WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.000 captioning in progress 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:11.000 music 00:00:11.000 --> 00:00:17.000 Earlene Camarillo: Thank you for joining us today. Today marks the inaugural event of our Civic Engagement Project 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:20.000 by the Department of Politics, Policy, and Administration. 00:00:20.000 --> 00:00:26.000 This is sort of our soft launch event so we're glad you can open this up with us. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:33.000 The series is being created to promote and facilitate opportunities for WOU students, staff, 00:00:33.000 --> 00:00:38.000 faculty, and members of the community at large to participate in deliberative dialogue 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000 and engage learning in order to cultivate stronger, more inclusive communities. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:50.000 We're planning larger events next year and then hopefully a monthly speaker series. 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.000 So stay tuned for some events 00:00:52.000 --> 00:00:57.000 and then we also will have another speaker coming in either April or May so pay attention for that event. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:00:61.000 Mary Pettenger: So and I have the honor today of introducing our speaker today, Greg Leo. 00:01:01.000 --> 00:01:08.000 And we have a catchy title the, "How to Get a Hummingbird to Listen," and when we started talking with him about what this would be, 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:13.000 we're still curious whether or not Greg is the hummingbird or the legislators he works with are the hummingbirds 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.000 so maybe he can clarify for that as we're talking cause 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.000 I think we misunderstood what he said or, he anyways, we're curious who the hummingbird is. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:28.000 But Greg has a very distinguished career with over 50 years of advocacy. 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:31.000 He began and that, I think it would be interesting for current students, 00:01:31.000 --> 00:01:36.000 at the University of Oregon, advocating for students at the Oregon Legislature. 00:01:36.000 --> 00:01:42.000 He then went on for a time in Washington D.C. in the Reagan White House and then has been in Oregon 00:01:42.000 --> 00:01:47.000 I don't know the number of years, but, I think it's important if you hear the different people. So he's had 00:01:47.000 --> 00:01:52.000 clients including corporations, non profits, local governments, 00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.000 and Native American tribes, I think among others as well, so he's advocated for a lot of different groups. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:01:59.000 So welcome, Greg. 00:01:59.000 --> 00:01:61.000 applause 00:02:01.000 --> 00:02:04.000 Greg Leo: Thank you everyone. We're gonna talk about advocacy and 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:10.000 I just wanted to set the stage for what I've done in my career 00:02:10.000 --> 00:02:15.000 basically so students can think what's possible in their careers 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:20.000 snd what you can do going forward so I want to give that kind of the overall theme. 00:02:20.000 --> 00:02:23.000 The hummingbird is a great metaphor, though, 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:29.000 for people and for things that, "do." That are effective, that make things happen so 00:02:29.000 --> 00:02:33.000 the original quote that Mary heard in my civics presentation at Wilsonville was 00:02:34.000 --> 00:02:42.000 that we have to have a really great care when we talk to legislators because they have a hummingbird's attention span. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:46.000 So just so you don't know think that I'm saying something negative 00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:50.000 about legislators, I wanna just kind of push 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:57.000 this analogy just a little bit and you will see I'm gonna torture this metaphor here so forgive me for that. 00:03:00.000 --> 00:03:05.000 her wings beat between 750 and 5000 times a minute. 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:10.000 Her heart beats up to 1200 bpm and flying, 00:03:10.000 --> 00:03:13.000 she can fly over 35 miles per hour. 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:21.000 She can migrate thousands of miles, traveling with the seasons to pursue nectar and insects. 00:03:21.000 --> 00:03:23.000 And she can live for a decade. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:29.000 Her focus is pure. She must consume half her body weight a day in nectar. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:38.000 In the process, she pollinates, shares what is necessary for new life between her sources of energy and symbiotic sharing. 00:03:38.000 --> 00:03:44.000 Often pollinating flowers that bees cannot. 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:50.000 She's an essential contributor to the life cycle of the earth of the environment in which she lives. 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:55.000 The hummingbird is the only bird that can fly backwards. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:63.000 Knowing that she has to do what's necessary to succeed, she must have the fluid ability to persist and navigate 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:09.000 to overcome obstacles to succeed. She's the only vertebrae who can hover. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:15.000 With all of these skills, she can be fierce in defending her own territory. 00:04:15.000 --> 00:04:19.000 She is diverse with 330 species worldwide. 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:22.000 She is a native of the New World. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:29.000 Her many unique skills have developed over time to give her the ability to thrive in an ever changing world. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:36.000 To see her iridescent beauty in motion requires a discerning eye. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:44.000 Seemingly still, watch closely to see the energy, action, grace, and purpose with which she moves from flower to flower 00:04:44.000 --> 00:04:48.000 collecting nectar, the stuff of energy in the cycle of life. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:57.000 We aspire to the energy and focus of the hummingbird. She is her own best advocate and she earned what she earns 00:04:57.000 --> 00:04:60.000 through hard work and focus in her unique place in the world." 00:05:00.000 --> 00:05:03.000 This is why we picked the hummingbird. 00:05:03.000 --> 00:05:07.000 We celebrate the hummingbird because of all of these various qualities so 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:13.000 when I say that legislator has an attention span of a hummingbird, 00:05:13.000 --> 00:05:17.000 It's not a criticism of inability to focus, 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:19.000 it's about what legislators have to do. 00:05:20.000 --> 00:05:24.000 They go from issue to issue in a blink of an eye. 00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:29.000 And sometimes they'll need to vote on between 20, 30 issues a day. 00:05:29.000 --> 00:05:35.000 There are thousands of pages of testimonies sometimes on very complicated bills. 00:05:36.000 --> 00:05:41.000 So you have to go through all of those different processes to know how to decide 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:48.000 because they have great responsibility, they're there deciding on what the policy should be. 00:05:48.000 --> 00:05:53.000 So in working with legislators, we don't waste their time. 00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:57.000 We make sure that we are ready when we talk to them 00:05:57.000 --> 00:05:61.000 to give them a quick burst of information. 