Nossa-SacTown

A little known fact about Nossaman is that in addition to legal services, Nossaman also has a California lobbying practice. There are about 10 lobbyists working out of the Sacramento office that work with California legislators to get whatever their clients want made into law.

Every year, Nossaman flies the summer associates from every office up to the Sacramento office to meet the lobbyists and learn more about the lobbying process, the legislative process, and California politics.

My day started at 4:30 AM today when I woke up in order to catch my flight at 7:00AM. I met my co-summers Ashley and Adam at the Sacramento airport, and we taxied over to downtown Sacramento. The Nossaman office there is much smaller than the LA office, but it still looked very law-officey. We were soon joined by the associates from the San Francisco office, as well as the Sacramento office. This was a lot of fun, since I got to see fellow Boalites Thomas (my Nossa-buddy), as well as Krystal (working at the San Francisco office). I also met their co-summers. There were 7 of us Nossa-summers.

Kelli, one of the nice lobbyists (non-Washington lobbyists get a bum rap, we soon learned) met us and after telling us about how she injured her hand fixing a toilet that exploded, took us to the Capitol where we met a policy assistant to Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, got a private tour of Gov. Schwarzenegger's office, met with a State Assemblywoman representing Orange County, and got a tour of the building by a woman named N.C. Otter. After the tour, we met back at the office, said our goodbyes, and taxiied back to the airport. Quick turnaround, but it was for the better because Sacramento is not a city where you would want to spend large amounts of time (sorry Thomas).

All in all, I got a much better idea of how California politics works, especially given that I knew virtually nothing. It's interesting to see how the Democrats in the Legislature rule every aspect of the legislative process with an iron fist much in the same way that the Republicans in Congress do for federal laws. All the summers from Sacramento and San Fran were great, and we are all looking forward to seeing each other again in a few weeks when Nossaman flies us up to SF for the deposition training.

Lunch: Before the tour but after meeting the Assemblywoman, the lobbyists and a few attorneys took us to a fancy-schmancy Sacramento restaurant where we got a private dining room. Little fried cheeseballs, a nice salad, tasty flank steak, and a delicious (and ugh rich) chocolate cake were on the menu. The highlight though was our keynote speaker Tony Quinn, a political analyst and pollster who finger is so tightly on the political scene that he is capable of predicting the outcome of most political races, both state and national. As a politics junkie, I had an absolute blast listening to him talk about everything from the Florida recount to the difference between Gov. Schwarzenegger and Gov. Davis, to why the Democrats might not actually recapture the House/Senate this November.