Lobby Day 2013, From an(other) Intern’s Perspective
(Knoxville Peer Educators with Rep. Joe Armstrong)
Activities for Lobby Day began pretty early, at about 9am. My classes on March 12 also began at that time, so after weeks of helping members of the Planned Parenthood of Middle and East Tennessee staff prepare for the flood of like-minded activists coming into town for Lobby Day 2013, I couldn’t be there to receive them in the morning. Still, I had a two-hour window between classes to attend the Lobby Day activities, and it was definitely an experience that I’m glad to have had.
When I entered Legislative Plaza on my way to the Healthy & Free TN coalition booths, I was immediately struck by the sheer number of people in that space. There were folks lobbying just about everything affecting the state of Tennessee. Luckily for me, Planned Parenthood’s table was easy to spot because it was bright pink and surrounded by beaming faces!
I was only at the booth educating passersby about the work that Planned Parenthood is doing in Tennessee for about fifteen minutes before I left for my first legislative meeting at 11:30am. I shared the meeting with the (AWESOME) Peer Educators affiliated with Planned Parenthood’s Knoxville branch, so we sat down with Representative Joe Armstrong (D-Knoxville) to discuss some of their work and the mission of Planned Parenthood overall.
Conversation flowed more easily than I expected, and although I thought that legislators might be annoyed by the volume of people in their offices that morning, Rep. Armstrong seemed genuinely interested in the things that we were saying. He asked thoughtful questions, and by the end of the meeting, I felt that things had really gone well.
They got better directly after when I slipped into an impromptu meeting that two of my supervisors held with Representative Gary Odom (D-Nashville) that covered a range of legislative concerns. He was knowledgeable, receptive, and even funny, which came as a surprise to me considering the gravity of the issues he deals with all day. Representative Jason Powell (D-Nashville) was relatively amiable as well, and although we could only have a quick meeting with him, he was candid and responsive during our talk, leaving my Lobby Day visits on a high note. It seems that although legislators have very little time spread across a LOT of constituents, they still manage to read up on information relevant to all of them, and they’re a lot easier to talk to than I expected!
I followed that meeting with a quick lunch before I headed back to class, where I got a chance to speak with some of the PG-13 Players and volunteers from other branches of Planned Parenthood. Our conversation was really great because everyone had a different perspective of the work that we do working toward the goal of reproductive health and freedom in Tennessee. I couldn’t help thinking as I left that anyone who hadn’t been able to make it out had definitely missed a great opportunity. All in all, I’d say Lobby Day 2013 was a success.