Lobby Day Experience
MY LOBBY DAY IN OLYMPIA 1-16-17 (ALSO MLK DAY) by Carrie Parks
I didn’t decide to go to Olympia today till the last minute, specifically because my street and driveway were still covered in ice and four inches of snow. However, I’d been to see friends in Seattle the weekend before and knew the freeways were clear, so I decided to drive north on I-5.
I’d previously seen a notice about Planned Parenthood of Washington and Hawaii having a rally in the afternoon. Unfortunately, our area is covered by Planned Parenthood of the Columbia-Willamette in Portland, and they didn’t have any information on the rally in my state. So, while looking for the details on the Washington rally, I also came across a notice for an education rally in Olympia in the morning. Perfect! I could attend both!
So, I set my alarm, drank my coffee, and headed up to participate in a “Day of Action” in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day. With the recent Russian-hacked election of Donald Trump, I was mindful that now is a time we have to protect all people and groups that are under fire. I thought about the Musketeer motto as I passed semi-trucks going up the long, long hill to Olympia.
“All for One and One for All!”
Having to take time to find parking, the rally was already in progress on the steps of the capitol when I got there.
It was amazing. I’ve been going to rallies for years. Usually, we fill the Capitol Steps. But this education rally in favor of supporting the McCleary Decision filled the steps, spilled down across the parking lot, and filled the steps of the Justice Building on the other side of the street. 6,500 people were there to tell their legislators to fully and equitably fund education in this state. Our legislators have dragged their feet on this issue for 30 years, even though education is named as the primary duty of the government in our state constitution. Now the State Supreme Court has ordered the legislature to do it, and they are still dinking around. A bi-partisan commission was supposed to have been working on finding a solution, but were unable to do so because the Republicans wouldn’t compromise, and had no plan of their own. Governor Jay Inslee has come up with a budget that will meet the court mandate by raising some taxes, and of course, the Republicans won’t support that either. Many of the people who rallied were teachers, but many were young students, on down to elementary school age. Then there was me, a civil libertarian who believes that a well-educated populace is the key to a healthy democracy and to our state’s economy. I mean, Boeing and Microsoft don’t come here to employ a bunch of people who can’t do math or write a grammatically correct sentence. Furthermore, a good education, specifically a college one, teaches you to evaluate information and how to put it into context, not just to swallow whatever fake news is fed to you.
I also think about another thing whenever I see the starving kids in Africa or India, or the ones living on the garbage heaps in Brazil, or the kids in our own inner cities who hope to grow up without being shot.
“What if one of those kids could be our next Einstein? Our next Martin Luther King? Our next Benjamin Franklin, Madame Curie, Hillary Clinton or Eleanor Roosevelt? If they can’t get a good education, we’ll never know, and the world will be that much poorer because of it.
So, that’s why I think PUBLIC education is important, and that’s what I told the teacher who asked me why I came, as I tagged along with the group that was going to see our 17th Legislative District representatives.
Our group did not have prior appointments, and we found that Representative Vicky Kraft was out. (Some Education Association representatives did have appointments in the afternoon.) The aide offered to let us sign our names, but did not offer comment cards, even after I asked for some. She said she didn’t have any. One of the teachers asked if Vicky Kraft is still working for the Freedom Foundation, which has made union busting a priority, especially when it comes to the Teacher’s Union. This self-proclaimed “think and action tank” is tied to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which provides and promotes extremist “model bills” covering anti-immigrant legislation to dismantling voting rights and slashing environmental protections. Our teacher thought it would be a conflict of interest if Vicky was still employed by that organization while serving in a legislature which is under order to come up with a plan to fully fund education.