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:07.000 Which is informed and respectful, but it's gotta be on target or else you just won't listen. 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:15.000 So I've just put together a few slides here. So in 50 years, I've worked in federal, state, and local government. 00:06:15.000 --> 00:06:22.000 I've worked primarily for the executive branch, but as a lobbyist with the legislative branch. 00:06:22.000 --> 00:06:26.000 So in the federal government, I was the Director of Congressional and Public Affairs 00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:31.000 for the Immigration Service when we did the Amnesty in 1986. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:36.000 And we set up the employer sanctions program. 00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:42.000 So I've spent seven intensive years working on essentially one bill. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:46.000 And that was the Immigration Reform and Control Act in '86. 00:06:46.000 --> 00:06:53.000 So when it comes to immigration, I had the opportunity to kind of work deeply in the material, 00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:61.000 meet many of the advocates, and I'm just really proud to say I knew Dolores Huerta who's picture's just outside the door here. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:09.000 and she with the National Council of La Raza, was absolutely one of the best most effective advocates I'd ever seen. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:16.000 She was really hard to say no to. So in the course of being in Washington D.C. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:23.000 I am working for the US Justice department. We had to deal with the quintessential American issue about 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:30.000 who will be new Americans and it was questions of not just national interest, but 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:37.000 when you break down that question, it was about many different policies. Humanitarian policy, labor policy, economic, 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:41.000 there was some national security aspects to it. It was like 00:07:41.000 --> 00:07:47.000 a composite of many different issues and so they gave us an opportunity. So by contrast, 00:07:47.000 --> 00:07:54.000 leaving the federal government, I went to Harvard, to the Kennedy School, got my master's degree 00:07:54.000 --> 00:07:59.000 at Harvard and then came back to Oregon to work in the Oregon legislature 00:07:59.000 --> 00:07:63.000 where I was the administrator of the House Rules committee. 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:09.000 We would handle in that office maybe 30 bills a day when we were busy. 00:08:09.000 --> 00:08:18.000 So in the federal world, you took years to work through every detail of an issue because 00:08:18.000 --> 00:08:27.000 hey, we had a lot of people in the policy process across town. Washington is really a village of different policy makers. 00:08:27.000 --> 00:08:33.000 Whereas Salem, you had to be a generalist, and as a committee administrator, 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:38.000 I would need to write a staff member summary that was so perfectly fair 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:44.000 that neither side, even in a hotly debated issue, could say, "This is wrong," or, "right," or 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:48.000 this report misrepresents a point of view." 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:52.000 So it has to cut through any of the points of contention to the facts. 00:08:52.000 --> 00:08:60.000 So one of my points I wanna make here is, how does a high performance advocate put together the arguments? 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:08.000 So in order to make that hummingbird sized statement, we need to do several things. First of all, 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:14.000 I think we need to be a subject matter expert, we need to understand that issue. We need to have a really 00:09:14.000 --> 00:09:22.000 deep research and then we need to distill, sometimes it'll be 100s of pages of documents, into 1 or 2 sentences. 00:09:22.000 --> 00:09:30.000 Because they don't have time to hear the details, okay? So the understanding the subject matter is critically important. 00:09:30.000 --> 00:09:35.000 In the political world, do we have any Poli Sci majors in this room here today? 00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:39.000 We have to understand the political context. 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:44.000 You have to understand what the Democrats are thinking what the Republicans are thinking. 00:09:44.000 --> 00:09:51.000 How those folks might think about that issue because with every public policy issue there is a political edge. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:58.000 There's something about it which is political which is based on values, you know, how people feel about a particular issue. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:09:66.000 And so understanding that larger context critical. Also, it creates opportunity and access. 00:10:06.000 --> 00:10:11.000 So access is a critical factor for an advocate. 00:10:11.000 --> 00:10:17.000 If you can't get in the door to make the presentation, you'll never be able to get the vote. 00:10:17.000 --> 00:10:20.000 Or make the sale if you think of it that way. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:26.000 So having an understanding of the context gives you opportunity and access and it's all part of how that system works. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:31.000 And finally, the other circle here is what I call, "good trade craft." 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:38.000 Which is, I believe a good advocate needs to be able to communicate on paper, and in person, 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:40.000 and in many many different ways. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:44.000 Being able to draft a press release on short notice. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:52.000 Talking points, being able to brief somebody on the phone quickly where you can't have necessarily have eye contact. 00:10:44.000 --> 00:10:52.000 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:60.000 These days it's about being on Zoom calls. During the legislative session, I've been on Zoom calls with 50 other lobbyists. 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.000 Try to get word in edge wise, huh? 00:11:03.000 --> 00:11:11.000 I mean, they all have a point of view. So, we have to be good at the basics of what we do 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:15.000 and that's what I call the skillset or the tradecraft. 00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:19.000 So as we're honing our hummingbird's message here, we're taking all 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:23.000 of those ingredients like we're baking a great cake 00:11:23.000 --> 00:11:27.000 and we're combining them into enough knowledge of the environment. 00:11:28.000 --> 00:11:36.000 Specific knowledge about the subject matter and then have the skills and ability to distill down into something a policy maker will hear. 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:44.000 We do this with the emphasis for non profits. And I want to put in a word for non profits here. 00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:47.000 So change in the world happens on the margins. 