A Day in the Life – Lobbying and a Protest
March 11, 2025 — Today we ventured to the Missouri State Capitol for the MONAACP Annual Lobbying Day. I was eager to learn how to lobby. The Capitol was bustling with veterans in the rotunda and hundreds of school children lined the halls. House was in session and democracy was palpable. I was nervous. I had not lobbied since 2010 when I was there advocating for legal midwifery and handed out cookies with propaganda. With the help of other lost attendees, we wandered around the long halls and found the senate side alcove where MONAACP was meeting. They handed out many proposed bills that were talking points and why.
HB742 would prohibit state funding for Diversity, Equality & Inclusion (DEI). Currently the Governor’s 7th executive order already eliminates state DEI but he has discretion such as potentially allowing the Governor’s Council on Disability an exception. HB742 would eliminate all discretion and be mandated. SB22 would create new provisions relating to the treatment of summary statements prepared by the General Assembly for ballot measures. It would eliminate the court’s ability to revise deceptive language. It enables Gerrymandering to favor one party or class.
After some mingling with NAACP we set off to visit some legislators! I had written up some thank you cards expressing my expectation for them to stand nonpartisan for democracy and hold the executive branch to due process and the rule of law. Yes it is a soft peddle but that is just my advocacy style. Surely they get enough angry letters to glaze over. Maybe these handwritten cute floral notes would evoke some empathy and concern for at least their own children. Last second I wrote on each to please oppose HB742.
We focused on Mid Mo legislators and visited the offices of Representatives Kathy Steinhoff, Rudy Veit, Bill Hardwick, Ray Reed and my personal hero Representative David Tyson Smith. They were all in session so I talked to their Legislative Assistants and signed the visitor books. Everyone was very kind and grateful and some acted like I might get a follow up from the Representative.
At noon we set off for the Tuesday, Wednesday ongoing protests at the post office on High Street. One by one the group came together. It feels so good to see others walking with signs! We ended up with about 15 protestors. We brought extra signs and they were appreciated by many. Some folks even traded out what they brought for We Stand United (WSU) signs. There was a lot of interaction with those passing by and one nice fella grabbed a sign and joined in and exclaimed now this is democracy. Overall the response from the community was very positive. The honks were a plenty and the flipped birds were rare. We handed out WSU information to likeminded folks. Thank you to the organizer for these ongoing lunch protests and keeping the resistance alive for so many decades. I heard from a veteran protestor that summers are brutal in the heat. Got me thinking that we should paint up our old umbrellas for sun shade protest signs!
What a great day of activation! We Stand United is just one month old today and wow what progress we have made! WSU went from an idea to a rally to a call to action meeting to a newsletter in 4 short weeks. Thank you for activating and keeping democracy alive!
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