E8 - Legislative Advocacy 101 with Megan Larkin

Rainy Day Recess, January 16, 2025

Contact us at hello@rainydayrecess.org

This interview was edited for length and clarity. Each person’s opinions are their own. 

[00:00:00] Jasmine Pulido: Welcome To Rainy Day Recess, where we study Seattle Public Schools and the forces that impact the district. The Washington State Legislature just began its session on January 13th. So we're launching a series of short episodes to help our listeners understand and participate in the legislative process. Megan Larkin will be our guide through this endeavor. So welcome, Megan, and can you tell our listeners some background about you?

[00:00:29] Megan Larkin: I'm Megan Larkin. I am a parent of two kids in SPS. I have a master's in education policy and leadership studies and used to work in that field. I am currently the regional advocacy co-chair for the Washington State PTA. All of this informs my perspective, but I'm speaking only on behalf of myself.

[00:00:52] Christie Robertson: Thank you so much for doing this with us. We're calling this first episode Advocacy 101, and we hope that it serves as background for the remainder of the episodes. Megan is going to provide an overview of the basics about the context for this session, how the legislature works, and then about how to get involved in advocacy.

And our goal with all of this is to empower our listeners, the parents and educators and students of Seattle and beyond with the tools to stay informed and make their voices heard, especially right now, as it's such a critical time for education funding. So let's get started with some context for this session.

[00:01:36] Megan Larkin: Okay, so this session has the potential to be a wild one. We had Governor Inslee for 12 years. Now we've got Governor Ferguson, and that's a big variable there. We've also got a lot of churn in the legislature itself. 12 new House Republicans, 8 new House Democrats, 2 new Democrats on the Senate side, and then 2 Democrats have been tapped by Ferguson to join his administration, so that opens up their seats, which has the potential to have kind of a domino effect, especially if they draw from the House. 

We also have a new Attorney General, new Commissioner of Public Lands, new Insurance Commissioner. So that's a lot of Variables at play, and it will likely take a little while for people to get the lay of the land, learn their new roles, and for everybody else to learn what to expect from all of these new players.

Something else that's really important to know about this session is that we're projected to have between a $10 and 12 billion revenue shortfall over the next four fiscal years. And a lot of the legislators that are there now, they haven't experienced anything like this before.

Ferguson came right out of the gate saying "we can't tax our way out of this" and was intent on making cuts first. On top of the cuts that Inslee already has made. 

[00:03:12] Christie Robertson: And Inslee had proposed a wealth tax.

[00:03:15] Megan Larkin: Inslee did propose a wealth tax and Ferguson pretty much flatly said he was not into that.So it'll be interesting to see what happens on the new revenue front, given the way Ferguson has indicated he feels.

So Ferguson has said that he wants to see cuts, but he has also said that he wants to protect K-12 spending. Inslee brought out his own lame duck budget a little while ago that only proposed 42% of the budget going towards K-12. 

[00:03:48] Christie Robertson: Which is a drop, right? 

[00:03:49] Megan Larkin: Yes, a big drop from, 

[00:03:51] Christie Robertson: It was 43%. 

[00:03:52] Megan Larkin: yeah, it was 43% and a couple of years ago it was 50%. So it is a big percentage drop and Ferguson has said 42% is unacceptable. The final budget must invest a higher percentage of the total budget towards K-12 schools. But this all makes me a little bit nervous of talking only about percents because if you hold K-12 spending flat, and you shrink the budget overall, then you're spending a larger percent of the budget on K-12, but you're not actually spending any more money on K-12.

[00:04:33] Christie Robertson: Oh no.

[00:04:35] Megan Larkin: I know, right? On top of this, Ferguson has indicated that he is really big on guaranteeing universal free school lunches for every Washington student. In his budget, he said that he pegged that at $240 million per biennium. So especially if you think about this percent question, if you shrink the budget overall, and you throw in $240 million for the free school lunches, then the percentage of the budget goes up even more. But all of the holes that we're currently facing in K-12, those still exist. It just is a bigger percentage on paper. So I think when we're thinking about advocacy, we need to be really careful about using percentages too much for this reason.

[00:05:27] Christie Robertson: That's really good to know.

 And if people want to go back and Listen to the Big Five episode, Oliver Miska and David Knight talk about using a percentage of the state's gross state product instead of using percentages. So that's another way that some people do it. 

