Reading between the Lines

Tonight, in my family engagement class, we heard from a Congressional policy advisor: Do you like reading legislation?  If you want to work in policy, you're going to have to read a lot of it--and you'll have to like it.

I've been up to my eyes in English Language Learners this semester in my statehouse internship, and thus far--I can't say I love legislation.  Department of Education regulations ... technical assistance for school districts; they may not be page-turners, but they're at least bereft of looping semicolons and "whereases" that dot the statutory language.  But the law itself?  Not only don't I love it.  It's not even a courtship.

I may not be enamored of legal language, but it's been a blast seeing policy from the inside-out.  The hearings, the advocacy, the urgency: this stuff matters.  And to contribute to the process has been quite gratifying.

But as someone used to writing a lesson plan on Friday to be rolled out next week, state legislation seems to move at an absolutely glacial pace.  And there's something else to adjust to.  Bills are filed, the public weighs in, committees file amendments, semicolons are added, "whereases" tweaked.  If you're lucky, a bill squeaks through committee, gets enough support on the voting floor, and goes to the Governor for a signature.  Sure, it's what we all learned in eighth-grade civics.  But the slowness of it is what stands out in person.

And the tortoise speed of legislative action is mirrored in the distance one might feel from the effect of law. The bill I'm working on right now carries a pearl of frustration precisely because it's not yet clear to me how changing the bill will actually change kids' lives.  It's not clear to me policy is the right arena in which to be fighting the battle.

Some legislation has an impact, maybe even immediate impact.  But much legislation edits around the margins, spawns unintended consequences, or at worst, as we all know this week, is immediately pilloried and targeted for repeal.

And that's something else our guest visitor spoke of today: How often do you need to see the results of your work?