Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello, Oregonians, and welcome to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. If you've ever wanted to get to know your politicians personally or understand what it is they are actually doing, then you're in the right place. I'm your podcast host, Jessica Campbell.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: I'm your state representative for House District 24, Lucetta Elmer.
[00:00:21] Speaker A: This podcast is a place for you to get to know Representative Elmer both personally and professionally.
[00:00:27] Speaker B: We want Oregonians to feel connected with and educated politics. So we're so glad you've joined us on a fresh new podcast adventure, as we cover all things about life and legislation.
[00:00:42] Speaker A: Hi, Oregonians, and welcome back to Life and Legislation with Lucetta. Now, last time, we got to hear about the two new grandbabies you have in your life and talk a little bit about what happens at the beginning of your work as a state representative. So for this episode, we get some fun guests who might get to say hello. You have two of your four children there with you today?
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I do, I do. I have my oldest daughter, Faith, and my youngest son, Heath, that came to work with me today.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Let's bring your children to work day.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Pretty much, yeah.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: So actually, just on that topic, can anybody just go to work with you and visit? Are there special requirements? I mean, assuming that the legislation doesn't necessarily have a bring your kid to work day?
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't. But yes, anyone. Because the House of Representatives where I serve it is the people's house. That is the term that is often coined. And so when people come in and they're visiting, oftentimes the speaker will say, welcome to your house. To the guest. It is the people's House. So guests can sit up in the balcony, they can sit on the side aisle, and then each representative has one chair by their desk. Family or staff can sit there. And so they, Faith and Heath took turns today since we had two floor sessions. So they each got to sit on the floor and just sort of witness all of the magic happening.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: That's so fun. Well, right there you said floor session. Not everyone knows what that even means. What. What is a floor session?
[00:02:13] Speaker B: A floor session is when all 60 representatives go to the House chamber. We all have a desk there with our name on it, and we're sitting on a floor, but it's called the floor because you're in the chamber. And the speaker presides up in front, kind of up on a dais, an elevated podium, and they have their gavel, and they sort of announce things and tell us what to do. And then that's where we vote. On bills. My children are trying to leave, so I just want them to say hi real quick.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: Hi.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Welcome. Faith and Heath, thank you for being here. These are the bookends of your children, right? The oldest and the youngest. So before. Before you get to disappear, you know, for this life section of life and legislation with Lucetta, we want to hear about who she is from your perspective. Well, we'll make it easy. If you were to describe your mom with three words, what would those three words be? Okay, first word that comes to mind would be independent. Second would be. It's multiple words, but it is one describing thing, which would just be life of the party.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: And third would be say fashionable would be one.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: So true.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: And they're great words. Thanks.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Amazing. Now, did anything catch you by surprise when your mom started her political career?
[00:03:31] Speaker B: I didn't realize how official everything is.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Like how here there's so many traditions and specific ways to do everything.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: That was new for me. Yes. I was explaining the decorum today when they were sitting on the floor. Every time there's a vote, we have a person who yells vote super loud. And it's because if. If a representative steps off the floor, meaning they. They leave that portion of the chamber and maybe just go out in the hall to talk to someone and a vote is being done. There's only a certain amount of time we have to weigh in on our vote. And if we don't vote, then we get sort of docked for that. So the sergeant of arms will yell vote so that we can come back in and cast our vote.
[00:04:18] Speaker A: Well, that title just sounds so serious. Sergeant of Arms.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: Yes, we have a sergeant of Arms. Wow.
[00:04:24] Speaker A: How do you become a sergeant of arms?
