Tales From a First-Time Citizen Lobbyist

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Lobbying in SalemIt’s easy to be disillusioned with the political process. Corruption in the news, wealthy lobbyists skulking behind every bill, and feeling like my voice doesn’t matter usually adds up to me doing zero. Well, unless you count yearly voting or clicking a couple boxes on a Change.org petition – boom, Three-Second Armchair Activism.

Which is why it was surprising to find me and Chelsea sitting across the table from our district’s state representative last week telling him what we thought. And having him not only listen, but write stuff down! Instead of a fire-breathing dragon of politics, he was just another guy. No Wizard of Oz mechanical mask, just a handshake and a smile.

We drove the hour from Portland to Salem to let lawmakers know our stance on bills for this legislative session, all related to animal welfare. The important bills to discuss were identified by the Humane Society of the U.S., and we received basic instructions beforehand. Something like, “Ok, we know you’re all quaking in your booties about meeting with your representatives. It’s going to be fine. Just speak from the heart and tell your rep/senator why this issue is important to you.”

There were a few talking points briefly discussed for each bill, but honesty about why we cared was paramount. There was no instruction about which specific bills to cover in our meetings, simply to get in there and speak from the heart.

Mapping out our strategy in the Capitol Building lobby.

Mapping out strategy in the Capitol Building lobby.

We met with Representative Rob Nosse and Senator Diane Rosenbaum’s office (after a brief discussion with us, the senator left to deal with the Governor Kitzhaber debacle – he resigned the next day). In quick meetings, the bills we focused on aimed to:

  1. Ban the sale of ivory at the state level. It’s currently illegal at the federal level, but once the ivory is smuggled in, states can’t enforce it. At the current rate of poaching, an elephant is killed every 15 minutes, which means they’ll be extinct in 10 years. Plus, considering their deaths fund terrorist organizations who sell the ivory on the black market (to the tune of $7-$10 billion per year!), this one is a no-brainer.
  2. Illegalize greyhound racing once and for all in Oregon. The last track in operation shut down in 2004, but it’s still legal here, even though 39 other states don’t allow it. It’s a horrible existence for the dogs. Hasta la vista.
  3. Illegalize the practice of landlords requiring their tenants to devocalize their dogs (cut out vocal cords) and declaw cats (cut off tips of their paws). Apparently it’s a common practice in Oregon!?
  4. Close a loophole for pet stores (such as Hannah the Pet Society) that use a leasing model, rather than direct sale, for their pets. Oregon has some of the toughest anti-puppy mill legislation in the country and requires pet stores to disclose where their animals come from and stops breeders from raising their animals in awful conditions, but Hannah dodges the law by leasing pets.
  5. Continue to illegalize the hunting of cougars using packs of dogs equipped with radio collars. Here’s the process this stops: hunter sits in truck/camp. Dogs chase cougar to tree, where cougar fights (and rips dogs up) before scrambling up tree. When dogs rear up on the base of the tree, radio collars notify the hunter, who sets down beer, heads to tree, and shoots cougar. WTF? So LAME. Not just that, Oregon citizens have decisively voted this down twice before on the grounds of it being inhumane and unsporting.

During both meetings, I was struck by the piles of information lawmakers absorb daily. We were one 15-minute snippet among many in their day. Dozens upon dozens of new bills launch each year, but the bill itself is just the peak of a mountain poking out through the clouds. Getting a bill to the summit involves slogging through committee scree fields and sorting through a wall of noisy data to cast an educated vote. I can’t imagine how difficult it is to be in a representative or senator’s shoes and make informed decisions (about subjects they perhaps know nothing about) that are true not only to their own values, but the wishes of their constituents.

Ready to lobby

Visiting Oregon’s capitol building drove home the fact that real people are making decisions every day that matter. Rather than the noisy tumult of the Interwebs, sitting down as a first-time citizen lobbyist with lawmakers who decide our state’s trajectory made me feel like my voice was heard. I wasn’t a paid lobbyist or a business trying to advance my own agenda. I was there speaking out for defenseless animals who are taken advantage of every single day. It felt good to put myself out there, state what I felt and why it mattered to me, and have the people who represent me look me in the eye and listen.

