Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

Texas Impact s Guide to Legislative Engagement

As a Texas Impact member, you are in a unique position to lobby and testify on issues and positions that represent consensus social concerns of Texas faith communities. Texas Impact retains a staff of registered lobbyists, but it s very important that our members participate in Texas Impact s advocacy activities because: 1. Credibility: As members of local communities, our members can relate to legislators as constituents and neighbors, not just as hired guns. 2. Constituency: As leaders in their communities and congregations, our members bring their own constituencies and connections into the discussion. 3. Capacity: With an extensive agenda and limited staff, Texas Impact relies on our members to lead our public witness and build relationships between the organization and legislative offices. 4. Character: Every individual is different, and that includes elected officials and faith leaders. You may be just the person who can have the productive conversation with a particular elected official! The following guide is intended to provide Texas Impact members with all the information you need to represent Texas Impact effectively in two key activities: lobbying/legislative visits and legislative testimony. Grassroots lobbying provides large numbers of communications with legislators, usually through the public. Grasstops lobbying provides communications from prominent individuals, community leaders and key decision makers. The emphasis of grassroots lobbying tends to be of quantity, grass-tops of quality. Astroturfing is a "grassroots program that involves the instant manufacturing of public support for a point of view in which either uninformed activists are recruited or means of deception are used to recruit them."

Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

Representing Texas Impact as a Board Member

1. Current board members, in lobbying or testifying, may identify themselves as a board member and say they are speaking on behalf of the board if and only if the issue and position being articulated is listed as part of Texas Impact s printed legislative agenda for the current legislative session. 2. Board members may or may not be able to say they are speaking on behalf of their sending organization, depending on that organization s policies. 3. Board members may say they represent their sending organization on Texas Impact s board. 4. It s appropriate for board members to characterize themselves as religious leaders even if they are not clergy. 5. Board members should use the following boilerplate language in characterizing Texas Impact: Texas Impact is a statewide interfaith organization established in 1973 by Texas bishops and other religious leaders to be a voice of religious social concern to the Texas Legislature. Texas Impact is a membership organization; our members include individuals and communities of faith ranging from local congregations and interfaith groups up to denominational bodies of Christian denominations and regional Jewish and Muslim networks. Texas Impact is the only statewide interfaith advocacy organization in Texas whose members include Christian denominational bodies. We have a network of about 20,000 members, and we reach millions of Texans through our work with our denominational members. Texas Impact s board of directors is composed of about forty-five members who act as representatives of their respective faith communities. Our legislative positions are established by unanimous vote of the board.

LEGISLATIVE MEETINGS
Your legislative meeting is lobbying if you are advocating a position on a bill or an idea that might become a bill. It s not lobbying if you are just visiting in broad terms about a policy issue. It s often easier to have a focused conversation about a specific bill if you already have had an introductory meeting so you know the person you are talking to. It s important for Texas Impact board members to have introductory meetings with legislative offices, especially before the legislative session begins, so legislators and their staffs understand who we are and what s on our legislative agenda. It s also important for board members to meet with offices during the session about specific legislation. The most important step you can take before your meeting is to make sure you know why you are having it. Your goals for your meeting will be different depending on a number of factors: whether this is an introductory/informational meeting or a lobby visit; whether you already know the person you are meeting with or not; and what role the person you are meeting with plays in the Legislature.

What makes a successful legislative visit?

1. You feel empowered and believe that you achieved your goal for the meeting. 2. You feel like you controlled the meeting, not that the meeting controlled you. 3. You feel like your participation added new input into the mix somehow for example, by showing breadth of support for an issue, by building a relationship, by finding new common ground, by expressing Texas Impact s position in an official way. 4. You feel like you got new information from the meeting for example, about a person, about an issue, about

Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

legislative flow, about actions Texas Impact or others need to take. 5. You could have another meeting with that same office and make progress from where you finished this meeting. 6. Optional: You got a photo of yourself and the person you met with!

What are the follow up steps for a lobby visit?

1. Let Texas Impact staff know how the visit went, submit your evaluation form and identify tasks for staff, if any, as well as any follow up the person you met with promised you. 2. Provide any information you said you would provide to the legislative office. 3. Send a thank you note. 4. Send an informational note to local or religious publications saying you made your visit, with a photo if possible.

LEGISLATIVE TESTIMONY
Legislative testimony is another opportunity for Texas Impact members to exchange information with legislators and represent the organization, but you will have different goals for your testimony than for legislative visits. People often leave their legislative testimony wondering if it did any good. The answer is that public testimony is a key part of the legislative process that can t exist if individuals do not testify, so it almost always is a net positive to present testimony. It s also important to bear in mind that many people hear your legislative testimony, not just legislators testimony can function as a media opportunity and as a way of informing other organizations about Texas Impact s positions and priorities. Ideally, your legislative testimony should not be the first time you see legislators. If you visit them before the hearing, or better yet

before the session starts, then you will be familiar to them when you present your testimony and they won t have to expend energy figuring out who you are and what you stand for while they are trying to listen to your testimony.

What makes successful testimony?

