House Majority Leader K. Joseph Shekarchi and Senate Majority Leader Michael J. McCaffrey this weekend participated in a seminar on legislative negotiation offered by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The invitation-only program, which was held at Harvard University in conjunction with the Harvard Negotiation Project, was designed teach legislators the best framework for legislative negotiation, as studied by Harvard. The purpose was to provide legislators in key negotiation positions with the tools to achieve better outcome from legislative negotiations.

The Thursday-through-Saturday seminar used case studies that allowed participants to practice their negotiation skills with each other.

"Every legislature relies on leaders to be skilled negotiators to be able to bring about consensus among members and move legislation forward. We handle many complex pieces of legislation, and there always competing interests within the state who have differing perspectives on how to address each issue before us. The skills we learned and practiced at this seminar will help us effectively and efficiently move legislation forward within our legislative bodies to help make Rhode Island stronger," said House Majority Leader Shekarchi (D-Dist. 23, Warwick).

Said Senate Majority Leader McCaffrey (D-Dist. 29, Warwick), "So much of what we do in the General Assembly depends on our ability to negotiate with one another. It's not easy to tell when to hold fast and when to offer a compromise, or how to foster consensus between different factions. We are very grateful to the National Conference of State Legislatures for this opportunity to sharpen our skills and bring home better tools for making our legislature more effective."