Tips for Committee: How Best to Get Your Bill Prioritized

By: Caison Farley

Committee is one of the most crucial, albeit easiest, hurdles to clear in Olympia. Because of the size of each individual committee, each bill has a much better chance at passing than in the House or Senate. This can set committee up to seem underwhelming or inconsequential, however, committee can have a highly impactful effect on whether your bill will be prioritized and how you can connect with your audience better in the much larger communities of the House and Senate. To help you to take full advantage of your time in committee, I have compiled a list of some of the best things that you can do to prepare for committee and stay in control of debate in the moment. 

#3. Prepare an Opening and Closing Statement Script Beforehand

While many people do this regularly in Olympia, it is worth mentioning if you want to improve your presentation. By creating a script, you will effectively remove a significant amount of stress from yourself and come off as more confident and credible. A script does not need to dictate what you say, it is merely a foundation to state your points and a safety net in case you lose track of what you want to say. That said, a script can be a collection of notes, a series of paragraphs, or even some main ideas jotted down on a Post-It note, whatever works best for keeping your thoughts organized and strong.

#2. Consider what might come up in Debate

If anything, one of the best things you can be in Olympia is prepared. Part of this is getting your thoughts and opinions down on paper. The other part, however, is completely contrary to your thoughts and opinions. Debates consist of people, for the most part, critiquing everything you say, and you need to respond to THEIR thoughts and opinions now. Because of this, debate preparation can be tricky to work with. However, by properly preparing for debate, you will do a much better job of getting your bill prioritized and swaying your audience in favor of your bill. In my experience, the most common debate topics are: Cost, Means, and Importance. Cost refers to the money the bill will require; Ex. “How much will this cost” and “Should we be investing this much money in this”? Means is the resources and partnerships involved with the bill; Ex. “Who will be managing the project” and “Who will be responsible for providing the wooden slats”? Importance is related to how important the bill actually is in the grand scheme of things; Ex. “Why is this more important to work on than this other thing” and “Is this what we need to be focusing on right now”? Planning around these topics can help you to counter a lot of arguments in debate and strengthen your presentation significantly. 

#1. Be Confident

Every great speaker has used confidence to grab their audience and help them to really absorb their main points. Confidence plays a huge role in how prepared and credible you seem to the audience. Being confident conveys that you know what you are talking about, have looked thoroughly through your research, and have a clear understanding of why your bill is important to the audience. Even if you mess up, staying confident in yourself can make it seem like your presentation is flawless.

By using these techniques, you have a much better chance at not only passing your bill through committee, but getting it prioritized in the process. As always, good luck to all, and have a fantastic 2023 year!