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Why look at committees?
Why are committees important?When the President or Governor signs a major piece of legislation into law, what Americans see are the much-hyped and well-attended ceremonies. What they don’t see is how the bill got there in the first place. Usually, the path a bill takes to get passed and signed starts in the committees and subcommittees of Congress (or a state legislature) where members hold hearings, create drafts, debate, and revise legislation. It is during these meetings, sometimes held behind closed doors, that the real action takes place and what special interest and consumer groups pay closest attention to because it is at this point during the legislative process that they can change America's public policies.
In short, congressional committees are the legislative trenches and this means that the bigger the bill and the higher the stakes, the more generous the campaign donations are to members of the committee with jurisdiction over the issue.
That's one reason these congressional committee assignments are so important and competitive. Lawmakers who win seats on the lucrative banking, tax-writing, or commerce committees often enhance their campaign war chests from industries seeking to influence legislative outcomes. Many newly elected members tend to start getting donations from special interests based on their new appointments.
It is additionally important to voters who might want to lobby on certain issues. If you’re civically active or volunteer for advocacy groups, you might find yourself in the office of a key member of that relevant committee, so knowing who is who is important. Lastly, committee assignments often reflect the priorities of a legislator–and that is helpful when you’re going to vote to reelect them or not.
Updating Committee Rosters
In the committee tracking sheets (found in the same location as the roster tracking sheets), please make sure to put the date you're completing each check, and your initials so that we can track who is completing what.You can change a full committee membership roster at once or you can do it on an individual basis. Each state's setup is different, so use whichever method works best for each state.
Committee Updates by Candidate
- Open the individual's page in admin, either searching by candidate ID, last name, or Office Held.
- At the top of the screen, click on "Offices," which is the last tab on the right side.
- Click on the present office name, then scroll down to "Committees."
- Under "Assigned Committees" (should be on the left side), click on the blue "X" to delete committee assignments and remove a person from a committee. When doing this, make sure to transfer this experience to the biography section of their profile under 'Caucus.'
- To add a committee:
- Look under 'Available committees for this office' (right side of the screen) to see a list of committees that person is eligible to be a member of.
- After finding the correct committee, click on the blue 'Assign' button to put them into that committee. MAKE SURE YOU ARE PUTTING THEM IN THE CORRECT COMMITTEE!
- Admin is weird in that it does NOT differentiate between Senate/House committees and Joint committees, instead, you will see that admin alphabetizes these committees. This means that the first set of A-Z committees are specifically either Senate or House committees. The second set of A-Z committees are all Joint committees.
- To apply a position besides 'Member,' which is the default, such as 'Chair,' click on the committee name (under the 'Assigned Committees' section), select the appropriate position from the drop down menu and click 'Save.'
- This screen is only for current committee assignments. Add former committee memberships to Caucus Experience on the Bios tab. Afterwards, delete these committees from the 'Assigned Committees' section.
Committee Updates by Committee
- From the admin homepage click on the “Committees” tab on the left side under the “Data” header.
- Choose the state being researched from the drop-down menu and specify the type of committee. Start with “House,” “Senate,” or “Joint” committees.
- For Congressional committees select “National” from the drop-down menu.
- Open the same committee in both admin and on the state legislature website.
- Update the URL and any other relevant information in admin about the committee if it is available on the legislature website and make sure the committee has appropriate cats and tags.
- All committees should be catted with “Legislative Branch” and other relevant categories depending on the subject matter they deal with.
- All committees should be tagged with the name of the state and the particular legislative body such as “State-House-of-Representatives.”
- For Congressional committees the exact name of the committee along with “United-States-House-of-Representatives” or “United-States-Senate” should be used for tags.
- Compare the list of active committee members on the state legislature website to the membership list in admin.
- It is generally easier to first remove any inactive members that still exist in admin but are no longer on the legislature website, so use admin as the first reference against the official source.
- For officials who are no longer active on the legislature website, create “Caucus” experience and title it with “Former _,” depending on the position that they held and the committee in question. The process for this is to switch to the list of current officials in admin and use “Control-F” to search for the name of the former committee member. Bring up the profile for that official and create the experience by using their “Position” from the committee interface with “Former” in front for the experience title. For the organization use the committee name followed by the particular legislative body with a comma in between. The final product should look like “Former Chair, Health Committee, Arizona State House of Representatives”
- Committee names will vary significantly and some may be called other things such as Task Forces, Working Groups, Commissions, etc. As long as the group shows up in the committee section of the state legislature website, it should be collected as a committee.