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.000 So if we think about the earth and how the sun comes to the earth, 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:56.000 most of the growth in our oceans are actually within the first 30ft. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:64.000 In fact, on the surface, the soil of the earth, most of the growth will happen at the surface. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:08.000 And in the policy world, it's at those places, those 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:15.000 junctures that change what actually happen. So that's why we are always in a condition to flux, 00:12:15.000 --> 00:12:20.000 of movement because growth will happen where there is change and there at the margins. 00:12:20.000 --> 00:12:24.000 So if sometimes at times it seems a bit chaotic, it is. 00:12:24.000 --> 00:12:31.000 Because change is messy, wow! And don't we know that from all of the changes we've seen in our lives in the last two years. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:39.000 So nonprofit organizations are organized to identify emerging community needs and then meet those needs. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:46.000 And that's why we focus on nonprofits. So I'm a guy that work for governments and a lot of the times 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:54.000 governments are kind of clumsy, they're hard to get moving. To get a response to an emerging 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:60.000 problem, public problem or issue, a lot of times they're slow getting into first gear. 00:13:00.000 --> 00:13:08.000 Much less second gear. Nonprofits can go from first gear to four gear quickly and in doing so, 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:11.000 that's where you initiate policy change and so 00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:14.000 choosing nonprofits as the area that we work with 00:13:14.000 --> 00:13:19.000 is the one where we think you as an advocate could do the greatest amount of good 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:24.000 in the shortest amount of time. So we're gonna today to a little exercise 00:13:24.000 --> 00:13:28.000 and we're gonna be preparing 00:13:28.000 --> 00:13:33.000 to be in front of this committee here. So this is room 50 in the Oregon State Capital. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:37.000 Probably, that's the Rules Committee. Has anybody been in this room? 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:42.000 Yeah, okay. So you know what I mean, it's like you're in the basement of the capital 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.000 You're in this room. There's a historic flag in the room 00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:50.000 that was flying over the capital when the capital burnt in 19, what, 1936? 00:13:57.000 --> 00:13:62.000 or not the diaz, but sit at the witness table and actually talk to the members. And then, 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:08.000 you get three minutes, maybe three minutes, this last short session 00:14:08.000 --> 00:14:12.000 we had people giving testimony in two minute increments 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:17.000 which was really hard to do. So let's prepare for getting that together. 00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:21.000 So in order to do that, I want to kind of give you the interactive 00:14:21.000 --> 00:14:25.000 part of today's presentation and have you pick an issue. 00:14:25.000 --> 00:14:34.000 So, what's an issue for you that's top of mind, that you'd like to see the world change in that direction? 00:14:34.000 --> 00:14:40.000 Climate change, okay? So we wanna address the question of climate change. So 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:43.000 help me kind of develop this issue a little bit. 00:14:44.000 --> 00:14:48.000 Let's kind of describe the context. Where are we on the climate right now? 00:14:48.000 --> 00:14:54.000 Speaker: Sure we're currently in a climate crisis and I hope to see the Oregon legislature address it in a 00:14:54.000 --> 00:14:59.000 bold and dynamic way right now. 00:15:00.000 --> 00:15:04.000 so, one thing we might do is try to control 00:15:04.000 --> 00:15:08.000 energy policy in a way that we don't burn fossil fuels and 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:13.000 release hydrofluorocarbons which create greenhouse gases, 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:19.000 right? So specifically how shall we do that? Give me a little sharper policy focus here. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:24.000 Speaker: Sure, you could do it in maybe in three prioritized steps including 00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:31.000 carbon sequestration, it's hard for me to say that, carbon sequestering, could be one of our steps because we're Oregon. 00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:38.000 Incentives for regular citizens to make changes in their lives including incentives where 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:42.000 buy electric cars, etcetera, solar panels. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:47.000 Speaker: Prefect, okay, that is great, so we've taken the issue of climate which is literally global, I mean, 00:15:48.000 --> 00:15:53.000 it's a big issue, right? But we're gonna narrow this down, we're gonna talk about carbon sequestration. 00:15:53.000 --> 00:15:59.000 So we're gonna find ways that change policies to be able to take carbon out of the atmosphere. 00:15:59.000 --> 00:15:64.000 So in order to do that, we're going to be looking at developing carbon sinks, right? 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:11.000 So eastern Oregon is this mass geography where there's some areas to make carbon sinks. 00:16:11.000 --> 00:16:16.000 You've done a great job framing the issue. Let's go to some other people here. 00:16:16.000 --> 00:16:27.000 How are we going to get the Oregon legislature to create a policy of carbon sinks to deal with our global warming? 00:16:27.000 --> 00:16:29.000 Speaker: Are you asking me how we're going to motivate them or? 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:35.000 Leo: No, what specific policy or thing do we want to change in order to create carbon sinks? 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:43.000 Speaker: That's a great question, I'm not gonna be well versed on what we could do, but potentially we could 00:16:43.000 --> 00:16:51.000 ask them to incentives land owners to let us use their property 00:16:51.000 --> 00:16:53.000 Leo: Perfect, I love that, that's great. 00:16:53.000 --> 00:16:60.000 So we wanna create incentives so how can state government provide an incentive to Eastern Oregon land owners 00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:03.000 to provide for carbon sinks? 00:17:04.000 --> 00:17:10.000 What are our tools? What are the policy levers? What are those things government could do 00:17:10.000 --> 00:17:14.000 to encourage this action on a better climate? 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:17.000 Speaker: Isn't the biggest tool we have the state budget? 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:23.000 Leo: Yes, very good, I heard tax credit. So you're a property owner, what kind of taxes do you pay? 00:17:24.000 --> 00:17:31.000 How do you pay taxes? Property taxes, right, so they have an accessed evaluation on the amount 00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:35.000 of money government needs from you in order to run government and you then have a certain 00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:41.000 amount of land, they access the certain value, and once a year in October you probably get a tax bill. 00:17:41.000 --> 00:17:47.000 Likely, you'll get a tax bill and you're going, "Oh my gosh! It's more expensive every year." 