So while we get a chance to free write I would love to talk more about my internship. As part of my internship each week we get to go on field trips. I love the field trips because they give my intern group a chance to bond. For this field trip, we visited the Arizona Capital. I had never been
there before so it was an awesome adventure. We spent the morning in the office
learning about Medicare and Medicaid from Barb (a lobbyist) who really helped
answer some Obamacare questions and tell us about the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Everyone seemed to enjoy that and I learned a lot.
At the capital we roamed
around the museum and got to learn about AZ history. An older guy was our tour
guide so he was able to tell us lots about the museum. After our tour Barb
introduced us to Heather Carter, an AZ house representative. Heather told us
about her job and then showed us into the House of Representatives chamber
where they actually vote on bills. We each got to sit in a representative’s
desk and had a mock voting process. People got up and addressed the Speaker
formally on a “bill” regarding texting and driving. After a few people got up
and argued for or against, we officially voted. The bill did not pass by one
vote.
It was amazing to see the actual process these representatives go
through. Its very difficult to pass a bill and this is only at the state level!
I have two people to interview this week, I'm worried that my group won't meet
quota. Other groups seem to be really on top of it. I hope that my group can get it together and we can
get some more interviews going. Friday we will begin to organize themes
regardless. We need to see what our community members have in common so we can
begin to create solutions to solve their problems.