Our other representative, Paul Harris, was in his office when we arrived. Now we didn’t have an appointment, but we initially thought he was going to meet us. We all trooped through the narrow hall to his office only to be informed by his aide that he had to take “an important phone call.” I asked for comment cards that we could fill out. The aide didn’t have any, but she eventually produced a paper pad we could use. After we’d filed our comments and left a poster with the student bill of rights with the aide, we trooped back out, milling briefly in front of the elevators. The elevator was slow, so we decided to back-track back past Paul’s office to the stairs. Just then, his well-timed phone call ended, and he came out. So once again we asked to meet with him, and whuups! Paul went back in his office, quickly closing the door. He didn’t even bother to give an explanation. It was very clear that he wasn’t interested in spending any time with his constituents, who had driven 100 miles to talk to their representative. That lack of recognition that he at least needs to listen the people of our district is emblematic of the disrespect our Republican legislators consistently show to groups they disagree with. Often, they don’t even bother to be polite. Republican Don Benton used to be famous for making appointments then not showing up for them. Last time I’d been up to lobby Paul Harris for contraceptive funding, he spent the whole time argumentally telling me his viewpoint rather than listening to mine. Unlike Harris, our teacher friends bent over backwards to be polite, friendly and respectful. Unfortunately, that did not yield any results. The wind taken out of our sails, we did not attempt to meet with Lynda Wilson.
The Planned Parenthood rally was not as large as the Education rally, but still creditable with 350-400 people in attendance. What struck me there were two things: that at least 10 state police and capitol security guards found it necessary to attend a rally of women asking for their rights. However, I did overhear one security guard say that it was partly in case of counter-protesters, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. The other thing was that many women were wearing freshly knitted pink hats with kitty ears. That is our resistance to the bigoted statements President-elect Trump has made about women. I guess many, many such hats are being knitted and crocheted across the country in preparation for the Women’s March in Washington DC on Jan. 21. There are so many being made that pink yarn is running out across the country. If you have one, wear it to our local women’s march along the Vancouver Waterfront. We’ll be meeting at 11 am at the old Red Lion at the Quay, now called Terminal 1. It’s at 100 Columbia St. There will also be a march in Portland, meeting under the Burnside Bridge and going to Tom McCall Waterfront Park from 12pm- 3:30pm. The pre-gathering will start at 11:30am.
I didn’t decide to go to Olympia today till the last minute, specifically because my street and driveway were still covered in ice and four inches of snow. However, I’d been to see friends in Seattle the weekend before and knew the freeways were clear, so I decided to drive north on I-5.
I’d previously seen a notice about Planned Parenthood of Washington and Hawaii having a rally in the afternoon. Unfortunately, our area is covered by Planned Parenthood of the Columbia-Willamette in Portland, and they didn’t have any information on the rally in my state. So, while looking for the details on the Washington rally, I also came across a notice for an education rally in Olympia in the morning. Perfect! I could attend both!
So, I set my alarm, drank my coffee, and headed up to participate in a “Day of Action” in conjunction with Martin Luther King Day. With the recent Russian-hacked election of Donald Trump, I was mindful that now is a time we have to protect all people and groups that are under fire. I thought about the Musketeer motto as I passed semi-trucks going up the long, long hill to Olympia.
“All for One and One for All!”
Having to take time to find parking, the rally was already in progress on the steps of the capitol when I got there.
It was amazing. I’ve been going to rallies for years. Usually, we fill the Capitol Steps. But this education rally in favor of supporting the McCleary Decision filled the steps, spilled down across the parking lot, and filled the steps of the Justice Building on the other side of the street. 6,500 people were there to tell their legislators to fully and equitably fund education in this state. Our legislators have dragged their feet on this issue for 30 years, even though education is named as the primary duty of the government in our state constitution. Now the State Supreme Court has ordered the legislature to do it, and they are still dinking around. A bi-partisan commission was supposed to have been working on finding a solution, but were unable to do so because the Republicans wouldn’t compromise, and had no plan of their own. Governor Jay Inslee has come up with a budget that will meet the court mandate by raising some taxes, and of course, the Republicans won’t support that either. Many of the people who rallied were teachers, but many were young students, on down to elementary school age. Then there was me, a civil libertarian who believes that a well-educated populace is the key to a healthy democracy and to our state’s economy. I mean, Boeing and Microsoft don’t come here to employ a bunch of people who can’t do math or write a grammatically correct sentence. Furthermore, a good education, specifically a college one, teaches you to evaluate information and how to put it into context, not just to swallow whatever fake news is fed to you.