1. You delivered your main points in the time allotted. 2. You didn t say anything untrue or that you weren t sure was true. 3. Your testimony accurately represented the position of Texas Impact and any other organization you said you were testifying for. 4. Your testimony added new information to the public record, even if it is just the information that Texas Impact has a position on the issue in question.

What are the follow up steps for testimony?

1. Let Texas Impact staff know how your testimony went, submit your evaluation form, and identify tasks for staff if any. 2. Provide any information you said you would provide to the committee you testified before. 3. Provide an informational note to local or religious publications saying you delivered legislative testimony, with a photo or link to your testimony in the legislative video archives. (Texas Impact staff can help.)

Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

LEGISLATIVE VISIT EVALUATION FORM

Name: _______________________________________________ Date of Visit:_________________________________________________ Legislative Office Visited:_______________________________________________ Names of People in the Meeting:______________________________________________ Issues Discussed:____________________________________________ Specific Requests of the Office if Any: __________________________________________ Any Follow-up Promised by You? _________________________ Any Follow-up Required from Texas Impact staff? __________________________________________________ Any Follow-up Promised by Legislative staff? _____________________________________________________ 1. What was your goal? (e.g.: introduce Texas Impact to the member; find out the member s position on an issue; lobby a vote; ask the member to sponsor an amendment) _______________________________________________ 2. Did you get what you came for? (Usually the answer will be not exactly, but ) Yes No Not sure, and here s why: _______________________________________________

3. What did you learn about the person you talked to? For example: a. Are they receptive to Texas Impact (or faith community in general)? Did they know who Texas Impact was before you told them? b. What level of authority do they have? c. What issues are of most interest to them? d. Where do they get their information generally? e. How much do they know about the topic you met on? _______________________________________________ 4. What did you talk about in the meeting? _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ 5. Did the person you talked to make any commitments to you that you wish you had in writing? _______________________________________________ 6. Did they ask for any specific follow up, like statistics? If so, are you able to provide those yourself, or do you need to ask Texas Impact staff to provide them? What timeframe did you give for getting the follow up to the office? _______________________________________________ 7. Did they give you any new information about the topic for example, did they tell you that amendment is dead, or the Chairman said he would bring that bill up as soon as the fiscal note gets resolved ? _______________________________________________

Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

8. Did the new information create any new deadlines or tasks for Texas Impact? _______________________________________________ 9. Did you have the information you needed to have a successful visit: a. On the member Yes No b. On the issue Yes No c. On the status of the issue legislatively Yes No d. On Texas Impact or our position on the issue Yes No e. Other __________________________________ 10. If no to any of the above, what additional information did you wish you had? _______________________________________________ 11. Based on your visit, should Texas Impact try to engage the person you met with in any way, and if so what would that engagement be? _______________________________________________

All the Experts Agree: Common Tips for Successful Citizen Lobbying
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Dress appropriately to be taken seriously. Practice your lobby visit beforehand. The shorter time you have for your meeting and the more precise your ask, the more important this step is. Develop no more than three talking points - any more can overwhelm the legislator or staffer with whom you are meeting. Define your arguments. Be five minutes early and be prepared to wait. Start positively thank the legislator or staffer for meeting with you. Introduce yourself and identify your hometown. Know your agenda and stick to it. Don t get caught in the small talk. Listen to the elected official what you learn about their thinking is extremely important. Ask questions that require specific answers. Elected officials may try to shift the conversation to a more comfortable topic. Tell the Truth! If you don t have an answer, say so! Respectfully tell the legislator that you do not know the answer to their question but that you will find out the answer and contact them. Don t inflate your political clout or threaten not to vote for a member. Be respectful of the legislator s or staffer s time. Humanize and localize the issue - how will it affect the legislator s constituents? Listen to the concerns and arguments presented by the person with whom you are meeting Attempt to address these concerns, but stay on message.

Texas Impact Citizen Lobby Guide

Make sure you tell the legislator or aide what you want her or him to do for you. Acknowledge the possible political risks. Help the official develop bridge-building messages that can speak to the majority of their constituents. If you hit a wall during the visit and cannot make any headway with the legislator, accept it and politely excuse yourself. After the meeting, brainstorm creative solutions. End on a positive note by thanking the legislator or staffer once again for taking the time to meet. When you get home, send a letter thanking the person for the meeting, recapping the discussion and what you were promised.

Bringing Your Networks Into the Process

As a Texas Impact member, you are in a position not only to represent Texas Impact to lawmakers and their staffs, but also to bring other members of the public into the legislative advocacy process. Once you are comfortable visiting with legislative offices and giving public testimony, you should consider creating opportunities for your colleagues and other members of your community to participate. For example:     Schedule a legislative visit for members of your judicatory s social justice committee Invite local clergy from your community to come with you to the Capitol Bring active church members on a lobby field trip Recruit colleagues to testify on legislation

Texas Impact staff can offer several kinds of specific support for your legislative engagement such as providing you with issue materials, helping you schedule meetings, and accompanying you to the Capitol if you wish.

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221 East 9 Street #403 Austin, Texas 78701 512.472.3903 www.texasimpact.org

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