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State Legislatures Magazine: What Staff Know Articles
What Staff Know is a series of articles dedicated to sharing information about the little-known and sometimes misunderstood work more than 30,000 legislative staff perform in state capitals around the country.
Although they are critical to state legislatures, staff make a conscious effort to remain behind the scenes. This series gives them an opportunity to shine a little light on their role in the legislative process.
The list below compiles the articles in on place so you can browse the wide array of knowledge held by legislative staffers across the nation.
What Legal Staff Know
Legal services staff strive to protect the integrity of state statutes. They are the first line of defense against ambiguous laws and unintended consequences.
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What IT Staff Know
Everything about the legislative process—and making lawmakers’ activities transparent to constituents—depends on technology. The PCs, phones, software applications, networks, websites, email systems, printers, display boards and webcasts are available because information technology professionals have worked closely with vendors, state agencies, legislators and legislative staff to provide the tools everyone needs to accomplish their work.
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What Chiefs of Staff Know
Chiefs’ responsibilities vary among members, chambers and states. But all chiefs know what it takes to be effective and successful on the job. Here are three things chiefs of staff want you to know about being the top staffer in a leader’s office.
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What Legislative Research Librarians Know
Legislative librarians are a studious and feisty group of guides who love a good laugh just as much as a clever legislative research question. Client-driven and guided by statehouse timelines, legislative librarians are a key element of the lawmaking process.
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What Research Staff Know
As research staff, we provide well-written, accurate, objective data to inform these discussions. We take pride in knowing how to separate fact from fiction. Furnishing this service to the legislative institution is the reason many of us find our work so gratifying.
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What Legislative Communicators Know
They write, crafting news releases and speeches. They talk, serving as spokespeople for legislators and the institution. They record, capturing photos, videos and audio of legislative proceedings. And increasingly, they post—using Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and more. They are the information officers, press secretaries, communications directors, audio and video producers, photographers, and civic educators who serve as the liaisons between the nation’s state legislatures, their constituents and the media. Here’s what they want you to know.
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What Clerks and Secretaries Know
Devotion to the legislature and commitment to public service are what draw these professionals to this work despite the stress and the long, irregular hours. Not everyone can do this job. But for those who can, who are in chambers day in and day out, who watch the process and see how hard legislators can work to get something accomplished, it’s what one clerk called “kind of inspiring.”
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What Committee Staff Know
In the fast-paced environment of the legislature, committee staff are a bit like stage managers in the theater, working behind the scenes to keep everyone on task and on message.
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What Civics Education Coordinators Know
Regardless of their roles and duties, their mission is the same: educating the public about the legislature and combatting the pervasive cynical assumptions made about lawmakers and government.
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