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:52.000 Every year somebody is adding some kind of operating levy or capital levy or oh my gosh, 00:17:52.000 --> 00:17:54.000 always more expensive. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:17:59.000 So, if you say, "Hmm, I got some land I'm putting property taxes on 00:17:59.000 --> 00:17:67.000 that the state wants to be able to take that land and use it to sink carbon back into the earth in order to stop global warming, 00:18:07.000 --> 00:18:15.000 stop the melting of the ice caps, the raising of the seas, then I could get a possible tax credit on it. 00:18:15.000 --> 00:18:19.000 Right? Okay, so I think we have what's called, "the legislative concept." 00:18:20.000 --> 00:18:27.000 So a legislative concept is that idea that we have that we're gonna bring into the public policy arena 00:18:27.000 --> 00:18:35.000 and we're gonna advocate for. So, if we have this, what's the next thing we probably need? 00:18:35.000 --> 00:18:39.000 First of all, let me show you the people you need to convince here. 00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:45.000 So, this is the Oregon legislature, all 90 members, and 00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:49.000 you can see little Rs and Ns, 00:18:49.000 --> 00:18:57.000 that's not party affiliation, that is whether or not they've resigned or whether or not they're not running for office. 00:18:57.000 --> 00:18:63.000 I will say about a third of this body is gonna not be here next 00:19:03.000 --> 00:19:10.000 time around because some members just said, "Hey, I've done my public service. I'm gonna go home now." 00:19:10.000 --> 00:19:18.000 Some members are saying, "No, I'm gonna run for higher office. In this case, let's see I think I have the number in my pocket here, 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:27.000 we have 36 candidates for governor, today! 36 candidates, we have 19 Republican, 17 Democrats, 00:19:27.000 --> 00:19:33.000 many of whom, well, at least not many, at least 3 or 4 of them have been members of this body. 00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:40.000 But these are specifically people we need to address. And so the next thing that we wanna do is find the legislative champion. 00:19:40.000 --> 00:19:44.000 So we've had an excellent start on our issue here, 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:47.000 we've developed some basic issue understanding. We're gonna address 00:19:47.000 --> 00:19:50.000 global warming issue. We're gonna try and find some carbon sinks. 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.000 We're gonna try and find some information on this. 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:59.000 So for example, and I'm gonna do this to people in class so get ready for this one, 00:19:59.000 --> 00:19:65.000 when I say the words, "knowable fact," grab your phone and Google the fact. 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:12.000 And then let me know what that fact is so, for example, if I said, "how much land is in Eastern Oregon?" 00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:19.000 That's a knowable fact and everything we try to do when we develop public policy is fact and research based. 00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.000 So you might Google, for example, 00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:40.000 Are there people or organizations that wanted to do carbon sinks, but couldn't because there were barriers to their ability to 00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:49.000 go forward with carbon sinks?" So what we're trying to do is, first of all, develop information from publicly available sources. 00:20:49.000 --> 00:20:58.000 And so when I started in this business back in the mid '70s, we had rotary dial telephones. 00:20:58.000 --> 00:20:65.000 Oh my gosh! You may have seen those in the movies, but they were like these kind of heavy boxes that you had this dial thing and 00:21:05.000 --> 00:21:12.000 you'd like, that's how you'd call people. And then when we typed, we had typewriters and we would 00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:15.000 put in two or three pieces of paper with carbon paper in between them 00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:22.000 and if you made a mistake, a lot of times you just kind of tore it out and you just started to type all over again. 00:21:22.000 --> 00:21:24.000 Anybody remember that other than me? 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:32.000 So having these incredible computers in your pocket which has more computing power 00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:36.000 than, what, the guys in Apollo 11 had? 00:21:36.000 --> 00:21:44.000 You know, it's amazing! So what I'm trying to tell you as an advocate, use your resources to look up those questions. 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:48.000 So public information sources start with Google 00:21:48.000 --> 00:21:52.000 then go to state sources so one question that I would want to ask is, 00:21:54.000 --> 00:21:65.000 So we know we had a great big bill, carbon bill, in 2018. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:16.000 which was the basically about the environment and about trying to control carbon generally 00:22:16.000 --> 00:22:21.000 through attacks on carbon basically attacks on fuels. 00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.000 That ground the legislature to a stop and the republicans walked out. 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:30.000 If you remember that, and that's why they couldn't legislate over this very issue. 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:37.000 So someplace in the bill file in House Bill 2020 from that session, 00:22:37.000 --> 00:22:46.000 There will be somebody talking about carbon sequestration so one of the things I would wanna do is go on OLIS. 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:57.000 This is an amazing resource. Every citizen should have this as their, you know, this is the sword you're gonna fight your battle with. 00:22:57.000 --> 00:22:66.000 In OLIS to "Bills and Laws" and you can look in to all the laws in the state of Oregon and bills from previous sessions. 00:23:06.000 --> 00:23:11.000 So you go to the session where we talked about the House Bill 2020 00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:17.000 and we would go through that bill file, and we'd look for evidence of carbon sequestration. 00:23:17.000 --> 00:23:26.000 And no doubt there will be the Eastern Oregon Climate Action Alliance who will have a piece of testimony in there 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:33.000 or, I'm just making that up, but, there is gonna be somebody like that where in the course of this previous debate 00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:35.000 has said something about carbon. 00:23:35.000 --> 00:23:43.000 So, this tool is amazingly robust and everybody who's a active, participating, 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:47.000 citizen in Oregon needs to know how to use this tool. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:53.000 The lucky thing is, it's pretty darn easy to use and even an old guy like me who didn't grow up with computers 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:57.000 can use it. I can go on OLIS, look stuff up. 00:23:57.000 --> 00:23:66.000 Curiosity, if you are curious about any issue that Oregon addresses, you can go on here and read about it. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:11.000 So this is amazing. So I would like to encourage you all here to Wiki Walk here a little bit 00:24:11.000 --> 00:24:16.000 and spend a cold, rainy evening in OLIS just reading the bill files. 00:24:16.000 --> 00:24:24.000 And look under the testimony tab, and you will be amazed at what you find in there. There's also legislative reports. 