatures base their apportionment on? Gender? Race? Population? Or another factor? We will answer these questions and more next time on State Legislative Process.

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