2025 HSLP: Day 7
High School Leaders Program Class of 2025
Day 7: Friday, July 18th
Reported By: Nico Granieri (West Potomac High School, Alexandria VA) and Sam Sewell (Maury High School Norfolk VA)
After breakfast at O-Hill, The academic portion of the day began with a panel of lobbyists who informed us on the broad strokes of how lobbyists work with the general assembly, the difference between in house and contract lobbyists, and how they are able to balance both the personalities they interact with in the legislature and the interests of their employers. While we all waited for the second panel of speakers to arrive we broke off into our policy groups and were accompanied by some of the lobbyists to advise us on the possible strengths or challenges that our projects could face should they be brought onto the floor and as well as other advice. Following this we spoke with two law school graduates (Elisha Untiedt and Dylan Bishop) and one currently still working (JaVori Warren) . With much of the class being interested in enrolling in law school many took good advantage of the opportunity to ask some of their more obscure questions and get answers from an experienced panel.
After questions wrapped up we all went and got lunch from O-Hill with some groups breaking off to discuss edits and revisions for policy projects. The first Speaker following lunch was speaker Rob Corradi, who is currently a lobbyist for Amazon Web Services. He brought all of us through the process of introducing a bill by having us perform a mock proposal on the supposedly simple idea that all kids should get two free meals at school. Through the scenario he provided us with insight into the multitude of considerations that had to be made even for such a presumably simple idea as well as raising the idea that success in the legislature is not always predicated on the success of a bill and that sometimes the objective is simply branding and awareness to push the envelope. After Mr. Corradi, we were joined by Thomas Turner, the state director for Conservatives for Clean Energy. He spent the first half of his time speaking about different forms of energy and explained to us the value of bipartisanship and trying to work with both sides of either issue and his personal methods of doing so. After taking some questions, he then educated us on his experience in the Republican Party and some common misconceptions people may have about it. After more questions and group picture, we met our final speaker for the day, Cody Anderson. Mr. Anderson works as the Growth and Opportunity Program Administrator at the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. He explained the Department of Housing and Community Development’s mission which is to help build affordable housing, providing universal broadband access, regulate building codes, and help develop communities so that they can be safe, affordable, and prosperous. He then took questions, many of them from the policy project group tasked with the issue of affordable housing.
Once Mr. Anderson was done speaking and taking questions, we moved to O-Hill for dinner. After dinner, we celebrated our classmate Armaan’s birthday with donuts and cupcakes and followed it with a Sorensen tradition. A group then went to CVS while others worked on their projects. Once the group got back from CVS, we spent the rest of the night working in our groups on our policy projects.