What I Learned at the Legislature

In Utah the state legislature is a part-time legislature and just meets for a few months at the beginning of every year. Needless to say it is a crazy time as they try and get everything done for the year. Both last session (2011) and this most recently ended session (2012) I was able to participate as an advocate for alcohol control. I've done quite a bit of research on alcohol laws and alcohol policy and I've been able to work with and provide my research to several organizations in advocating for public health and safety measures. Though my experience is limited to these two sessions, I've been reflecting on what I learned from working with legislature, and I have come to two main conclusions: 1) just because it's true doesn't mean people believe you, and 2) legislators don't care about you (or your issue). Let me explain.

1) Just because it's true doesn't mean people believe you

I have a bachelor's degree in economics and during my time in the program one of the things I had pounded into me was to consult the research. For most academics, research means everything, and now as a public policy graduate student I tend to go to the research to learn about different policies and their likely impacts. Well in the case of alcohol policy, the economic and public health literature is very, very clear: more alcohol leads to more problems and more social costs (in economic speak, to negative externalities). I'm not just talking about a few papers here; I mean a huge body of literature that all comes to this same conclusion. We're not saying there should be an alcohol ban, but it has significant enough problems that it shouldn't be flowing through the streets.

Well once I learned all this I thought it would be pretty easy to convince legislators and other stakeholders that control policies are important. Imagine my surprise when I would present the research--the academic, peer-reviewed, published research--and people would say to me, "I don't believe it." Really? You don't believe hundreds of studies from all over this and other countries done by academics and professionals that all say the same thing? Because ignoring that is a great way to make policy. It drove me crazy. Of course not everyone responded that way (I'd say that most did not) and we were able to help thwart a movement to privatize Utah's alcohol market in part because of the extensive research. But I was always surprised at the people who just refused to believe it.

2) Legislators don't care about you (or your issue)

This is not a slight on legislators. Rather it's an observation that to be a legislator means to have to know about hundreds of issues, not just yours. So, even though your one or two issues (for me it was alcohol policy) are important to you and you are passionate about them, that doesn't mean legislators will be; they don't really have time to be. For example, I had meetings set up with legislators who would cancel on me hours before we were supposed to meet. At first I would be disappointed and frustrated--don't they know how important this is?!--but I realized they probably had to go meet about a different issue that someone else was passionate about. And so my issue got pushed out. That's kind of the point of advocacy though. You have to show legislators, who would otherwise never think about your issue out of hundreds of others they have to consider, why your issue matters. You have to make them care.