Legislators make policy that government agencies must carry out. For this reason, it seems to be good practice to have the agencies and the lawmakers conferring early on about upcoming policy decisions...
But, yesterday, I witnessed a complete shut out of more than 20 legislators who attempted to sit and listen in a meeting with agencies as they aired their concerns(in this case, those agencies who deal directly with Illegal Immigration). My fellow legislators and I, from both sides of the aisle, stood outside the lobby doors for quite awhile trying to understand why the folks on the inside thought this was wise to block our entry. We finally called it a day and went home.
But, I will guarantee you that in a few months those same agencies will send in their lobbyists (paid for by your tax dollars, by the way) to come and "brief" us on what went on inside this secret shut-out meeting.
The question is, do we just tell the lobbyist to go back to the lobby? After all, we all drove 4 hours to Flagstaff on our day off to listen first hand to what the agencies feel is important on this issue and they wouldn't even let us in.
They left us on the stoop... At least we will be nice enough to extend to them the comfortable seats in the legislative lobby.
