State Government Lobbying in Action

On Thursday, Dan and I went with the Rose Institute to Sacramento for the day. On the plane, I randomly got seated between two lobbyists who were heading up to Sacramento for the day. During the flight (and delay as Southwest tried to stop a mysterious fuel leak), I was able to have a long conversation with the two of them. They really represented the diversity of lobbyists and lobbyists' techniques. The one on my left, a lobbyist for some kind of builders association, was dressed very professionally in a suit and had lots of statistics and other information which he planned to use in his presentation (he never really told me what or who exactly he was lobbying). The one on my right, a mother who was president of her district's PTA, was relying less on statistics and more on an emotional appeal. She was talking to the Governor's staff and was trying to convince the Governor not to cut school funding. She had hand written letters from I believe fourth graders who had tried to explain to the Governor in their own ways why he should not cut funding. It was a very interesting experience to talk to both of them and hear them talk to each other because it was a real life example of much of what we have learned this semester.