An Afternoon with a Reproductive Health Lobbyist
I had the wonderful privilege of spending last Thursday, July 1, 2010, in the California Capitol with a prominent reproductive health lobbyist. After arriving in Sacramento via the beautifully scenic Amtrak train ride, we drove downtown near the Capitol where it was lunchtime and all the politicos were chatting, lunching and doing their politics thing. While most people have heard of “lobbyists” or “lobbying,” what goes into the day to day work of this profession is something that many don’t know about. I was able to experience even a few hours of that and it is a demanding profession.
Lobbying is a form of advocacy with the intention of influencing decisions made by legislators. It is advocating on behalf of a client, whether it be an individual, organization or corporation. The term “lobbying” comes from the fact that lobbyists used to stand in the areas, or “lobbies,” outside the House or Senate chambers in order to chat with legislators as they come to or from chambers or to await legislative decisions.
Spending the afternoon with this well-established lobbyist was quite an experience, as I had the opportunity to learn about all that goes into the business of lobbying. This lobbyist has two major health and medical organizations as clients and these clients alone keep her time almost fully occupied. Lobbying is an extremely busy job, with the need for great flexibility due to constant changes in language of draft legislation that can affect the whole meaning of a bill, changes in positions and opinions. It is remarkable to me how changing one word in a bill draft can change the whole meaning of the proposed bill and change an organizations position completely. Going back and forth between the legislative changes and decisions and her clients, making sure they understand exactly what things mean and how it will affect them in day to day practice is extremely important, as it will affect what position they will take on a bill.
After lunch, we walked around the capitol and inside the Capitol building which is full of history and art, old and new. It had a major restoration done in 1975 that took six years and over 68 million dollars. The restoration project’s purpose was to restore the capitol to its original 1906 architectural stateliness and it definitely has. It is an absolutely beautiful building and, whether you are a native Californian or not (as I am), I highly recommend taking the time for a day visit if you can. The capitol is historically rich and a beautiful architectural structure, with wonderful staff there to answer any and all questions you may have about the capitol’s history. I thoroughly enjoyed my visit to Sacramento and learned so much from just an afternoon there. It was a true reminder of how humbling our country’s history and individual state’s histories are, and being able to take this trip up to Sacramento just prior to celebrating our country’s independence day was a great feeling and experience.
Lara Chelian