By Ben Snow, Class III Fellow

Class III Fellow, Ben Snow

Our third session of LEADelaware  was February 6 – 7 and focused on legislation.  We started with an overview of the public policy process.  We then had legislators and lobbyists come and speak to us about both sides of legislature. This included learning about giving testimony to state legislators, the functions of a lobbyist, and the challenges of becoming a legislator.

We also heard from Jonathan Russ, a State Government Historian, and learned a lot of interesting facts about the DuPont family and how they both grew their company and gave back generously to the state in different ways.

We ended our first day by giving presentations on possible destinations for our international trip, which included rating each country on different criteria.

The second day started with the first three leadership book reviews, which were given by Jimmy Hughes, Lauren Torres, and myself.  We then had a very nice tour of legislative hall and heard about the origins and history of the legislative halls in Delaware and also about how the house and senate operate during sessions.

Our last guest was Dan Shortridge from the DDA who spoke to us about working with the media and how to effectively write a press release. We formed groups to do another argument clinic this time revolving around Jayson Lusk’s Food Police.

We ended session 3 by going over the scores for our international trip options and settled on New Zealand.  This session was very interesting in that we were able to see the different sides of legislature that we may not have had to opportunity to see otherwise.

LEADelaware’s Session IV will take place March 12 – 14 in Washington DC. Check back for updates from that trip.