As a Paige for a day, you are supposed to shadow your Representative and be exposed to the things they do. I only took Calli because you have to be a certain age to be able to go down on the House floor...I think it's 9....so Colson couldn't go. So she shook a lot of hands and smiled until her face hurt. Had she stayed 15 minutes more she may have learned to "shoot the bull" like they do. She started the morning off hanging out the the seargants (a fancy name for a runner). She ran a few errands and then was sent back to Brandon's Representative Creighton's office so that we could personally be escorted down to Brandon Representative Creighton who was already on the floor. While in the office, the girls really talked up how honoring it was that she was going to get to go on the floor. None of them had ever been on the House floor, while it was in session. Of course Calli made friends with each of them within like 10 minutes. She had them in the palm of her hand.
So his assistant, Tara, took us to the "back hall" where Rep Creighton came to meet us. We chatted for a while and then he took Calli with him and Tara took me up to the gallery where the public can sit and watch what's goind on from above. The session had already started and for the first 30 minutes they passed all of these resolutions wishing people a happy anniversary and announcing a 100th birthday celebration. If there were groups of guests in the gallery the Representative from where they were from was given the floor to introduce them. I was dumbfounded that they spent that much time on something as trivial as that. Tara told me that those types of groups get really upset if they aren't "announced". I wanted to stand up and yell "People....get over yourselves and let these folks tend to the real business at hand". And guess what Brandon was doing the entire time? Telling Calli all about his desk and introducing her to all of his costituents. Calli said he introduced everyone to her by saying "Representative "so & so" this is Callli Schubert. Her dad is my CPA and Fawn and I are friends with her parents. And her Grammie was a huge part of helping me win my election".
After they got over the really ridiculous stuff they went to the local ridiculous stuff. I guess each representative creates bills for their own district and then the rest of them vote on it? Some of the bills seemed really silly to me. And most I'm not sure anyone else in the room really cared about.
Every resolution and bill was passesd by a lady, I guess she's the chair, standing on a podium at the front of the room. She would ask a clerk to read the bill (that was her job....to read the bill. In order to get the job you had to read at a certain speed which after I spent two hours in there I realized why....they had to keep things moving). After the clerk read the bill the chair would say "Is there an objection? The chair hears none" and the gavel would strike and she was onto the next bill. She didn't even pause...didn't even take a breath. I told Tara if I wanted to object, I wouldn't be able to announce it before she hit the gavel. And if anyone down on the floor wanted to object they'd have to be listening to know when to say something. Tara told me that they pretty much handle all of the objections in the committeee meetings so once it gets to the floor all of the disagreements have all been worked out. They did pause for objections for Representative's that were introducing their first bill. And there were objections and dueling podiums, if you will, set up to debate if El Paso was part of Texas or if Trinity County even had a hospital. All stupid arguments meant to "haze" the Freshman.
Calli's time was up around Noon but Brandon left her on the floor with him until almost 1. I was told that most paiges met with the Representative, were shown the desk, introduced to a couple of constituents around them and then taken to a chair off to the side to observe. Brandon did her right though and she had a great time and would agree that it was a great experience!
As Calli and I were leaving the Capital, she mentioned how she wanted to send them a thank you note. I told her we should send them a little package. And we did....
The animal crackers are for Brandon because that's all they had to offer us in the form of food because apprantly he should buy stock in them. They are his favorite. The pineapple was Calli's idea. While we were there Calli pointed out to Allyn, one of the girls, that she needed to water her plant. It was dead. I don't remember what kind it was but it was like a cactus looking thing and you couldn't really tell if it was alive or dead-or at least to a non green thumber you couldn't. It turns out the plant came from one of the other gilrs in the office and it has pineapple in the name of it. Allyn kept waiting for it to grow pineapples and was deeply dissapointed when she asked how long it would take and found out it didn't grow pineapples. Never mind that if it had grown even a single pineapple it would have been bigger than the whole plant....that sat on the corner of her desk. Yes she was blonde....but so are we!
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