Curious Iowa: What should grassroots lobbyists know before visiting the Iowa Capitol?

Throughout the legislative session that begins Jan. 13, some Iowans will go to the Iowa Capitol in Des Moines to make their voices heard on issues that lawmakers are considering.

But if you want to speak to a lawmaker about an issue, where do you start? How can you read proposed bills and track their progress?

We spoke with Iowans who have worked on the lawmaking and grassroots lobbying sides of the legislative process to answer these questions in this installment of Curious Iowa as part of The Gazette’s legislative preview series that runs up until the session starts. Curious Iowa is a Gazette feature that answers readers’ questions about our state and how it works.

Legislative preview series

Sunday: Property taxes

Today: Citizens’ guide to the Legislature

Tuesday: Voting

Wednesday: K-12 education

Thursday: State agency proposals

Friday: Agriculture/environment

Saturday: Hot-button issues

Sunday: Higher education

Jan. 13: Demographics of the Legislature

What should you know before you go?

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First, be knowledgeable on the topic you’re advocating.

The Iowa Legislature website at www.legis.iowa.gov has a variety of bill tracking tools, including one using the bill number. You also can search for bills using keywords if you don’t have the number.

You will find the bill’s history, a copy of the bill and any related information and documents. You also can view lobbyist declarations, which displays the name of the lobbyist and the client’s name, and a position of the lobbyist —“for”, “against” or “undecided”— on a bill.

When Curious Iowa spoke in October with lobbyists, they explained that “undecided” can be used to keep an eye on a bill as it progresses or that the lobbyist thinks a bill needs improvement before moving forward. The names, contact information and client lists for professional lobbyists at the Capitol are available on the Iowa Legislature’s website.

Iowa law outlines who is and isn’t a lobbyist — and if someone meets the criteria, he or she must register with the state. A key factor is whether the person is compensated to advocate for the passage or defeat of a bill. But the law says lobbyists are not “persons whose activities are limited to appearances to give testimony or provide information or assistance at sessions of committees of the general assembly …”

Chloe Gayer, government affairs associate with the bipartisan lobbying firm Advocacy Cooperative, said Iowans should look beyond the proposed legislation for information and find data and opinions they can use to help better understand the issue.

You don’t have to go to Des Moines to speak to your legislators. On the Iowa Legislature’s website, you can find out who your legislators are and how to contact them.

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But if you’re planning to go to the Capitol to speak with lawmakers in person, it’s good to give them notice. The Gazette spoke with former Iowa Rep. Tom Sands, a Republican from Muscatine, who served from 2003 to 2015. Sands retired as the president of the Iowa Taxpayers Association this past fall and now works as a senior tax fellow for Iowans for Tax Relief.

Sands said it’s good to email the lawmaker you’re hoping to talk to ahead of time with the date and time range you’ll be at the Capitol.

“I’ve had several times when a constituent would email me the day after they showed up and said, ‘sorry we missed you at the Capitol’,” Sands said. “And if I had just known they were going to show up that day, I could have told them a time or a place or give them my cellphone to text me, and I would have made time.”

He said people shouldn’t be nervous to speak with lawmakers, as “you’re just visiting someone that’s just an individual reflective of their voting district from back home.”

If you plan to email your representative about an issue, Sands said to send a brief, personalized message as opposed to a copy-and-pasted email template.

“On certain issues, you can receive 100 or so of those type of emails, and you don’t read every one. You see the first paragraph is exactly what you’ve read 10 times before, you just dismiss it because you’ve already read it,” Sands said.

How can you speak to legislators at the Capitol?

When you get to the Capitol, at 1007 E. Grand Ave. in Des Moines, you will go through security and go to the second floor.

You will not be allowed to walk onto the floor of the chambers to approach a legislator. But outside the chambers, there are desks with small slips of paper that you will use to call your legislator out to speak with you.

“You’ll say who they are, what seat number they’re at — there’s a big sign that says what seat number they are so you don’t have to memorize it — what you’re wanting to talk about, and who you are.” Gayer said. “And then you’ll hand that up to the legislative pages, (who) are high school students.”

The pages will then track down your legislator and hand off the message. Gayer said being flexible and persistent is key to getting in contact with legislators.