[00:04:26] Speaker B: I am not for certain on how you do that, but they take it very seriously.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: Yeah, no kidding. My goodness. Well, I know you're loving having a little bit of family time there, even in the midst of your busy work day. You have had a lot going on in the midst of this long session, and I wanted to let listeners understand how a bill becomes a lot. Now, for some people, this will just be a little bit of a refresher, maybe from their high school poli sci class. But again, for most of us, we might think, oh, the state should do this, but how does an idea even get to the Capitol building and go through all of the steps to where there is a new law in our state? So I'm going to have you explain that whole process. And then, as time allows, we actually have a couple examples of what's been going on Just in the last couple of weeks, yes.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: So as a state representative, as a legislator, which. A legislator in Oregon could be a state representative or a state senator. There are 60 representatives, there are 30 senators, and those are determined by population counts within districts. So it's divided up equally and we represent our districts, but we are the 90 people in the state that actually make laws. You could also have a ballot initiative done by a citizen where they have to go out and get signatures. I'm sure you've seen people out on the streets where they're like, hey, will you sign my petition? They're collecting signatures if they have an idea that they want to put on the ballots when we vote. That's why there are some things that, as a voter, you. When you're voting for an elected official, the president or your state representative or the mayor or whatever, you. Sometimes there are ballot initiatives on the. On that ballot, and you'll vote on that. That is the other process. But the majority, the vast majority of ideas that become law go through the legislature. So we have our ideas. Maybe they come to us out of our brain. Maybe they come to us from constituents, people that we represent. Maybe they come to us from lobbyists or from special interest groups or someone in our community, whatever. However these ideas get to us, then if we want to submit them to become a law, we submit them to LC or legal counsel. And legal counsel are lawyers who work here at the Capitol in the building. They're hired by the majority party, but they're nonpartisan. They are not supposed to lean towards one party or the other. They are just supposed to provide legal counsel. And they would be the ones that actually write the language for the bills. And so they'll work on taking your idea and putting it into all of that legal ease, all the terminology. And it comes back as an lc, A concept. And you can read it, make sure it's what you wanted, make sure that the. The heart of the. The bill is there, that, you know, they brought it back to you correctly and captured your idea correctly, and then you start working your bill. So, gosh, I feel like this is really technical, but essentially it comes back. If you approve it, you. You send it back and it becomes drafted like a bill. And then once you have that paper, that information, then you start working it, and you can send it around to all your other colleagues, all the other representatives or senators, and you can ask them to sign on to your bill. And, you know, if you have a lot of people signing on, that's usually a good thing. That Signals that there's support for it if you can get the other party to sign on. So for me, as a republican, if I can get democrats to sign on, then it becomes a bipartisan bill. If I can get republican and democrat senators to sign on, then it's bicameral and bipartisan, meaning that I have support in both chambers, in the legislature and both sides of the aisle. Obviously, not all bills have that, but once that's all done, then you submit it and it gets read on the house floor. A bill has to be read three times on the floor before it can go to a vote.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: So then there's somebody literally reading, word for word, the whole legal jargon, right? The whole bill, yes.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: And then it is passed across the desk, it goes to the speaker, and the speaker of the house gets to decide which committee that bill gets assigned to. So then once the bill gets assigned to a committee, then the chair of that committee gets to decide if they will even bring the bill forward, if they will. If they will entertain the bill. A lot of that truly happens from the speaker. The speaker of the house really sort of dictates every single bill. They get the last word on if the bill will actually be heard. And even if it's heard, is that just a courtesy hearing? But they're not really ever going to work it or intend to bring it back to the floor. So in committee, you have. I'm not sure how many committees we have. I sit on three. And those are obviously smaller groups of people, maybe five to eight, maybe some committees have a few more. And they're made up of both parties, Republicans and Democrats. But the majority party always has one more person on the committee, so they always have the majority vote. For example, I sit on the rules committee, and I had two bills come get assigned to the rules committee this year, and they both were given a public hearing, which is the first step. That means when it gets a public hearing, then the representative or senator who invented the concept of this bill, they come before that committee and they talk about the bill and why they support it and why they want you to support it, and they tell you all the wonderful things about it. Other people could come and testify in support or opposition of that bill. People can right in. We have a legislative website called olis, and you can. Anyone can post opposition or support for bills there. People could remotely testify by. By logging in during the committee, and you have to sign up for it ahead of time. And then you can talk to why you support or oppose the bill, even if you're not in the building.
