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Who doesn't have an opinion on something?
We all do.
As a Minnesota resident, there are several ways you can effectively share your opinion
with your state legislator, including testifying before a House committee.
House committees focus on specific areas such as health and human services, education, or
agriculture.
During meetings, committee members take up bills and issues and hear testimony from experts
and members of the public.
The House's committee meetings are open to the public and most are held in the State
Office Building.
If you've ever wanted to weigh in on a bill being heard in committee, visit a committee
room to support a testifier, or even if you've ever just been curious as to what a committee
room looks like, you'll want to continue watching.
In this Point Made: Testifying at the House, we'll go inside a typical House committee
room and help you become familiar with the committee process.
Our tour guides for this story are Mark Mallander and John Reynolds, both have experience as
committee administrators.
Before you first step inside the committee room, check outside the committee door for
the agenda.
Mallander says, "The agenda will be fairly specific as to the order of the bills that
will be taken up that day and the number of people testifying and probably the names of
the individuals that will be testifying."
The agenda will likely be posted on House websites as well, or you can obtain an agenda
from the information table.
Check to make sure the issue you are following has not been removed from the agenda.
Agenda items may not be heard in the order in which they appear.
Mallander says, "When you first enter the hearing room, there will be like over here
a table that will have some documents pertaining to this particular hearing and one of them
will be a written agenda for the hearing."
Near the entrance of the committee room are one to two pages that assist with the committee
process.
Reynolds says, "They sort of help pass notes and if you are here to testify, you can check
with them to make sure you are on the list to testify, or make, let them know you would
like to testify on a certain bill."
The pages have a sign-up sheet so that members of the public can sign-up to testify if they
have not already done so.
Pages can also pass out any material that supplements your testimony.
If you are going to be testifying and want to use presentation equipment, talk to the
committee staff beforehand so they can assist you.
Reynolds says, "Every committee room is equipped TV screens so
If you have something for that or if you have a physical handout that you would like all members of the committee to see,
you can give that to the committee pages and they will make copies, if you don't have them,
and distribute them to the members of the committee. "
Once you have checked the agenda, made sure you were on the testifying list and taken
care of your testimony material, take a seat in the audience.
Reynolds says, "You can have a seat in the audience and on most days there are multiple
bills that will be heard, so you may have to have some patience and wait your turn,
because your bill may not be first." You will wait in the audience until your name
is called by the committee chair.
The chair determines the order in which the bills are heard, the rules for testifying and whether
there will be a time limit on your testimony.
At the head of the committee table is where the chair sits.
Mallander says, "It's the chair that will announce which bills are going to be heard
in what order and that order might change on the day of the hearing depending on what
the chair wants to do."
If you will be testifying on a bill, you will come and take a seat at the testifier's table
in front of the u-shaped table that representatives and legislative staff sit at.
Mallander says, "The chair will ask you to proceed with your testimony, once you've concluded
your testimony, the chair will probably ask if there are any questions, the chair might
ask a question of you directly, or ask if any members of the committee have a question.
All of the discussion will be run through the chair and a committee member will raise
a hand, the chair will recognize that member, the member then will ask a question of the
person that is testifying."
The testifiers table is equipped with microphones so that House members can hear testimony and
so that the testimony is recorded.
Sarah asks, "Right now, we're at the testifier's table and what advice would you have for people
coming to testify? Reynolds says, "I think one of the most important
things that testifiers can know coming up is to make sure they speak clearly into the microphone,
don't get too close or too far, stay about 6 inches away, so that the audio picks you
up and you can be heard through the room, because sometimes it can be noisy and sometimes
members will be talking amongst themselves."
Reynolds offers some words of advice before you reach the table.
Reynolds says, "Before you come up make sure that you have turned off your cellphone because
cellphones, I-pads, other devices can cause feedback when they get too close to the microphone
and it will lead to an irritating static—sound that is audible to the committee and will
possibly wreck the committee tape, which will prevent people from listening to your testimony
in the future." Sarah asks, "And once you are done testifying,
do you leave the committee room, or should you sit back in the audience?"
Reynolds says, "Usually, chairs like it when the testifier stays in the audience in case
there are any follow-up question and that happens pretty frequently as more and more
people testify, if there are a lot of people here to talk about the bill. Sometimes, there
will be conflicting testimony and contradicting facts and a member of the public may ask to
come back down and expand on their view a little bit more."
You can always attend a committee meeting before you testify to become familiar with
the process and room layout.
We hope this video has made you more comfortable stepping into a committee room, whether that's
to testify on a bill in committee, or just come to support a testifier.