Mount Ayr Record-News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
Thursday, June 09, 2005

Want a front row view to see the process on how an idea becomes a bill and then a law at the Iowa legislature?

Amanda HYNEK of Beaconsfield knows where to see it all.

That's because she spent the 2005 session of Iowa's 81st General Assembly as a page for the Legislative Service Agency (LSA).

The page program offers an opportunity for high school students to help with the legislative process in three areas. Some students like Amanda JOHNSON did a few years ago, serve as pages in the House or Senate.

These pages run errands for the legislators of their respective houses.

The third type of page works for the Legislative Service Agency, moving the paperwork that can eventually become law to every step along the way.

A bill begins as an idea that a member of the House or Senate has. They visit with one of the drafters in the LSA, who turns the idea into words and works with the other requirements already in the law. Editors then check over the drafts, typesetters set them, proofers make sure they are correct and then they are taken back to the legislators for review. Pages help move the paperwork along, especially in cases of rush bills.

Because of the 25-25 split in the Senate this years, committees have co-chairmen from each party, meaning more office space was needed in the capitol building.

That meant that some of the LSA functions had to be moved across the street to the Babcock building - and that in turn meant longer trips for the LSA aides this year.

"We were in much better shape than the House or Senate pages," HYNEK said. "We did a lot of stairs in the course of the legislative session."

One lesson that HYNEK learned? It takes a lot of people working hard to make the legislature run smoothly.

"There's so much more to making a bill than just having an idea," HYNEK said. "Legislators have the idea but it is the drafters, editors and typists, who turn that into a bill. There wouldn't be any bills without LSA."

One of the challenges of being a page is keeping up with school work while putting in the hours working with the legislature.

HYNEK had finished up all the coursework she needed to pick up an associate degree from Southwestern Community College by December and was able to take a light load of just three classes for her final semester of high school.

"Even so, it was a lot of work to keep up with the classes I took," HYNEK said. One of the other aides took six high school classes her final semester and HYNEK wasn't sure how she managed.

Teachers cooperated with HYNEK so she could work on the classes away from the classroom.

"It was a little easy to procrastinate at the beginning, especially after the legislature got going strong," HYNEK said. She admitted that she turned in several of her final assignments at the last minute.

"The teachers were good to work with," she said.

Lodging is not provided with the program so most of the pages stay with family friends or relatives in Des Moines.

HYNEK stayed with her brother, Joe, who lives in Ames. That drive was a little far, she said.

"Some nights we didn't get done with the legislature until midnight so I stayed with a friend in Des Moines on those nights," she said.

One frustrating aprt of the experience was never knowing how long the legislative session was going to go. "They weren't very good about estimating when adjournment would be made," she said. Some days the session was over at 3 p.m. and others might be midnight.

HYNEK began her assignment on January 10 and left before the legislature put final touches on the extra-long session this year.

Transcription by Sharon R. Becker, October of 2012