Once that public hearing happens, which, like I said, you talk about your bill, anyone on the committee can ask you questions about it or ask anyone questions that testify to or against for or against the bill. Once that is done, then if the chair decides to bring the bill back, the next step is called a work session. And that's where the bill is voted on by the committee. So when you have that first initial talk about the bill, you can ask questions, you can do all that, but you're not voting on it. When it comes back, if it comes back for a work session, then that committee made up of 5 to 11 to however many people, then they vote on it. If the bill passes the committee and it doesn't require any funding for it to become law, then it goes to the House floor. If the bill requires money to actually make the bill work, once it becomes law, then it goes to another committee called Ways and Means before it comes to the House floor. So if it needs money, it has an extra stop in the process. If it doesn't need money, it goes directly to the House floor where it's second read and then the following day it's third red. And that means now the floor can vote on it. So all 60 representatives would get to vote. Person who again created the bill, they're called the bill carrier. And they would stand up on the floor and they would speak to why they are for it, much like they did in committee. Other representatives can speak to how they support it or how they don't support it and their reasons why. You can ask questions of each other. You can have this floor discussion, and when you're done, then there will be a House vote. Okay. If the bill passes that house floor vote, you're halfway there. Then it has to go over to the other chamber, to the Senate side, and do the whole thing again. Goes to committee, goes to the floor. Once the bill passes, if it passes both chambers. So it did the whole process. It worked its way through the house, it worked its way through the Senate, and eventually it came out the other side with enough votes, the majority of votes, to pass it. Then it goes to the governor's desk and it awaits her signature. She can choose to veto all by herself. She can just say, nope, I'm going to veto this and not sign the bill. And then it's dead. More often than not, she signs bills that have been passed through the legislature, and when she signs it, that day is when it becomes a law.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: So many questions come to mind as this idea, as this Bill is going through all of these steps. I would imagine that often it's people's opinion maybe wouldn't be just completely black or white. Maybe they agree with 90% of the bill, but they want a little portion of it changed or, or something like that. If there are changes that are, I don't know, being presented, or the two sides are trying to kind of find a way to maybe compromise on something, does it then have to restart the whole process over and over, or if there's one little tweak that would make it wherever, you know, the majority would agree with it, can that be done along the way?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: That is a great question. That's called an amendment. And yes, that can happen. That happens in committee. So like you said, the bill is presented in the public hearing, that first step in committee, and it's talked about. And the representative, they're the legislator, except explains it. Maybe some other people come and testify to it or against it or whatever. And as they're discussing it, if there is something that arises that shows there's some disagreement here, but it seems like they could work things out. They could maybe offer an amendment. So then any legislator can bring the amendment forward. They would usually talk with the, the bill carrier, the sponsor of the bill, and say, hey, you know, I want to, I want to do this. And then I think it would be better, I think it could be a better bill if we did this, if we made this change. And they don't have to get permission of the bill carrier, but they usually talk about it outside of committee. The amendment language is sent to legal counsel or lc. They draft the amendment, and then the amendment gets posted on that legislative website called olis. And if and when the bill comes back for a work session, then someone on the committee can make a motion to adopt the amendment. Sometimes people put amendments on a bill that the bill carrier doesn't want and, you know, maybe they don't get adopted. Sometimes there's several amendments on a bill. I had a bill one time that had like 13 different amendments.
And sometimes there's really robust debate about these amendments. Some of them get adopted, some of them don't get adopted. But you'll often hear of bills that have a letter like let's say you have Bill 1000. By the time it gets to the floor, it could be 1000A, which means there is an amendment added to it and it was changed slightly.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: As I understand, you can have thousands of bills presented in a session, like, like three to 5,000 bills can come forward. I mean, I'M just kind of doing the math here. How many. Okay, so how many people can bring forward a bill who are a part of the legislation?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Well, there are, like I said, 60 representatives and 30 senators. So all 90 legislators can bring as many bills as they want. There's no, there's no limit. There's no bill limit.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Is there an average?
[00:16:52] Speaker B: Like, I don't. That's a great question. I, I don't know what the average is. I did not have that many. I probably had. I probably had a couple dozen though, bills, and not all of them lived in this session. But I was just doing the math. I mean, if we had 5,000 bills, that would be 55 bills per legislator. Yeah, it's a lot. But that includes the governor can put forth bills, the speaker can put forth bills. There's committee bills that each committee has.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And as you said, sometimes the community members can get together, get the petitions and bring something forth.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: No, if that, if, if community members wanted to do a bill, they would have to go through their legislator. But if they want to put something on the ballot, okay, that's where they get the signatures.