00:24:24.000 --> 00:24:27.000 So it could be that the Committee on Energy and Environment 00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:33.000 which is likely the committee that our legislative concepts can have jurisdiction on. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:39.000 We'll have a report about carbon alternatives that we can look for and probably find in there. 00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:42.000 So how do we recruit our champion? 00:24:42.000 --> 00:24:50.000 So, when I say a champion, I mean a legislature who is going to put their name on the bill as a chief sponsor 00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:56.000 or legislators who will actually sign on the bill saying that they support the bill. 00:24:56.000 --> 00:24:63.000 So in that very bill file, we will see who the chief sponsor of other bills like this have been and that's were I would start. 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:10.000 So, that's the public information source, and the other one that I wanna talk about is OLIS. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:17.000 So everybody that money is the mother's milk of politics in a way. It's the way that 00:25:17.000 --> 00:25:21.000 people get enough money to get their messages out in campaigns. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:29.000 So that is all publicly transparent in Oregon. So you can go on OLIS, you can see who your 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:31.000 legislators' major contributors are 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:36.000 and through that, kind of deduce what their interests might be 00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:45.000 and then the other kind of publicly available source is I would go to the Oregon League of Conservation Voters who publish a score card 00:25:45.000 --> 00:25:52.000 every session about how legislators have voted on the environment. If they're 80% or better 00:25:52.000 --> 00:25:57.000 they're probably gonna be somebody who will talk to you about carbon sequestration. 00:25:57.000 --> 00:25:65.000 So out of that, all of those sources, we would then go to "Human Intelligence" and this is where you pick up the phone 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:12.000 and you call the political director for the League of Conservation Voters and you say, "Hey, I'm really interested in 00:26:12.000 --> 00:26:19.000 having a bill next session about the carbon sequestration in Eastern Oregon, right? 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:25.000 And who do you think would be interested in that?" And they will go, "Carem Power would be interested in that. 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:30.000 She was the sponsor of the last climate bill in 2020." So that's where you call up 00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:36.000 Representative Power who unfortunately has just left the legislature, just announced she is not running for reelection, 00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:39.000 but that's another issue, that's about 00:26:39.000 --> 00:26:44.000 whether or not public employees should get childcare for surveying the legislature which is an important issue. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:49.000 But even as a former legislator, if you went to Carem Power and just said to her, 00:26:57.000 --> 00:26:63.000 So we always go to human sources of intelligence because as human beings or other 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:08.000 people who think like us about issues might share the same values 00:27:08.000 --> 00:27:12.000 and might have more experience and what does Sir Isaac Newton say? He said, 00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:21.000 So no matter where you are, there's somebody who's probably been on that train before you. 00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:25.000 And that's the person you want to get together to help develop that information. 00:27:25.000 --> 00:27:30.000 And then, finally, you get to the hard part which is writing your policy brief. 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:34.000 So I always like to say 2 pages max, 00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:40.000 but what in two pages would you say describes your legislative concept? 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:43.000 So you write up your legislative concept that says, 00:27:44.000 --> 00:27:49.000 It's kind of like a "problem solution" statement. The problem is the earth 00:27:49.000 --> 00:27:57.000 is degrading because of environmental, poor environmental stewardship, particularly related to carbon. 00:27:57.000 --> 00:27:65.000 And the solution is to find carbon sequestration in Eastern Oregon and we believe that tax policy could be a lever 00:28:05.000 --> 00:28:07.000 in order to help improve the environment. 00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:14.000 This is ORESTAR. So if you wanna know what's going on in politics, follow the money. 00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:19.000 And it's all there so we pulled up Peter Courtney's. 00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:25.000 Peter Courtney is an amazing legislator. Oregon's longest serving legislator. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.000 He is brilliant. I personally love the fact that he's a great historian. 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:37.000 That guy knows as much about Oregon history as anybody and I just want to thank him for his public service because 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:39.000 he's been really a great senate president. 00:28:39.000 --> 00:28:46.000 But let's just take him because he's now leaving the scene, we can just look for a minute, and see where the money is here. 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:53.000 So Peter's going out of legislature with a little over a quarter million dollars in his account. 00:28:53.000 --> 00:28:57.000 This we pulled last night. It's all there. 00:28:57.000 --> 00:28:61.000 All you gotta do is research it. Then you can see who might've contributed so 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:09.000 the highest political contribution, it looks like, $3,000 here from the Oregon Hospital Political Action committee. 00:29:09.000 --> 00:29:16.000 Oregon Beverage Recyclers, another $3,000. So this stuff is there and my point is, 00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:21.000 if you become good at the publicly available research, you can find this 00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:28.000 and you can say, well, you know these are things that this legislature cares about generally. 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:32.000 That's important to know in terms of their background and kind of profile. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:38.000 So we're gonna recruit our champion who's going to introduce our bill, who's gonna cosign it. 00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:45.000 Then we're gonna build coalitions and look for opinion leaders so what other organizations are working in this area, 00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:50.000 we're gonna identify them, we're gonna find their leadership and get them to help us to articulate 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:57.000 the need for our carbon sequestration bill. And we're gonna then identify and access 00:29:57.000 --> 00:29:63.000 who the decision makers are so there's always this nexus between legislators, 00:30:04.000 --> 00:30:08.000 agencies, public agencies, and industries. 