We don’t have a perfect political process (by any means). It would be easy to get distracted, stick my head in the proverbial sand, sign another online petition, and let other people “sort things out”. However, as a wise person once said, you either stand for something or die for nothing. I’d rather practice the former, even when it makes me uncomfortable. I encourage you to give lobbying a shot next time an issue you care about is coming up for a vote. Call the people who represent you and make an appointment. Tell them your thoughts and why you care. It’s empowering, surprisingly fun, and an experience I won’t forget.

At the end of our meeting with Rep. Nosse, he said, “I’m a labor and jobs guy, so I don’t know much about animal welfare issues. I appreciate you coming in and bringing me up to speed.”

Thanks for a great visit, Salem. We’ll be back.

Steps of Salem

On the Run in Arizona

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Arizona vista

The gunshot froze me in my tracks, instantly changing me from fleeing runner to mannequin in tech fiber. A towering rancher in a Stetson yelled “Stop!” in Spanish and English, then, “put your hands up!” He pointed a cannon-sized pistol at me.

“It’s ok,” I called, “I’m…”

“SIT down in the fucking dirt with your hands UP!” he boomed back. I shut up and did what he said.

In every new place we explore, I try to learn the local landscape by going for a long run. On this December day, we’d awoke in southern Arizona, a vast expanse of wind-swept plateaus stretching into Mexico. It was beautiful and quiet—at least until the gunfire started.

I’d set off on a dirt trail on public land that wrapped around a small mountain. As I scampered up the mountain’s slopes I could enjoy sweeping views of open land speckled with cattle and an occasional house below. And I could see a Border Patrol balloon floating to the south.

Eventually, the terrain became tenuous and steep. The run became more of a jog-climb, with my hands hanging onto scrub brush while my legs tried to dodge cactus spikes. Cold, scratched and ready to get indoors, I decided backtracking was a bad option.

I could see a more direct path down that cut through a ranch. While trespassing is rarely a smart option, I spotted a truck kicking up dirt as it headed toward the ranch’s house. I ran toward the truck and waved both arms to try and get the driver’s attention.

He didn’t appear to notice me. Instead, the hulking rancher parked his vehicle by the house, stepped from the truck, and peed into the bushes. Great. Now I wasn’t just a trespasser; I was a peeping tom. I saw the newspaper headline in my mind: “Idiot trespassing tourist buried after being repeatedly run over by rancher.” I decided to sneak off. Staying low to the fence, I’d taken a few strides away from the driveway when—bang!—the shot rang out.

As this was my first time being held at gunpoint, I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. The rancher, who looked like late-career Marlon Brando wearing a 10-gallon hat, walked toward me, his hand-cannon trained on me with every step. Time to talk fast.

A thorny situation

A *cough* thorny situation.

“Hey, I’m Dakota from Portland and I think we’ve got a mix up here,” I said, explaining as quickly as I could that I was just a tourist out for a run.

Maybe I was very convincing, or maybe the rancher assessed that a yellow windbreaker and short-shorts were an unlikely outfit for a drug mule, but either way his eyes softened. He stuck out a giant, calloused hand, shook my shoulder out of the socket, and said, “Howdy, I’m Jim. Come on in. I’ll introduce you to the wife. And get you a clean pair of drawers.”

Over lunch and a subsequent tour of his ranching operation, Jim told me about his life. After completing several tours in Vietnam, Jim directed a pearl farm in the South Pacific and eventually became head of production at Gallo wines. He’d since retired to this ranch along the border—a beautiful place, but one where he regularly encounters wanderers carrying backpacks stuffed with cocaine, and has come face-to-face with drug runners brandishing AK-47s. He’s lost friends to the traffickers, he said.

But Jim’s outlook surprised me. Instead of cracking down, he said, “We need to legalize drugs in this country. It’s impossible to keep the stuff out.” On immigration: “When I was a kid, there was a work exchange program where people came from Mexico every year and worked for ranchers for six months, then headed back to their families. No visas, no headaches. Those guys were like family.”

I found the conversation fascinating, and Jim must’ve decided he liked me because the next night, he and his wife treated my wife and me to dinner. We talked for hours—us, the liberals from the Pacific Northwest, them, the conservative ranchers with a surprising outlook—and left false assumptions behind us.

Later, when we said goodbye to our new friends, Jim invited me to run on his ranch anytime. “But next time, call first.” And you know I will.

Arizona panorama