STPF102: Giving Congressional or State Legislative Testimony

This week's newsletter is the second of a series focused on scientists, engineers, and health professionals in science and technology policy fellowship (STPF) programs. The content is helpful for anyone interested in being more involved with S&T policy at any organization, though.

Last week, in STPF101, I addressed how to navigate federal and state policy systems. This week, I'm addressing how to write and deliver congressional or state legislative testimony. Next week, I'll discuss negotiation skills for policy professionals.

The goal is to introduce topics I cover in more in-depth workshops, sponsored by organizations. If you're someone who is preparing testimony and would like some guidance I offer coaching services as well. In either case, please schedule a complimentary no-obligation discovery call so we can chat further.

With that as an introduction, let's talk about this week's topic.

The first time I gave testimony was to a committee of the Texas state legislature. I was in my mid-20s, testifying on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Texas, on container deposit legislation (that's when you give a nickel when you buy a can of soda and get the nickel back when you return it).

I was all prepared with my facts and figures, including a recent poll by the LBJ School of Public Affairs that said most Texans favored the policy.

But then reality happened. In preparation for the hearing, I visited the legislature committee leadership one-on-one. He told me that collecting those cans on the side of the road in his district was how Boy Scouts in his community funded their activities.

Then I visited another committee leader who told me that he didn't believe the UT Austin data. He thought that the Texans answering the poll responded not to the container deposit policy, as I defined it, but to another law that prohibited alcohol in the front seat of a vehicle.

The final stroke of doom was when I actually testified before the committee. Who was in the room? A busload of Texan employees from a soda company bottling and canning facility in Dallas, whose employer had funded their travel to the hearing in Austin, to demonstrate the number of people who they said would lose their jobs if the legislation passed.

I knew at that point the container deposit legislation was not going to make it past the committee, but I learned a valuable lesson about preparing and giving testimony. It wasn't enough to be prepared for questions on the effectiveness of legislation from an analytical standpoint for the societal goal (in this case, less trash on Texas roads and waterways).

Instead, policymakers had other considerations beyond effectiveness, namely the other 3E's -- efficiency, equity, and ease of political acceptability. You can learn more about the 4E's in earlier editions of this newsletter (linked in the previous sentence) or in my book "From Expertise to Impact: A Practical Guide to Informing and Influencing Science and Technology Policy."

Here's this week's video, which gives a glimpse of the 1-2 hour workshop I offer on this topic.

Thanks for listening!

I hope you found this helpful information. If you are an organization interested in hosting one of my workshops, please schedule a discovery call so we can discuss it further. Alternatively, you can email me at deborah@scitechpolicyacademy.com.

Need some personalized help? I offer free 45-minute discovery calls for those considering my coaching services.  If that is of interest to you, you can go here to book a discovery call on my calendar.

I have three other free weekly LinkedIn newsletters that might be of interest to you.

• Inform and Influence Opinion Newsletter
• S&T Policy Job Openings (Over 100 jobs each Friday)
• Dear Debbie Advice for Job Seekers Newsletter

Until next week!

Debbie