I also think about another thing whenever I see the starving kids in Africa or India, or the ones living on the garbage heaps in Brazil, or the kids in our own inner cities who hope to grow up without being shot.
“What if one of those kids could be our next Einstein? Our next Martin Luther King? Our next Benjamin Franklin, Madame Curie, Hillary Clinton or Eleanor Roosevelt? If they can’t get a good education, we’ll never know, and the world will be that much poorer because of it.
So, that’s why I think PUBLIC education is important, and that’s what I told the teacher who asked me why I came, as I tagged along with the group that was going to see our 17th Legislative District representatives.
Our group did not have prior appointments, and we found that Representative Vicky Kraft was out. (Some Education Association representatives did have appointments in the afternoon.) The aide offered to let us sign our names, but did not offer comment cards, even after I asked for some. She said she didn’t have any. One of the teachers asked if Vicky Kraft is still working for the Freedom Foundation, which has made union busting a priority, especially when it comes to the Teacher’s Union. This self-proclaimed “think and action tank” is tied to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) which provides and promotes extremist “model bills” covering anti-immigrant legislation to dismantling voting rights and slashing environmental protections. Our teacher thought it would be a conflict of interest if Vicky was still employed by that organization while serving in a legislature which is under order to come up with a plan to fully fund education.
Our other representative, Paul Harris, was in his office when we arrived. Now we didn’t have an appointment, but we initially thought he was going to meet us. We all trooped through the narrow hall to his office only to be informed by his aide that he had to take “an important phone call.” I asked for comment cards that we could fill out. The aide didn’t have any, but she eventually produced a paper pad we could use. After we’d filed our comments and left a poster with the student bill of rights with the aide, we trooped back out, milling briefly in front of the elevators. The elevator was slow, so we decided to back-track back past Paul’s office to the stairs. Just then, his well-timed phone call ended, and he came out. So once again we asked to meet with him, and whuups! Paul went back in his office, quickly closing the door. He didn’t even bother to give an explanation. It was very clear that he wasn’t interested in spending any time with his constituents, who had driven 100 miles to talk to their representative. That lack of recognition that he at least needs to listen the people of our district is emblematic of the disrespect our Republican legislators consistently show to groups they disagree with. Often, they don’t even bother to be polite. Republican Don Benton used to be famous for making appointments then not showing up for them. Last time I’d been up to lobby Paul Harris for contraceptive funding, he spent the whole time argumentally telling me his viewpoint rather than listening to mine. Unlike Harris, our teacher friends bent over backwards to be polite, friendly and respectful. Unfortunately, that did not yield any results. The wind taken out of our sails, we did not attempt to meet with Lynda Wilson.
The Planned Parenthood rally was not as large as the Education rally, but still creditable with 350-400 people in attendance. What struck me there were two things: that at least 10 state police and capitol security guards found it necessary to attend a rally of women asking for their rights. However, I did overhear one security guard say that it was partly in case of counter-protesters, so maybe it wasn’t so bad after all. The other thing was that many women were wearing freshly knitted pink hats with kitty ears. That is our resistance to the bigoted statements President-elect Trump has made about women. I guess many, many such hats are being knitted and crocheted across the country in preparation for the Women’s March in Washington DC on Jan. 21. There are so many being made that pink yarn is running out across the country. If you have one, wear it to our local women’s march along the Vancouver Waterfront. We’ll be meeting at 11 am at the old Red Lion at the Quay, now called Terminal 1. It’s at 100 Columbia St. There will also be a march in Portland, meeting under the Burnside Bridge and going to Tom McCall Waterfront Park from 12pm- 3:30pm. The pre-gathering will start at 11:30am.
