Remember what Schoolhouse Rock told us about how a bill becomes law? Believe none of that. According to Jere Royall, counsel and director of Community Impact at the N.C. Family Policy Council, that's old, useless, outdated stuff. How a bill becomes a law "nowadays," says Royall, is that organizations like his talk with legislators and propose models that lack foundational data and ask the legislators to accept their suggestions and come up with the data themselves, question the premises of the organization's lobbying efforts, and insert all of that into a months-long or years-long discussion on the merits and detriments of the organization's proposal.
I learned about the idylls of lawmaking processes during a (very protracted and circuitous) conversation with Royall today that started when I called N.C. Sen. Austin Allran (R-42) to ask about a bill he's sponsoring in the N.C. General Assembly to impose a two-year waiting period on divorce in North Carolina.
My question: Considering the correlation between domestic violence and the time period around the divorce/separation of a couple, do the data find an increase or decrease in domestic violence with the imposition of a two-year waiting period?
Sen. Allran's staffer's answer? "We don't know. The senator is sponsoring this on behalf of the N.C. Family Policy Council, and you can call them and ask that question. Their number is 919-807-0800."
And so we were off to the races. Follow the bunny around the little orange track.