On this episode, two legislative staffers offer some advice to people new to working at the legislature. Kate Wolf from Nebraska and Morgan Hall from Georgia talked about surprises early in their careers, what attracted them to legislative service and what they wish they'd known before they started their jobs.
On this episode, two legislative staffers offer some advice to people new to working at the legislature.
Kate Wolf, a legislative aide in the Nebraska Legislature, and Morgan Hall, a fiscal analyst in the Georgia House budget office talked about surprises early in their careers, what attracted them to legislative service and what they wish they'd known before they started their jobs.
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello and welcome to “Our American States,” a podcast from the National Conference of State Legislatures. I'm your host, Ed Smith.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I like working in the legislature because I think that it is one of the most unique job opportunities, unlike anything that any of my peers outside my legislative bubble do or experience in their regular day-to-day.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
That was Kate Wolf, a legislative aid in the Nebraska Legislature, and one of my guests on this podcast. We're also joined by Morgan Hall, a fiscal analyst in the Georgia House budget office.
Kate and Morgan joined me on the sidelines of NCS L's Legislative Summit in Boston to talk about their experiences as legislative staff and offer some advice for new or prospective legislative staff around the country. We talked about surprises early in their careers, what attracted them to legislative service and what they wish they'd known before they started their jobs. Here's our discussion.
Morgan. Kate, thanks for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:16):
Happy to be here, Ed. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
To start, I wonder if maybe each of you could tell us about your role in the legislature, how long you've been there, and maybe most important why you work for the legislature. And Kate, why don't you go first?
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm a legislative aide in the Nebraska Unicameral. I'm an aide. I work for one senator and work on her policy agenda. I started in a legislature 15 years ago, and the current member that I am working with is my fourth thanks to term limits. I like working in the legislature because I think that it is one of the most unique job opportunities, unlike anything that any of my peers outside my legislative bubble do or experience in their regular day-to-day.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
Morgan, how about for you?
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I work for the Georgia House of Representatives. I am a senior budget and policy analyst in the house budget and research office. Our office is unique in that we do both budget and policy for all 180 House members of Georgia. And I right now work on health policy, so I work for all of the health chairman and appropriations and the standing committees.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Let's talk a little bit about when you first went to work for the legislature. And Morgan, what was the biggest surprise that you encountered in your early days there?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
For me, it's the pace of the legislative session. It starts a little bit slow and really builds, and it's hard to grasp if you've never done that before.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And Kate, I wonder, could you share a best moment and a worst moment from your first year or so in the legislature?
Speaker 2 (03:13):
That was a long time ago, Ed. I think a best moment was when I started. I was a committee clerk to the Business and Labor Committee, and I had come to the legislature from a very sort of partisan side of the political scheme and sitting and listening to testimony proponents and opponents, and saw the dearest lady, elderly lady who came and testified. That completely changed the entire committee's perspective on a piece of legislation. Being part of that, being witness to that set me, I think in a right direction of exactly the importance of folks coming and weighing in on legislation. And then the other side of the coin, you said, worst moments in the early days of social media, I made a very poor decision to make a tongue in cheek comment on Twitter about members. And that got back to senator that I worked for. And I wasn't in big trouble, but I think I learned a valuable lesson about the importance of the relationships and how you can, one innocent little joke can really affect how people see you.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Well, that's not the first story I've heard of staff stumbling on social media. I'd like to ask you both this question because I think it's such an important one. How do you learn the legislative process? Where did you go for guidance? Did you have mentors? Kate, what are your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (04:49):
When I joined the Nebraska legislature, I didn't even know how a bill became a law. I was recruited to come work for this member, and I was very fortunate to have very good mentors as coworkers. We had an office of three staff and a legislative aid and an attorney for the committee, and they really guided me, helped me learn the process. One had been their longstanding staff member. I don't think that our handwritten guides at that time were very helpful at all. I know that they have improved that significantly, but it truly, it was mentors and other staff teaching me what I needed to know.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well, there is a lot of nuance to the process, so a written guide might not be quite enough. I'm glad you had good guides. Morgan, how about for you?
Speaker 3 (05:42):
Much like Kate, I really relied on my experiences with my coworkers and even the members being right out of college. When I started my job, it was very easy and welcome from our members to say, Hey, I don't know how this works. Do you know? And if you don't, then we could go to different offices. We're very lucky in that our offices work well together. Not only our research and budget offices, but also our clerk's office and our legislative council. And everybody is very willing to help you and guide you through. It's also easier to help somebody on the front end than to have to go behind and help on the backend. So it's been a really great experience to get to know those people and build those relationships, but also learn a lot along the way.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
We've done a version of this podcast a couple of times before because we love to hear staff talk about their jobs. For those not in the legislative world, the focus is often only on the elected members, but we know that legislative staff are critical to keeping the trains running. So we've always used this shorthand for this podcast that it's the what I wish I knew, podcast. So let me put that question to both of you. What do you wish you knew about your job or about the legislature? Before you start, Morgan, why don't you start?
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I wish I knew I didn't have to have all the answers. It is very daunting for someone to say, well, this is my policy expert, and then not know an answer. So knowing that it's okay to say, I don't know about the specific question, let me get back to you and to still be a resource, but not feel like I'm put on the spot every second of every day.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
And Kate, how about for you? Do you remember that far back, what you wish you knew 15 years ago when you first started in on this journey,
Speaker 2 (07:46):
I had mentioned that I didn't know how a bill became a law and my coworker stuck one of the little booklets that we give to fourth graders when they tour the capitol in my hand. And I kind of got to see the unique process in the one house legislature. I wish I hadn't been so worried about that. I wish I had known that it's about relationships, relationships with other staff. We're a nonpartisan legislature, but it's still Republicans and Democrats every day. And that building and forging relationships with staff from every office regardless of their partisan personal ideals, that those relationships will carry the day far more than being worried about the technical process.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
Thanks, Kate. I'll be right back with the rest of our discussion after this short break.
