Welcome to The Senate Site

By Michael Castner

7:30 AM - Got a Utah Driver’s License. After all it’s only two years overdue. I get an 88% on the open book test. They look at me oddly when I ask for the questions I missed.
Apparently it wasn’t open for debate.

9:00AM - Meeting in the President’s office followed by a meeting in Sen. Killpack’s office.

9:30AM - Greet my old Nightside partner Paul Nelson from KSL Radio and connect him with Sen. Christensen to talk about Puppy Torture Bill ..oops..I mean Puppy Love.

9:45 AM - Start to work on getting a press conference set up for the Immigration Bill. I check with Chief Deputy Ric Cantrell and the bill sponsor Sen. Hickman and they both sign off on it. The question is, when will the bill come up? We are told 11:00AM.

11:00AM - No sign of the Immigration Bill. We are told by noon. I walk around telling all the reporters change of plans.

11:30AM - We are told another change of plans. More adjustments need to be made on the bill. It will come after 2pm.

11:40AM - Lisa Riley Roche from the Deseret News has requested an interview with Sen. Buttars regarding his meeting Sunday with a church. Rich Piatt from KSL-TV has also asked. I take them both back to the Senator’s office one after the other. Each of them takes about 7 minutes. Yes, I count the minutes.

11:54 AM - The Press Availability with the Majority in the Senate President’s office starts up. The President announces a change in a committee’s leadership. The Trib’s Robert Gehrke grabs the President outside the office to ask about the change. The Prez says little more than he did the press conference.

12:15 AM - The Senate Majority Caucus starts up. This, after Des News Reporter Lee Davidson has a “chat” with the Majority leader. Davidson is a LOUD chatter.

2:00 PM – We are back on the floor for an afternoon session. Immigration gets passed and reporters head to the Senate Lounge for the press conference. The heat is blasting in our new Capital and of course the windows don’t open.

2:10PM - Alcopops is debated. The press conference must wait for 15 mins. so the debate can have all the senators’ attention. As some of the reporters and TV crews sweat it out, I become a hated man.

3:00ish - The press conference starts. I go around the floor and get Sen. Hickman and the Minority Leader to agree to appear along with the Senate President. We stream it live on SenateTube.

4:00 PM - Yet another meeting in the Senate President’s office. People come and go all day and I get called in depending on the subject or whether budget numbers are involved. I try to avoid those. I use Quicken for that stuff.

5:00 ish - We head over to the “Star Wars” room in the west building. The majority leadership from the House and Senate meet to crunch numbers…..FOR THREE HOURS!

7:00 PM - Ric Cantrell calls me out into the hall to discuss the Des News matter. As a former reporter I have an issue with members of the press behaving in a less than professional manner regardless of their personal agenda. Yelling at the Majority Leader in the halls of the Senate? Yeah…not cool.

7:30 PM - I leave before the meeting breaks up. I then get an email from Ric Cantrell. We are back in the same group at 7:00am. Treats! Your tax dollars at work….LITERALLY!

6 Comments:

 Anonymous said...

What time during the day did you shake your head in disbelief about the ridiculous behavior of Sen. Buttars?

2/27/2008 8:21 PM  

 VilaD said...

Forget Senator Buttars...

At what point during the day did you want to find a hiding place where you could sleep for a few hours?

2/27/2008 9:56 PM  

 Captain Mark said...

12:45 PM

The reporter would be pinned in 10 seconds. Curt the Hammer Bramble is a former College Wrestler.

The other Legislative cage match would be between Greg Hughes and Hickman. Greg, a former boxer would put Hickman out with one punch. I’ve personally seen the dark side of Greg come out several years ago at around 3 am while pounding political signs in Draper. He nearly came unglued and wanted to punch me for placing my signs too close to my opponent’s signs.

2/28/2008 12:16 AM  

 i the i said...

My sympathies. There is no rest for Communication Guru's, Media Assistants and Interns in the Senate.

March 5 at midnight… so close, yet so far away.

2/28/2008 1:49 PM  

 Tom said...

They look at me oddly when I ask for the questions I missed.

Yeah, I had the same problem years ago. It seems making sure drivers understand the rules of the road isn't actually one off their goals. From an educational perspective, refusing to provide the correct answers (or even divulge the missed questions) is absolutely ludicrous.

2/28/2008 2:10 PM  

 VilaD said...

When I took mine they let me know which one I had missed. They were curious as to why I wanted to know, since I had passed the test.

I explained that when I miss questions on an open book test, I feel rather idiotic, and I wish to prevent future idiocy. The girl behind the counter still didn't completely understand, but she let me know which questions I missed.

It was something about seat belts and child restraint seat laws.

2/28/2008 2:50 PM  

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