Cecil A. Partee Memoir - University of Illinois Springfield

courts. The judiciary committee handled most of the laws of that sort, That
was like throwing a rabbit in a briar patch because T had been 8 lawyer since
1947 and we're talking about 1957. I had been a lawyer ten years, so 1 was
not naive nor uninformed, I guess I was dry behind the ears by then.
Q: Yes, sir.
A: So, I know I served on that committee . . .
Q: Well, what I was driving at--now. for example, on the judiciary committee,
were you interested in being assigned to that committee before the assignment?
A: Yes, as a matter of fact, you had ro send in the names of the committees
that you wanted to serve on and judiciary was one--my first choice, as a
matter of fact,,
Q: I see, yes.
A: 1 have been very fortunate. T always got my choices. Whatever committees
1 asked for, I got them.
Q: Well, let's see, now. Who was making the assignments when you first went
down there?
A: The Democratic leader-now, and ~'m not sure who that was. T think it
was--at that time, I think it was George Dunne. (pause) 1 think so. I got
the committees I wanted.
Q: After organization, what was the first actian that you became involved in?
Was it committee action or floor action?
A: Probably--let me see . . . In these days when you came down the first day,
you would sit down and you would get organized and then you wouldn't come back
until sometime in February when they got the board set up with the names and
the desks with your nameplates and all that, So I came back--1 think there
was, it seems to me, some deficiency appropriations that we had to pass that
first day. Because one--1 know one was fifty or sixty million dollars. T
remember having to vote on something for fifty or - sixty million dollars was
just ,. . a
Q: And you were surprised at the amount, huh?
A: Yes. (chuckles)
Q: So it was about a one-day tour down there and then you came home. What did
yau do then to prepare for going back?
A: Well, 1 started getting together the ideas that T wanted to put into bills
and getting the bills drawn preparatory to being introduced when I got back.
Q: Yes. Did you do your own drawing of the bills?