My second day at the state legislative building was a very busy one. We started off the day by attending a Board of Education meeting so that we could watch the implementation of legislation that Ms. DeVivo had gotten passed a few weeks prior to my arrival. Following the meeting, we went down to the quad and helped Ms. Sams (DeVivo’s partner) set up for a lunch catered by the pit for 500 people. The lunch invited all senators, reps, and optometrist to join so that they could generate discussion about the optometrist bill that we lobbied for the day prior. And following lunch, we met with a client from Riskcor to talk about upcoming legislation involving immigrants. We took the client to a couple of senators and reps (including the president pro-tempore and the majority leader) so that he could express his concerns with the legislation, and try to win their support.
One thing that I learned during my day is the importance of making connections. While shadowing Ms. DeVivo, I noticed that she had very good relationships with pretty much all of the officials. She knew pretty much everyone in the buildings, and was genuine friends with them. By developing these friendships, it became a lot easier to do her job because they knew that they could trust her. And while she was fairly liberal, most of her really good friends were conservative. While I assumed that there would be conflict because of party, there really was not because she said that she has a long history of being fair, and that goes a long way. As she said, people remember everything. If you mess with someone, they will fight back. Making friends is a whole lot more effective than burning bridges.