From the President’s Desk – Asm. Ken Cooley (CA), NCOIL President
I hope everyone reading this had a great Summer. It is fair to say that the NCOIL of 2022 looks much more like America than it did just five years ago. At our Phoenix meeting in 2017, the 46 legislators from 25 states included 9 legislators of gender or racial diversity; this represents 19.5% of the total. At our meeting in Jersey City last month, we had 48 legislators from 26 states. They included 23 legislators of gender or racial diversity, which represents 48% of the total. This increase is striking.
The combination of the striking increase in diversity representation and the strong trend toward bipartisan in numbers to match the bipartisan philosophy is something of which NCOIL as an organization, I as President, and we all are very proud. The progress in this area goes hand-in-hand with NCOIL’s growth generally in recent years, and is a credit to the affirmative commitment of the officers and staff who have served during this time and worked to execute on the organizational imperative that a more representative NCOIL is a stronger NCOIL. Just as the proof of the pudding is in the eating, it is only through experiencing NCOIL currently that you can fully appreciate these marked changes. I look forward to these positive trends continuing at our upcoming Annual Meeting in New Orleans in November.
Speaking of the Annual Meeting, it’s shaping up to be a very busy meeting with several important and timely Model Laws that could be considered for adoption. The Models described below are based on the current versions. Changes to some or all of the Models are expected between now and November.
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