00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:16.000 So always you think about the nexus of those three. So in terms of carbon issues, 00:30:16.000 --> 00:30:25.000 I would think we would go to the DEQ and there's probably a person at the DEQ who has worked on Oregon's climate action plan 00:30:25.000 --> 00:30:31.000 and I would figure out who the staff person is who wrote that plan and I believe there is a plan exactly by that name. 00:30:31.000 --> 00:30:40.000 And I would get them on the phone and say, "Interested in sequestration, Eastern Oregon, who are the top 5 people I should talk to?" 00:30:40.000 --> 00:30:49.000 So see how we used that to help identify who the decision makers are. And then, critically important, is to get leadership support. 00:30:49.000 --> 00:30:57.000 So, in this case, you'll probably go to the Energy and Environment committee chair, which in the past has been senator Dunbro 00:30:57.000 --> 00:30:64.000 in the Senate and then on the House, it's been representative Marsh this last short session. 00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:08.000 And you go to them and you'd say, "I have this great carbon bill. 00:31:08.000 --> 00:31:11.000 How does this fit in what your leadership priorities are?" 00:31:11.000 --> 00:31:16.000 And this is how you get the bill moved because in the Oregon system, 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:21.000 it's the chair of the committee that's gonna say, "Yes, you do get a hearing," or "No, you don't get a hearing." 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:25.000 So that's kind of how you do that. You see how this all kind of fits together? 00:31:25.000 --> 00:31:32.000 So if you don't do the good research first, you'll never be able to make the good argument to talk to the right person 00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:35.000 in order to get the bill moving. This is where your hummingbird comes in. 00:31:36.000 --> 00:31:41.000 Ha! So you are gonna be messaging through many, many media. 00:31:41.000 --> 00:31:48.000 These days, Twitter is super important. All forms of social media are totally there. 00:31:48.000 --> 00:31:52.000 Back when I was starting, we would type up news releases, get them out to 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:56.000 news media, but there's very few working reporters nowadays. 00:31:56.000 --> 00:31:60.000 So really it's about social media or journalism. 00:32:00.000 --> 00:32:06.000 Although, I have to tell you I love journalists and journalists to me have always been helpful 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:13.000 in framing public issues and getting information out the the public. So I wanted to say 00:32:13.000 --> 00:32:18.000 I believe a journalist is your friend until you find out otherwise by a bad story 00:32:18.000 --> 00:32:22.000 and then you forgive them because they're gonna be there the day after anyway so 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:28.000 you don't ever get get mad and ask for retraction. You go, "Well, we didn't agree on that one, but move on." 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:34.000 But anyway, it's very important that you get the messaging app through all the various means. You talk to the humming birds. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:40.000 So we're gonna go to a member, "Hey, I'm doing a bill on carbon sequestration. Can I have your support? 00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:43.000 What are your questions?" And they're gonna say, 00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:49.000 this is critically important, "Give me the reasons for and against this bill." 00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:58.000 So, who and give me three reasons for the bill, and three reasons why you wouldn't let the bill? Are we out of time? 00:32:58.000 --> 00:32:63.000 No, we got time. Okay, three reasons for the bill. I know you got this, but 00:33:03.000 --> 00:33:06.000 let's try some other people? Why would we be for this bill? 00:33:06.000 --> 00:33:10.000 Speaker: Less carbon emissions will slow the process of global warming 00:33:10.000 --> 00:33:11.000 Leo: Right 00:33:11.000 --> 00:33:15.000 Speaker: so less fossil fuels we put into the environment, we'll have a safer planet. 00:33:16.000 --> 00:33:23.000 Leo: Excellent, beautiful job, that's great. Who else would give me a reason for the bill? Hey, you save some tax money! 00:33:23.000 --> 00:33:25.000 Speaker: Would reach out to rural Oregon. 00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:33.000 Leo: Yes! This is a benefit to people who live in the eastern part of the state. Okay, any other reasons? 00:33:33.000 --> 00:33:35.000 Okay, why would we not want this bill? 00:33:36.000 --> 00:33:41.000 Speaker: It's based from legislation that's not representative of the area it's from. 00:33:41.000 --> 00:33:47.000 Speaker: Yeah, so it only applies to Eastern Oregon. What about most of Oregonians who live in Western Oregon? 00:33:47.000 --> 00:33:54.000 They get kinda left out. At least the tax part of it, but they do breathe and drink water so 00:33:54.000 --> 00:33:62.000 they have other benefits that may offset, right? So okay, what's another argument against the bill? 00:34:02.000 --> 00:34:04.000 Well, this is a really big bill. Go ahead, please. 00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:12.000 Speaker: You know how you said the carbon sink part? There's nothing bad about those? Like there's no downfall to them? 00:34:12.000 --> 00:34:13.000 Leo: Right 00:34:13.000 --> 00:34:18.000 Speak: or because maybe there was anything bad that could happen that would be a downfall 00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:19.000 Leo: That's a good point 00:34:19.000 --> 00:34:21.000 Speaker: to maybe the installing of them and stuff like that? 00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:26.000 Leo: so it could other environmental hazards. Maybe that's land we're gonna need later 00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:33.000 for something else and if we use it as a carbon sink, then that might take that out of production or there even worse, 00:34:33.000 --> 00:34:39.000 there might be other unintended consequences that we haven't found out because we don't have adequate research. 00:34:40.000 --> 00:34:44.000 Which is why we probably wanna get on the phone to OSU or somebody 00:34:44.000 --> 00:34:48.000 or WOU, thank you very much, and ask their carbon people 00:34:48.000 --> 00:34:53.000 that, "what are we doing? What are we studying and what do we have for that?" 00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:60.000 Okay so, the good legislator will ask you to argue this both ways. 00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:09.000 So I can't tell you the number of times a legislator has said to me, "Greg you gotta tell me who's for it, who's against it, 00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:11.000 good reasons for it, good reasons against it." 00:35:12.000 --> 00:35:15.000 If you are a prepared advocate, you can argue both sides. 00:35:15.000 --> 00:35:21.000 Not that you're gonna argue both sides, but what I would always say is, "Okay, 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:25.000 these are the reasons for, these are the reasons a person might be against this." 00:35:25.000 --> 00:35:31.000 But in balance, it's always better to be for my idea than against my idea. So it is 00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:35.000 persuasive, but it's also balanced in terms of the approach. 00:35:35.000 --> 00:35:39.000 At that point, you have your legislative vehicle introduced 00:35:39.000 --> 00:35:42.000 so your champion is gonna take the bill, drop the bill. 00:35:42.000 --> 00:35:47.000 All bills in the Oregon legislature are drafted by Office of Legislative Council. Don't try to have somebody's 00:35:48.000 --> 00:35:53.000 lawyer say, "Oh here, let me fix your bill for you." No, it's always gotta be the legislature's lawyer 00:35:53.000 --> 00:35:56.000 and they do that for good public policy reasons. 