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Speaker 1 (09:52):
I'm back with Kate Wolf and Morgan Hall. We discussed earlier that you have different roles in the legislature, and I'd like to explore that a little bit for you, Kate, as personal staff, I'm wondering how your role changes between when the legislature's in session and then during the interim.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
This session, it's either a 90 day or a 60 day sprint for us. And the interim, much of what I do is the same. It's just a different pace. It's a different deadline. And we're working on the senator's legislation, getting that through, getting to hearings during the session, lining up testimony, making sure we get stuff on the agenda. And then in the interim, I'm working on the next year's legislation and the interim that we're in, it's the carryover legislation as well as new legislation that she'll be introducing in January. Still responding to constituents, still working on interim. We have interim study hearings, but it's just a slower pace, but the technical part of the work is the same.
Speaker 1 (11:04):
Morgan, let me ask you, in your role, I don't think there's any question that there's a great deal of polarization and partisanship that has become more prominent in legislatures. How do you maintain your impartiality sort of that I'm not on either side here. In the face of that,
Speaker 3 (11:26):
I think it's really important to keep the focus on facts. For me, in my role, because we do work for all 180 members, you get asked for a lot of the same information. And so it's important to give the same facts to each and every member. And honestly, it's one of my favorite things about my role is to see what comes out of that, to know that I provided information and then to see where it goes from there when the member has it, and keeping that focus really helps keep the impartiality.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Morgan, let me stick with you for a second. We're of course, talking to legislative staff here and we hope some younger people who maybe are interested in legislative careers. And I wonder if you have any thoughts about maybe what attitude to take in order to be successful in the legislature?
Speaker 3 (12:22):
Keep an open mind. Keep an open mind on the issues that are before you keep an open mind on solutions that can be presented to different roles that you could take. There are a lot of people involved in making the legislature work, and the role you start in may not be the role that you finish in, but it's all about growth and being able to keep an open perspective on what's in front of you.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think that's probably great advice for life from my perspective. Kate, let me ask you, from your tenure, what lessons, successes, failures, what kind of advice would you give to people if they're thinking about a career, maybe they're early in a legislative career, what would your advice be?
Speaker 2 (13:16):
My main advice would be you can't dwell on either for very long. You're going to have your successes and you're going to remember them and carry pride, and everyone else is going to forget. It is going to be on to the next thing. And the failures or the stumbles are exactly the same. No one's going to be thinking about it because it's a slow pace and a fast pace all at the same time. Very rarely does an idea become a law quickly. It's going to go through maybe perhaps multiple sessions and things like that. And so we often say we learn more from our failures, but learning from the successes and just don't dwell. Don't stay in that space. Take on the next challenge and look forward to the next day.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
As we wrap up, I wonder if you just have any other thoughts, any other advice you'd offer about both the work but also the sense of mission and fulfillment? I think that a lot of people in legislative service tell me they get from their jobs and that that's really what keeps them there. Kate, why don't you go first?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
There isn't anything we do in the legislature that doesn't impact someone's life. There isn't anything in anyone's day-to-day life that government doesn't touch. We have had those fun conversations. Try to think of something. I can tell you a policy, right? I can tell you a statute that impacts that. And so in that way, the work is very, it's meaningful, but it's also mysterious to most of the world. We have a front row seat to sometimes some of the most impactful decisions. It's hard to find a piece of legislation that will impact everyone or someone positively. I think that winners and losers aspect of policy needs to be taken as extreme responsibility.
Speaker 1 (15:22):
And Morgan, how about for you? When you think about your service in the legislature, and if you were talking to a high school senior who's thinking about going to college and what they want to major in, what would you tell them that you want them to consider if they might be thinking about working in a legislature?
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Working in the legislature gives you such a broad experience to both the technical aspects of how a bill becomes a law or committee procedure, but it also gives you a front row seat to people's live stories. And when you're sitting in a committee room and you're talking about something very technical and somebody walks up, and for example, we had a bill about prosthetics, and they were literally discussing how this legislation would allow them to better take a shower. And those are meaningful moments. And I think that being able to see multiple aspects of everything you do,
Speaker 1 (16:28):
I think that's such a really important point that when we talk about policy so often, it's pretty abstract. And when you bring it down to a story about somebody and how it affects their lives, boy, it makes all the difference in the world. And you both have the opportunity, as you said, to have a front row seat to see that happen. And thank you so much for sharing this experiences with us, and I hope that some people who maybe are interested in legislative service might listen to this podcast and say, well, I'm going to give that a try. So thank you and take care.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Thank you so much, Ed, and thank you to NCSL for this great opportunity.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
Thank you so much for having us, and we're grateful to be part of NCSL.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I've been talking with Kate Wolfe and Morgan Hall about legislative service. Thanks for listening. You can find NCSL podcasts wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast, “Our American States,” dives into some of the most challenging public policy issues facing legislators. Our occasional series, “Across the Aisle,” features stories of bipartisanship. You can also check out our special series, “Building Democracy,” on the history of legislatures.