- Add categories and tags for each experience created. These should match the categories and tags used for the admin committee interface every time, with the exception of joint committees which should be tagged depending on the legislative body the official was a member of when they were in that committee.
- After creating the experience the official should be deleted from the committee membership by clicking the “X” under the “Del” column in the admin committee interface.
- Repeat these steps for all inactive committee members.
- After this the next step is to add new members to the committee. Use the state legislature committee website membership list as a reference and “Control-F” search for all committee members in admin. If the official already shows up as a committee member in admin, make sure they are in the correct position.
- If they are now in a lower position than indicated in admin, create a former experience for their previous position. For example they may have been demoted from “Chair” to “Member.” After creating the experience click on their name in the committee interface and change their position to the current one. If someone moved from a lower position to a higher position there is no need to create a former experience for their old position, and they can simply be moved to the higher position in the committee interface.
- For any official who needs to be added to the committee membership, select their name from the pool of possible members at the bottom of the admin page and click “Add.” If they should be in a leadership position make sure to change this.
- Once all members have been added to the committee make sure to do one last check to make sure the admin membership list is correct.
- Counting members can be a good way to check for discrepancies between admin and the state legislature website.
- Double check to make sure the committee name matches the legislature website and make sure the committee is marked as active. Once these checks are complete click “save” in admin.
- Mark progress on the tracking sheet and go to the next committee.
Editing/Updating Committees
While going through committee research there will be some committees which may be newly added, others which may have changed names, and some which may no longer be active since they were last checked. The easiest way to handle these committees is by tackling them as they come up while using the “Inactive,” “Updated,” “Added,” and “Notes” columns on the tracking sheet to indicate when changes have been made to the admin committee list.New Committees
There will most likely be some committees on the state legislature website which need to be added to the admin committee list. BEFORE adding make sure the committee has not simply undergone a name change.
- If a new committee has been found click the “Add new committee for” button from the Committees tab in admin.
- Fill out all the necessary information on the new committee page.
- Select the correct “Committee Type” depending on the legislative body the committee is associated with.
- If the committee is a subcommittee, select the correct “Parent Committee.”
- If the committee is a subcommittee or joint committee the name should be in the form of “Subcommittee on...” or “Joint Committee on...”
- Once all information is filled in for the committee hit “Save” and then add members to the committee.
- Mark the new committee on the tracking sheet by putting the date in the “Added” column.
Editing An Existing Committee
Committees will often undergo name changes that must be reflected in the admin listing to be as accurate as possible. Some of these changes are more significant than others. A significant name change is something that changes the jurisdiction of the committee. An example of this could be a committee which changes from “Veterans Affairs Committee” to “Veterans and State and Local Affairs Committee.”
- In the case of a significant name change all members of the committee will need former experiences, however, members should not be removed from the membership list immediately.
- After creating former experiences for all members using the old committee name, change the name of the committee in admin and change any other old information, such as cats and tags which may not be correct anymore.
- At this point the membership list can be updated as normal.
- Click “save” and indicate the name change on the tracking sheet by putting the date in the “Updated” column and writing “changed name” in the notes column.
- If the committee had a minor name change with no bearing on the jurisdiction of the committee the name can simply be changed in admin with no need to create former experiences outside of regular membership changes.
De-activating Committees
Committees will often become inactive when they are no longer deemed useful by a legislative body. These committees can be recognized when a committee is marked in admin as “active” with officials in the membership list, but cannot be found on the state legislature website. Before going through the steps to deactivate it is important to make sure the committee actually no longer exists on the state legislature website. It is possible that it could be difficult to find because of a name change or the committee may have been changed so that it is listed somewhere else on that particular website.
- Once the committee has been verified as inactive the first step is to create former experiences for all members.
- All members should then be deleted from the committee.
- Click the “Active” button on the committee page in admin so the check mark no longer shows up in the box and then hit “save.”
- Mark the inactive committee on the tracking sheet by putting the date in the “inactive” column.
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