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Work on Monday, November 9 was all spent in preparation for the Lobby Day that was scheduled to occur the following day.  As explained in a previous post, the idea behind a lobby day is to bring a number of constituent supporters and issue coalition members to the PA Legislature in the Capitol Building, where they do rounds of scheduled visits to theirs and others’ representatives, urging them either to support or oppose a given piece of legislation.  In the case of Tuesday, we were mobilizing people to visit Senators’ offices and encourage them to support SB75, the anti-human trafficking bill we have been involved with for the better part of a year. 

When I first got to the office, I was greeted with the news that the server was down – something that would continue to be frustratingly problematic all day as we and the rest of the office attempted to get online, access network documents, and print.  As such, while still completely cut off from the Internet, the four of us who were going to Harrisburg on Tuesday sat down to work go over the plan for the day. 

The first thing to note were the developments that had happened with the bill.  The Senate had passed the amendments to it later in the previous week; it had already received its subsequent fiscal note from the Appropriations Committee, which was now waiting to be voted on; and if that vote occurred on Monday and if it passed, the entire bill would potentially be voted on while we were in Harrisburg on Tuesday.  But the vote on the fiscal note wouldn’t be known until 3pm, and the schedule for Tuesday potentially not until that morning.  This left us with the need for contingency plans; because if the entire bill went up to vote on Tuesday, it meant that our afternoon appointments with senators’ offices were no longer useful, as they would be happening concurrently to the vote – i.e. we wouldn’t actually be reaching the senators in time. 

For transportation, we confirmed that my supervisor would be driving in early enough to get to the capitol by 8am; while the other three of us would drive together, aiming to get there around 8:45am.  Unlike the last time I went to Harrisburg we didn’t take the train; we were concerned that the forecasted inclement weather would delay the trains and prevent us from getting there on time. 

During the day we would be stationed in a conference room – 14E – from which we and all the constituent volunteers would be operating.  We would be prepping the volunteers before the start of the day; and then during the day at least one of us would be there at all times to continue coordinating volunteers and take in their post-meeting reports as they returned.  In the event that the Senate did end up voting on SB75 that day, and if it passed, we would also be sending out volunteers to do drop-by visits to key House members, to let them know that the bill was coming to their chamber and that we looked forward to their support.  At the end of the day we would clean up the room and leave.

The plan settled, I was tasked with gathering one last round of contact information from SB75 postcards, so that they could be addressed and brought to the capitol with us.  After completing the spreadsheet of contact information I addressed the postcards to the appropriate Senator (the Internet was back at this point and I was able to look up the information).  I then took those and previous stacks of postcards and sorted them by office, so they would be ready for distribution on Tuesday, when volunteers would bring them to senators’ offices when they visited.

After that I was told to keep track of SB75’s status; but the server was down again so I was unable to do so.  Instead, I began preparing the folders we would be giving to each senator’s office during the meetings.  I put on the front of each folder a sticker that read “End Human Trafficking Now!” which volunteers would also be wearing, and which had been a campaign logo related to previous PA anti-human trafficking work.  I then put my supervisor’s business card in each folder.  The packets that would go in the folders was waiting until later, when we knew what would be happening with the bill on Tuesday. 

Finally, before I left for the day, I took the list of senators for whom we didn’t have scheduled meetings – we would be doing brief, informal drob-by’s instead – and noted if they represented a county that had an existing anti-trafficking coalition.  This would help us coordinate who we sent to their office and what we would be able to mention to the staff there.

For the most part this particular Monday was very energizing.  Everyone in my department was focused on getting ready for Tuesday – albeit also stressed about it – so that between their energy and the satisfaction of seeing the work we had done for SB75 all come together, it felt very productive and positively charged.

The largest response I had from that day was from a question raised by one member of our team.  She questioned whether using organizationally branded material was a good idea, and was told yes.  But, in the case of visiting the offices of Republican representatives who were likely more hostile to our cause, that it might be beneficial to not proclaim our particular organizational ties as loudly.  I found this difficult to reconcile to because, on a personal level, I would rather provoke that potential confrontation, given my ideological convictions regarding the cause of women’s rights.  At the same time, I do understand why presenting more cooperatively to senators potentially hostile to our organizational goals is important.  And for the most part, those organizational goals are mine too; why else would I work for them?  So, as ever, it becomes a question of balance: where should individuals place their own convictions in relation to the needs of the organizations, especially when both are reaching towards similar ideals, if through different methods.  Having agreed to work for an organization there is a degree of understanding that you are simultaneously agreeing to carry out its goals via its chosen methods.  At the same time, individual actions can make up for the flexibility and radicalism that the organization as a whole may be unable to embrace.