[00:17:45] Speaker A: So two different things.
[00:17:46] Speaker B: Correct. There's two different vessels on how to make something a law. The most common one is through your legislator. So when we're in session, that is the time. That's what session means. We are working bills. We're either making laws or we're killing bills that would become laws.
That's what we're doing in session. That's the only time that can be done.
[00:18:08] Speaker A: And so you're in your long session at the time of this recording and you have all these different things going on now. So many follow up questions. Right. But that's why we're gonna have more episodes. So, yeah, for the remainder of the time today, let's talk about one bill that just went through that I believe had pretty unanimous support. This wasn't one that was like a one side versus the other. And this is the Youth Suicide Awareness Day.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Yes, yes, I did. I brought forth that bill concept out of tragedy. And you know, in, in our town, McMinnville, we had our mayor's granddaughter who committed suicide last fall. And it was, it just really ripped our community, just tore up our hearts and just brought awareness to what our youth are going through. And, and really as I was thinking about what could we do? What could I do? You know, as a legislator, I was kind of shocked to realize there wasn't already an awareness day around youth suicide. I think we have a suicide awareness day but not youth. And we. We rank pretty high in Oregon for our youth suicide. Unfortunately, the statistics around it aren't great. And so.
So, yeah, so we put together a bill that would designate October 9th as a yearly youth Suicide Awareness day. And it did. It got wonderful support because there I didn't realize how many people have been affected. And we do want to elevate the conversation and try to do more for our youth, just to let them know, like, we can talk about it. You're not alone. Let's work it out. It doesn't have to go to this. It doesn't have to have this ending.
[00:20:03] Speaker A: Right. And that was a bill that then that you put forth. Right?
[00:20:07] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:20:08] Speaker A: And it came with a lot of support. Like I. It's hard to imagine anybody supporting that. So I imagine you had lots of people sign on to that. Was that a pretty seamless bill to go through all of the steps?
[00:20:22] Speaker B: It was pretty much. I mean, you never know what's going to happen. But yes, that one had its hearing. The family actually came and testified. It was beautiful and heartbreaking all at the same time. They testified in committee, passed out of committee unanimously and went to the House floor where it passed unanimously as well. So it's on its way in the Senate right now.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: And it'll go through all those steps again, and we assume it'll make it all the way through and then get signed. And at the time of that signature, then is it starting that day officially a law?
[00:20:58] Speaker B: Yes, it is a law, but it goes into effect, I believe, 90 days after the governor signs, unless it's declared an emergency. And then it goes into effect, I.
[00:21:08] Speaker A: Think within 30 in the final minute or two here. Once this day is designated, then what does that look like? Does the bill say how it's recognized, or is that just, okay, we've made this day, and then the communities and the schools and other things will take that day and honor it as they see fit.
[00:21:30] Speaker B: Yes, this bill is one that's more just awareness. So Youth Suicide Awareness, Youth Suicide Prevention Awareness Day. It will designate forevermore in Oregon, October 9th, as that day. And then, yes, communities, schools, they can do whatever they want to recognize that day, but it will be officially a law in Oregon that that day is designated specifically for that purpose. We've already had nonprofits reach out and talk about building on it and maybe doing some advocacy work around actual prevention and so, you know, adding in more words with teeth and then maybe even looking to put some funds behind it to elevate the conversation for sure. But then also have some action to continue making a difference.
[00:22:23] Speaker A: Right. And hopefully change those statistics.
[00:22:26] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, thank you for what you're doing and taking a tragedy and turning it into hopefully something that does make a difference.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, I, I believe it will.
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, so many more questions. And you have some other bills that I wanted to talk about. We'll save those for future episodes. But I just wanted to thank you for, for taking time to educate us and walk us through some of the steps. I know your days are very busy right now, but it was great to hear the voices of faith and heath on here as well. Thank you, Oregonians. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Life and Legislation with Lucetta. And we hope you come back next time to hear more about some upcoming bills and how things are working in the Oregon legislation.