00:35:56.000 --> 00:35:59.000 And then, you prepare your written and oral testimony so 00:36:00.000 --> 00:36:04.000 you would probably put together a package, a press release. You'd probably have talking points 00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:12.000 which is in one page. If you just happen to step on the elevator with the representative of say, Ontario, Oregon, 00:36:12.000 --> 00:36:16.000 what would be the three things you would say to him in that elevator or her? 00:36:16.000 --> 00:36:18.000 What would you say to her in that elevator? 00:36:18.000 --> 00:36:26.000 These are the three arguments that you would give. So it's literally, that's the hummingbird part. You have to be able to say, 00:36:30.000 --> 00:36:36.000 And it's not gonna cost the state that much. Plus, think of the cost if we don't deal with the problem." 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:40.000 So literally that's about as quick of time as you have with them. 00:36:40.000 --> 00:36:44.000 So you have to be prepared and well researched. 00:36:44.000 --> 00:36:48.000 Okay, so then you have a public hearing and at this hearing, numbers matter. 00:36:48.000 --> 00:36:55.000 So, we have been in this horrible online hearing situation where interest groups are just 00:36:55.000 --> 00:36:58.000 having people turn in one or two sentence things. 00:36:58.000 --> 00:36:62.000 A lot of the times they're cookie-cutter and they're not really sincere. 00:37:02.000 --> 00:37:07.000 What you always want is a personal, sincere statement by a person that says, 00:37:14.000 --> 00:37:17.000 This is a good step forward. Please vote 'yes'." 00:37:17.000 --> 00:37:20.000 So that's the kind of thing that you wanna make sure you get in the record. 00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:27.000 And then, generally, I like to organize panels when I'm pushing a bill so I'll have two or three people, 00:37:27.000 --> 00:37:33.000 normally two or three legislators that lead the panel, and then a panel of citizens who will talk about it. 00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:42.000 So I don't necessarily get up and testify. I'm kind of the coach of the team not the quarterback. 00:37:42.000 --> 00:37:48.000 It's the citizens who need to make the argument because frankly, the citizens see me day in, day out. 00:37:48.000 --> 00:37:52.000 They wanna see if other people outside the building really care about this bill. 00:37:52.000 --> 00:37:59.000 So that's why we work with our citizens. We teach them about the bill, we make sure they're comfortable with the arguments, 00:37:59.000 --> 00:37:66.000 and then we get up and ask them to have the courage to sit there at the diaz and have their two or three minutes before the committee. 00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:13.000 So that's what we do. We turn out our supporters and then we schedule a vote and vote counting is an art. 00:38:13.000 --> 00:38:18.000 Making sure votes are accurate. A lot of times we have wishful thinking in vote counting 00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:24.000 so you always have to kind of stress test your vote count to make sure that nothing's changed. 00:38:24.000 --> 00:38:32.000 But I always, there's always some legislator who kind of the last person they hear from will change their mind. 00:38:32.000 --> 00:38:39.000 So that's why you wanna be the last person they hear from on the issue and so vote counting is kind of an art form. 00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:44.000 And we can talk about that probably in a different place. 00:38:44.000 --> 00:38:48.000 There is me in action with Senator Kim Thatcher 00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:54.000 and that's the Wilsonville Citizen's Academy, a great civic engagement effort that the city puts together. 00:38:54.000 --> 00:38:60.000 I take a team of people, citizens, these are just plain citizens from Wilsonville 00:39:00.000 --> 00:39:07.000 who come down with me to the capitol, when the capitol before COVID, and hopefully soon after, 00:39:07.000 --> 00:39:14.000 and come down and I take them to the capitol, give them the tour, meet with some legislators and in this case, 00:39:14.000 --> 00:39:20.000 we are here talking to Senator Thatcher, I think, about the Boon Bridge. This is about the 00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:36.000 not as good as shape as I am so hopefully we're gonna get the money for the new bridge. I think that's about it so 00:39:36.000 --> 00:39:43.000 what I say about the hummingbird here is that we advocate, we advance our cause, and repeat. 00:39:43.000 --> 00:39:50.000 We celebrate our victories big and small. We thank our people, we thank our champions, our coalitions, 00:39:50.000 --> 00:39:57.000 and we get ready for the next virtual cycle. Ladies and gentleman, you have the opportunity to change the world. 00:39:57.000 --> 00:39:63.000 And as the hummingbird does, I hope that you do and I'll see you in Salem. 00:40:03.000 --> 00:40:04.000 Thank you 00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:06.000 applause 00:40:06.000 --> 00:40:08.000 There any questions? 00:40:08.000 --> 00:40:12.000 Speaker: I don't think you talked about, how'd you get into lobbying? 00:40:12.000 --> 00:40:20.000 Leo: So I wanted to make a living and I didn't want to run for office so I had already run for student body president at U of O which 00:40:20.000 --> 00:40:27.000 frankly, as kind of a lot of work and was elected in office so 00:40:28.000 --> 00:40:35.000 the other thing is I'm more interested in policy so this is a gross generalization, but a rule of thumb I use and that is 00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:39.000 there's two kinds of people in politics, there's the kind of people who want to be somebody 00:40:39.000 --> 00:40:43.000 and then there's the kind of people that wanna do something 00:40:43.000 --> 00:40:46.000 and so I've always been the kind of person that wants to do something. 00:40:46.000 --> 00:40:54.000 I didn't need to have the title and so how I got in was I worked my way in. 00:40:54.000 --> 00:40:62.000 Starting at the U of O you just kind of signed up for ASUO as a student activity and they were 00:41:02.000 --> 00:41:09.000 saying, "Well, we have tuition problems in Salem." That the state board fired education which at the time had more 00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:14.000 control over tuition. Now it, of course, each university has its own board, but 00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:19.000 tuition, this is during Vietnam, a lot of people were coming back from Vietnam 00:41:20.000 --> 00:41:26.000 and they were saying, "We're spending a lot of money on tuition so we need to have some control." So we organized 00:41:26.000 --> 00:41:31.000 A group and we went to Salem and we found, we were extremely well received because, 00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:39.000 at that time, because of the arguments against the Vietnam War, the campuses were burning, there were riots, 00:41:39.000 --> 00:41:43.000 a lot of people were tear gassed, we had a bombing at U of O. 00:41:43.000 --> 00:41:52.000 So, when the student leaders showed up, the legislators went, "What the heck is going on on campus?" We were then able to 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:60.000 be able to talk to them and say, "Students have rights and students are consumers and therefore need to be respected." 00:42:00.000 --> 00:42:06.000 And so that's how we started. We kind of leveraged off of the antiwar movement. 00:42:06.000 --> 00:42:14.000 This is, remember, in the Vietnam was still going on until '75 and this is '71 and '73 sessions so 00:42:14.000 --> 00:42:19.000 we used that as a way to kind of start the process and then once you start to lobby, I enjoyed it. 00:42:20.000 --> 00:42:29.000 So I kept looking for ways to lobby and then the way that I got to Washington was even, I think, a more interesting story. 00:42:29.000 --> 00:42:35.000 I worked on the campaign and I was paid a penance. It was such a small amount, 00:42:35.000 --> 00:42:41.000 but then when I was in, went to the White House personnel office and they said, "Well, did you work on the campaign?" 