Sunday, August 07, 2011
My friend Ann Terry was quoted in the newspaper today. Ann is the executive director of the Special District Association. She was interviewed for an article on the problems special districts will face with decreased tax revenues. Ann was articulate and incisive. But then Ann is always that way.
I met Ann when we both were at CDAC. Ann was our lobbyist. She is an attorney, and has worked as a district attorney, but when we worked together, her job was exclusively lobbying. She was great at it. Working with legislators is a unique skill and very few can be really, really good. Ann was. (I use the past tense because I do not believe lobbying is a major part of her job now.) She knew how to sell our agenda, count votes in committee, and where all the bathrooms were. In the Capitol the only public bathrooms are in the basement. But there are other bathrooms scattered throughout the building behind unmarked doors. Veterans know where to find them. Ann would dole out this knowledge piecemeal sort of like dog treats as rewards. Once a year or so Ann would let me know of another one.
Ann and Pete Weir would go over to the Capitol and come back looking dour. Pete would usually say something like “How is your blood pressure” before dropping a bomb on me that some senator had taken my carefully drafted legislation and tinkered with it until it meant the opposite of what is was supposed to mean, and now would actually harm law enforcement. Fortunately Ann and Pete usually could remedy these calamities. (But not always.)
We had fun at CDAC. In an attempt to keep our sanity, Ann and I would draft fake legislation based upon actual introduced bills. Our favorite was an extension of a bill trying to discourage people from feeding bears by creating criminal penalties. Ann and I created a felony bear-feeding bill, with several subsections, one of my masterpieces of legislative drafting. Unfortunately only a few people saw it. (My best drafting ever was much later when I created the crime of “Olfactory Invasion of Privacy” a much-needed offense which Mark Randall failed to get passed, allowing for the continued ability of at least one miscreant to put his nose in places it does not belong.)
But my favorite thing about Ann is that she is the biggest fan of my writing, other than my daughter. Ann has always asked to read everything I write and she has been tremendously supportive. I know Ann made a living for a long time schmoozing legislators, but I choose to accept everything she says about my writing at face value. I know she reads my blogs. (I checked the stats, she must be the one.) Thanks, Ann.
Labels: Ann Terry
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