“Meetings get scheduled with three minute notice at times, and so they’re not always readily available to talk,” Gayer said of lawmakers. “That doesn’t mean that they don’t want to talk to you, doesn’t mean they’re avoiding you, but sometimes it takes a few times to call them out or a few times to email them for them to get back to you.”

Gayer suggested preparing a one-minute “elevator pitch” that communicates the issue and your position in layman’s terms. You may want to give the legislator a handout to review at the end of a busy day.

“We call those one-pagers, so it’s literally one page of information, any facts, statistics that you’re numbering up, if there’s money involved … what’s going on, what’s the situation, and especially how it impacts you and how it impacts Iowans as a whole,” Gayer said.

Kim Junker, of New Hartford, owns land in Butler and Grundy counties. Junker is part of a group of Sierra Club landowners who have gone to the Capitol weekly to lobby for legislation against the proposed Summit Carbon Solutions pipeline. This session will mark the group’s fourth year, according to Jess Mazour, conservation program coordinator with the Sierra Club Iowa Chapter.

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“I wish I would have kept track of how many hours I put into this. … People don’t realize how much time it takes,” Junker said of grassroots lobbying. “Same thing when we fought the Rock Island Clean Line. It just took so much time. It’s just like four years of my life were just, poof, gone, you know, but I would lay in bed at night and it would consume me.”

Known for their regular presence at the Capitol and their red shirts, Junker and other landowners have built relationships with legislators over the years. They’ve talked to them one-on-one, written letters, gone to subcommittee meetings, held rallies and painted a semi-trailer truck to communicate their stance against using eminent domain and proposed pipeline projects.

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Junker said in the past, they’ve brought food with them, which has served as an entry point for speaking with legislators who are looking for snacks. Her advice for other grassroots lobbyists is, “Just be genuine. Just tell your story.”

“We want it to stay in the front of their thinking, so that’s why we do it,” Junker said. “And they’ve told us to keep coming. … It means a lot when you have this group of people coming down there and it says a lot, so keep doing it.”

Sands, who has experience lobbying for the Iowa Taxpayers Association, said it’s all about relationship-building — so keep a professional tone, even when talking about emotionally-charged topics.

“You think back in your personal relationships, and we all can get pulled into moments where emotion might drive our thoughts and our voice, but if you’re the receiver of that, you tend to tune that out or discredit that a little bit, because it immediately puts up a wall. … And if you can continue to remain calm and professional, it tears down any walls and permits that information to flow and to be received,” Sands said. “And that’s important on both sides, whether you are receiving it or voicing your opinion.”

How do you speak during a subcommittee hearing?

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Subcommittee hearings are the only opportunity for Iowans to speak publicly on a bill. Gayer said that testifying on an issue may sound intimidating to some, but it’s important.

“Your voice as a citizen is the most important thing to legislators, so making sure to harness that, making sure to be prepared and be respectful.”

To speak at a subcommittee hearing, you need to use the Iowa Legislature website to determine where the meeting will be held and then to arrive early for it.

“That calendar, I think, changes about every hour, so being flexible (with) what’s going on, and our recommendation, again, for that is to keep your testimony to about a minute,” Gayer said. “Some of those bills, especially really highly controversial ones, they only have 15 minutes to have that subcommittee and maybe 50 people that want to speak. So … there’s a good chance that if you don’t get there early, you might not get a chance to speak.”

Sands said subcommittee chairs tend to go around the room and ask people to testify. Give your name, where you’re from, if you represent an organization, why you are there to speak and whether you are in favor of or against a bill.

Sands believes all Iowans should get to know their legislators.

“Even if you didn’t vote for them, they’re still representing you and the best way they can represent you is to know how their constituents feel on certain issues. … And even if the legislator ends up voting in a way that isn’t the way you would have preferred, you just need to know that’s not a reflection on you or what you may have said, that there’s other people contacting them and taking a different position,” Sands said.

“So don’t let it be discouraging, but rather, just know that they actually took your opinion, weighted it against everyone else’s opinion they were receiving, and did what they felt was the best interest of the district. And don’t hesitate to reach out the next time.”

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Comments: bailey.cichon@thegazette.com