I want to share an experience I had with HB 589, a bill about wildlife killing contests. I drove over to Concord to testify for this bill and I actually brought my 3rd-grade daughter. I wanted her to see how our government works and how legislation happens. I have wanted to let her know the outcome of this bill, and I was hopeful — there was so much support compared to the opposition. 590 people signed in to support HB 589, and 50 opposed the bill. Yet, what I found out is that, when the bill was voted on, there was no mention of the public sign-in tallies on this. I thought that was really important to the committee’s decision. A committee member did ask about it, thankfully, however the tally reported was totally wrong, and no one corrected it. Is this usually what happens with bills? Does citizen input become a mere afterthought and then not even correctly represented? Did the committee even review the testimony submitted at all? How can we make sure that public testimony is reviewed, with this bill, and any that is brought to committee? I guess I will tell my daughter the bill was stopped by the committee. I’ll also let her know that people wrote in to support the bill over 10:1, but the committee making the vote didn’t seem to know that fact. It will be a lesson in how our legislature works, but not the one I thought.

Emily Murphy

Dover