00:42:41.000 --> 00:42:47.000 And I said, "Well, yes I did." They said, "Well, without evidence, you'll never get the job." So I thankfully kept my paystubs 00:42:48.000 --> 00:42:54.000 from the campaign and I was able to submit that and then the next day, I got a call said, "Mr. Leo, could you come in? 00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:60.000 We have something for you." It was literally that quick and so you'll laugh when you hear this, but they said, 00:43:05.000 --> 00:43:11.000 They said, "perfect, you're our guy. Here's where you go over at justice to work on the issue." 00:43:12.000 --> 00:43:19.000 And it was totally just like that and I go, "okay, well," and I had to learn about the issue which was great because what they didn't want was 00:43:19.000 --> 00:43:22.000 somebody that had a preconceived notion. They wanted to have somebody 00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:25.000 who was gonna kind of work with the various interest groups 00:43:25.000 --> 00:43:31.000 in an even handed way which is what I think we did with the immigration bill in '86. 00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:35.000 They vary first out of college job I had, I worked for free 00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:41.000 because it was all the Tomical staff. It was Ed Westerall, Ron Shmitt, John Pias, and 00:43:41.000 --> 00:43:47.000 the guys who had all been Tomical's senior staff people and they, you know, I was right out of U of O, 00:43:48.000 --> 00:43:54.000 they said, "well, we don't really have any money to pay you." And I said, "look, I'll come in and work for you for free 00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:62.000 for a month and if I work out then find some money and pay me, but I don't work out, you can just send me on my way." 00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:09.000 And it was that hustle that get you in the door, but you also have to work hard and perform. 00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:19.000 Speaker: So I imagine not every bill you've brought has passed and so I think there's really important lessons to learn from failure. 00:44:19.000 --> 00:44:22.000 So what is some of the most important lessons you've learned in that regard? 00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:27.000 Leo: Yes, and there have been some just spectacular failures 00:44:27.000 --> 00:44:32.000 and it is true, I think, that you learn more from bills that don't pass 00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:37.000 and that fail and they fail largely because you don't do your homework. 00:44:37.000 --> 00:44:43.000 So maybe you haven't completely researched the issue, there may be arguments, or it could be something in the context 00:44:44.000 --> 00:44:49.000 that you're working in that there's, the legislators bring their own values, 00:44:49.000 --> 00:44:56.000 their own life experiences through that process and maybe you didn't know that a certain legislator had already had 00:44:56.000 --> 00:44:60.000 some experience with the bill. So those kinds of things. So 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:07.000 I would say the majority of bills fail because a lack of homework and that people don't do their research and they just kind of, 00:45:07.000 --> 00:45:16.000 they have this idea that you can just kind of bs your way through it and these people are experts at sniffing out 00:45:16.000 --> 00:45:23.000 people who don't know what they're talking about. So that's why I really emphasize you really know what you're doing before you, so 00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:29.000 do the homework. But no, I've had some spectacular failures and with a lot of bills you fail the first time through 00:45:29.000 --> 00:45:36.000 because it's new material and people haven't got their mind made up on it so 00:45:36.000 --> 00:45:40.000 I really don't like talking about work I'm currently doing, but 00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.000 I just finished a bill in the short session which was really controversial. 00:45:44.000 --> 00:45:52.000 And spectacularly so and we hadn't, last time, it failed because of a procedural matter. 00:45:52.000 --> 00:45:55.000 It was that, we were right at the right "Sign, Eat, Die," 00:45:56.000 --> 00:45:63.000 And the other side that wanted to stop it filed a minority report because you gotta know the rules backwards and forwards and 00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:07.000 we had one day left in the session and we had minority report takes two days 00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:17.000 so it was, it's like in basketball or football, we weren't watching the clock and so that bill failed that session then we 00:46:17.000 --> 00:46:23.000 went to leadership and we said, "we really want a redo on this. During the short session we were able to get it through, but 00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:30.000 only after we had to fix the bill. There literally a fact in the bill that made the legislators uncomfortable 00:46:30.000 --> 00:46:35.000 and so we knew that we had to amend it, but it was so controversial, we couldn't 00:46:36.000 --> 00:46:41.000 fix it in the Environment committee, it had to go to Rules to get fixed. 00:46:41.000 --> 00:46:46.000 So because I had been the Rules Administrator previously, I knew that's what we do 00:46:46.000 --> 00:46:53.000 with bills that we want, but aren't perfect so, but there has to be a committee where you amend it so we were able to, 00:46:53.000 --> 00:46:60.000 we had to do some really quick research and hats off to the legislator who saw that and 00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:07.000 got a quick report done by the Office of Legislative Policy which gave us exactly the right fact 00:47:07.000 --> 00:47:13.000 in order to get the bill passed. But it's like anything in life, it's like if you don't put time and 00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:23.000 caring attention into the, you won't get a good outcome. So hard work: 90%, perspiration 10% inspiration. That's what we try to do. 00:47:23.000 --> 00:47:28.000 Yeah in compromise, and being willing to say, "I'll take 80%, 00:47:28.000 --> 00:47:32.000 thank you." And give the other guy 20% or even if you have to, 50 50. 00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:36.000 So I wanted to end with just a joke. Now my joke is, there are three kinds of people in the world. 00:47:36.000 --> 00:47:41.000 We know there's really two kinds of people. The kind that say there's two people and the kind that don't., but 00:47:41.000 --> 00:47:48.000 anyway, there's three kinds of people in the world. There's the people who make things happen and so I 00:47:48.000 --> 00:47:50.000 really want to work with the people that wanna make things happen. 00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:55.000 There's the kind of people that go, "Yeah, I just kind of wanna know what's happening." 00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:58.000 And then there's people that go, "What happened?" 00:47:58.000 --> 00:47:63.000 And I don't want anybody in this room to be that person that goes, "What happened?" I want you to be the person that 00:48:04.000 --> 00:48:08.000 makes things happen, or who watches things and knows about things that are happening. 00:48:08.000 --> 00:48:11.000 Mary Pettenger: I wanna thank you for taking the time today because I know you're really, 00:48:12.000 --> 00:48:17.000 really busy and I know the session just ended so I'm sure you're ready for some rest and relaxation before the next step. 00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:18.000 Leo: Thank you 00:48:18.000 --> 00:48:20.000 Speaker: so I wanna, all thank you very much for today. 00:48:20.000 --> 00:48:28.000 music