So, now that the public hearings are done, we asked the Pro-tem Chairman, Mark Lizarraga, about the next step that the committee will take to compile its full report. He told us that they have decided to take a break until January, when they will reconvene in private to discuss what should be in it:
Mark Lizarraga - Senator for the Business Sector
"Well, the first thing is we are going to take a much-needed break. We are meeting again on the 13th, the second Wednesday in January, I think, to decide and chart our way forward. The committee will be meeting with its attorney and we are going to come up with a draft schedule and a draft plan for the way forward. We haven't gotten there yet, we are still tangled up with the hearings but we know that we now move to a new stage. We'll be looking at the evidence, speak to the attorneys and make sure that we each individually give some guidance as to what it is we want to see in the report and of course there is always an opportunity for a minority report if individual senators feel differently from the majority of senators. But basically, we are going to be talking about the way forward as the drafting and writing of the report."
Daniel Ortiz - Reporter
"Are you able to say how many hours of testimony there is? Has there been any tabulation about the amount of testimony you all witnessed here over the past few months?"
Mark Lizarraga
"No. As you know, I think we've had over 40 hearings; we've had several off-camera discussions, so to speak- in private. So, trust me it's voluminous, we have quite a bit of testimony. And no, I don't have an idea, the committee has not set targets per se. We just have to look at what it is that we want to include. I think that we will probably all take some time to write down the highlights, areas that we want to make sure are highlighted in the report and then we go from there."
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