Arts advocacy.

So I spent Friday down at the capital building in Denver, meeting with a few representatives and missing a few senators, in efforts to convince them to vote for a few bills currently wending their way through our state government's halls.

This is less about the bills or the people who met with us than about what I learned, which is that it is darn near impossible to pay any attention to your constituents in the Capitol building if you're someone who actually plays a role in creating state law. I am not a lobbying novice to the extent that I found this surprising, but it was newly disheartening.

Of the five people I contacted to set up appointments, I actually met with two of them. Of those two, I spoke to only one for longer than 30 seconds (we might have clocked in at around 4 minutes, and she was being generous with her time).

And who could blame them? They had roughly 50 bills to consider that day, including animal protection, medical marijuana regulation, land use, water use...and the list goes on. Even when they had something intelligent to say, it was in the context of a crowded hall filled with shoving people in suits all waving cards at men in green jackets and falling on representatives like pirahnas whenever they came off the floor.

Apparently opinions are formed in their offices, in off-hours, and in the off-session, not hard in a state where the legislature is only in session five months a year (January-May, unless a special session is called). Clearly, any real decisions aren't made run-time because it's loud and hot and too airless to think straight.

And the political pressure to reject any legislation offhand that requires funding is immense. It doesn't matter how low our state falls in education rankings, for example (go number 50!); since we have less than no money and everyone's trying to suggest cuts to bridge the state's looming deficit, no policy that requires funding tied to educational improvement is likely to get past a first hearing. There is no money.

I could talk until I'm blue in the face about how this sets up a chicken-and-egg scenario where we keep funding what isn't working in our schools, even though change might cost less and be more effective. Innovation requires time to explain, though, time to make a case. And in a state where the state-level politicians have very few months to create a political identity, and sharp term limits, innovation is unlikely to make the radar let alone get passed. I am unconvinced that this is a good thing for those few tasks that the government basically owns non-competitively: transportation, prisons, and public education. (There are probably others but those are the three that often receive the most attention in CO because they don't have permanent dedicated funding sources or related constitutional amendments (higher ed at least), so their fungible budgets get attacked every single year.)

Basically I'm glad I walked in with very, very low expectations. It is frustrating that even really, really good ideas cannot get the attention they deserve in that kind of everything-gets-30-seconds environment. I was born in, and have lived in, several other states where I found the state government experience more...well, relaxed? "leisurely" is incorrect, you didn't waste people's time, but it seemed more possible to be informed about the arguments for and against any particular piece of legislation.

I think there's something to be said for year-round legislature sessions, or perhaps multiple short sessions. Surely more thought should be put into good governance than sound bites can provide.