Today I drafted my first bill!
While I'm in the process of job hunting (2 interviews scheduled for next week, a few more people I've been talking to about jobs), I have also been interning part-time at the office of a state rep who I've known since last summer.
A little background info: Massachusetts has 2-year terms for all state legislators and as such the legislative sessions are also 2-year terms, starting when elected officials are sworn in and ending the day before that happens again. The filing deadline for bills is shortly before the end of the legislative session, which has been coming up.
The Rep I'm working with has accumulated over the last 2 years a list of possible bill ideas and he wants to work through them before the term is over. Right now he has about 40 and wants to pare that down to 10 or so to actually develop and submit. So I'm working as a researcher to help him with that process. It certainly can't hurt to get state house experience, considering I'm angling for a job in the state house.
The bill I've been working on is modeled on a local ordinance in Provincetown, MA that offers property tax breaks to landlords who rent units to low-income families at reduced rates. Basically it solves the problem of there not being enough affordable housing while being more affordable than the voucher system that currently exists.
So I've done a few days of research on the bill and we have it at a point where we know the broad strokes but have yet to iron down the details (how is low-income status measured? how are the rental rates set? how much is the incentive?). Regardless, today I was tasked to write a first draft of the bill and include footnotes outlining the different options we've considered. This way the Rep can take what we have and start discussing it with other interested parties and legislators and get some feedback.
So really it's a small thing but I was very excited to be drafting my first piece of legislation.