Utah State Legislature - Week 2

Image credit: Freeimages.com/Jean Scheijen

I was very tempted to skip a post this week because most of my thoughts regarding this internship are political in nature and thus off-limits. Plus, I’m already keeping track in a journal. (I’m horrible at consistent journal writing, so the internship requiring me to keep a journal helps.) However, I said that I was going to post every week, so I feel obligated to.

One apolitical part of my intern experience is taking public transportation. I’ve taken it before, but always as a novelty, never as a serious means of getting from place to place. It’s a relaxing, fascinating, and melancholy experience.

Utah State Legislature - Week 1

Image credit: Freeimages.com/Ryan Day

It would be cool if as legislative intern, I could fill my blog with my opinions on the issues based on my more-or-less insider information, but I can’t. As an intern, I work for the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel, which is a nonpartisan organization that assists Utah state legislators in writing laws. So basically, as long as I’m an intern, I have no political opinion—all I do is support my assigned legislator.

However, that doesn’t mean that my blog has to be boring while I’m working on the Hill. (Not that it’s ever exciting because I rarely post.) Let me share a couple thoughts after my first week or so.

First, I’ve been very impressed with the legislators up here. From what I’ve seen, they care a lot about serving the people of Utah. They truly are public servants. Here’s a quote from our textbook, Utah Politics Under the Dome: Representation and the Utah Legislature by Adam R. Brown: