taylor cook Reflection Paper 3: Blog 2/24/14

Lessons from Legislative Sessions: Where Bills Go To Die

Another year of legislative sessions, another round of legislative battles that have
left tons of bills laid gently on the tablea.k.a. dead for this year.

As I sat through a day of bill hearing sessions for the Virginia General Assembly in
Richmond, I watched as many people saw bills they worked on for days, weeks,
months, even years get laid gently on the tablewhich essentially means the end
of debate and consideration of a resolution for that legislative year.

At the time, I was working on a lobbying effort in West Virginia. The purpose of the
proposed bill was emergency preparedness, to help West Virginians protect
themselves against the terrible aftermath of storms like the derecho in the summer
of 2012 and superstorm Sandy during which damage caused power outages that
lasted upwards of two and three weeks for many West Virginians. Particularly with
the destruction of the derecho, food pantries and emergency relief agencies across
the state lost their food and medicine because their refrigerators didn't work for 3
weeks in the 90+ degree heat. To prevent such future crises, the bill included a tax
credit of 30% of the cost of an emergency generator system. Originally the language
was technology neutral, and could have provided up to $3,000 a system, perfect for
the solar PV projects we are planning wtih food pantries across the state; however,
then the language was amended to limit the tax credit to only propane, diesel, gas,
and natural gas generators. Thus we began a lobbying to get solar included in the
bill.

I spent several days researching and reaching out to dozens of organizationsfrom
emergency response organizations to hunting organizations to the labor unionsto
show a wide range of support (not just enviros). This being my first project in West
Virginia, my first experience organizing a lobbying effort for state legislation, and
doing it all over the phone from DC instead of in-person/on the ground, I found it
very challenging. In the end we signed on over twenty groups but it was very time-
consuming, frustrating and exhausting. And this was only part of one step in one
amendment of one billquite far from even getting on the agenda to be considered
by the representatives.

I pondered this as I sat through hearing after hearing of the proposed bills for the
Commonwealth. Many people left the podium visibly irritated. I thought about how
frustrating it must be for people who have been spent so much time crafting this
legislation, building coalitions, making sure the bill gets on the agenda and
recruiting people to speak on behalf of the bill, to have their efforts shut down
completely, often in less than ten minutes.

Over the next two weeks I spent even more countless hours organizing two citizen
petitions for the bill mentioned above and another, both of which died in committee.
This was quite disappointing and made me existentially question the amount of time
I had spent on them. Hours on hours on hours of innovation squelched with little to
taylor cook Reflection Paper 3: Blog 2/24/14
no consideration. What was the point? What does it all mean?!? I thought back to
what Katie Parrish, the program coordinator for the Climate Leaders Fellowship I
am a part of said about mobilizing vs. organizing.

Even though the short-term goal of passing these bills was not reached, the
mobilization tactics used will still help us build toward our long-term goals as an
organization. We were able to reach out and introduce our organization to many
different types of groups; we gained hundreds of new people on our mailing/social
media lists that can continue to be involved and mobilized in the future; and we got
response and support from several legislators in the state. While the gratification of
passing the bill was not realized during this legislative session, if we continue to
foster relationships from those initial contacts, that energy and time spent will be
very important to organize the grassroots power we need to achieve our higher,
long-term goals.