[00:05:44] Jasmine Pulido: Could you also tell us a little bit about the Seattle Public Schools statistics on the Big Three?

[00:05:49] Christie Robertson: Right. Like how much are we lacking in each of those areas at the moment? How much do we spend more than what we're given by the state? 

[00:05:57] Megan Larkin: Yes, so I think you probably have heard of the Big Three on previous episodes of this podcast, but in case you haven't, they are pupil transportation, special education, and MSOC, which is materials, supplies, and operating costs. These are the Big Three because the majority of the education advocacy community, people like Washington State PTA, WASA, which is the School Administrators Association, WSSDA, a lot of districts and ESDs, pretty much everybody in the education advocacy community has come together around the Big Three. 

So we got some numbers from SPS around how shortages in the Big Three impact them. Let me just pull up those numbers 

[00:06:49] Christie Robertson: And remember, as Megan's talking, that our, projected budget deficit for this year is around $100 million. 

[00:06:57] Megan Larkin: Yes, around $100 million. All right. For the 23-24 school year, SPS said that the special education funding gap is about $91.5 million. For the transportation funding gap for that same period, it's about $20 million. And, just for utilities and insurance, not even including the rest of MSOC, for that same 23-24 year, you have a gap of about $6.3 million. I think that adds up to about $117 million. And that's, again, not even including all of MSOC. 

So when you start thinking about SPS having a projected around $100 million deficit, you're like, wow, okay, filling in these Big Three, that could have a really big impact on SPS. 

Something else about these numbers that I think is really interesting is, If you go back and you look through the other school years that they deal with here, for the 22-23 and 21-22 school year, the gap in almost all the cases just keeps getting bigger. And this is a trend that we're seeing around the state. I think this shows that the formulas themselves just aren't really cutting it. Because even though you can blame the enrollment drop for some of it, we're also seeing these widening gaps in districts where enrollment is growing.

So there's a lot that needs to be fixed and closing the funding gaps in the Big Three could be really impactful for SPS and for all of the 295 districts across the state.

How the Legislature Works

[00:08:46] Christie Robertson: Okay. So let's talk about how the legislature works. I know it's a very complicated beast, but we are going to try to just touch on the high levels so that people can kind of understand. what it even means to take these problems and get some legislation passed to fix them.

[00:09:04] Megan Larkin: Okay, so I'm gonna attempt to give a high level overview. So first, just the basic structure of the legislature. In Washington, we operate on a two year cycle. So in odd years, it's a long session where all the bills are new and they come up with the budget for the biennium.

There are two chambers. We've got the House with 98 seats. So in your legislative district, you have two House reps. We have the Senate with 49 seats. Every legislative district has one senator. House members sit for a two year term. Senators sit for a four year term. So that's setting the stage.

If you're a bill I'm gonna try to talk through the process of the hurdles a bill has to jump before it passes the legislature. 

[00:09:55] Jasmine Pulido: do they have maybe a graphic around like a flow model? Do you know what I'm talking about? 

[00:10:00] Christie Robertson: Totally. So if you go to ledged.wa.gov. And you look where it says Bills and Initiatives -> Find a bill or initiative -> and you type in a bill number. So, for example, you could type in “1310”, which is a bill to raise the level of special education funding 

[00:10:20] Megan Larkin: Yeah, you type in the number of the bill that you're interested in, and it will have little dots that show the different places that the bill has to go on its epic journey to becoming a law.

[00:10:31] Christie Robertson: And you can see for HB 1310 it has been introduced and it is in committee. And so it still has many, many steps to go. 

[00:10:39] Megan Larkin: Which only happens, I think it's like one out of every seven bills. So it's hard for something to get through. 

[00:10:47] Christie Robertson: But if you look at this page, This can be helpful to follow along as Megan's talking through this process.

[00:10:54] Megan Larkin: So, first it gets referred into a policy committee, 

[00:10:59] Christie Robertson: So the policy committee is just where they talk about the impacts on anything but budget, right?

[00:11:05] Megan Larkin: Yes, policy committee, they talk about the impacts on anything but budget. and for education stuff, often that's going to be the House Education Committee or the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Committee. 

 It has to get scheduled for a public hearing. 

[00:11:20] Christie Robertson: The hearing, that's where people come and give testimony.

[00:11:23] Megan Larkin: Then it has to get scheduled for an executive session.

[00:11:25] Christie Robertson: And that's where everybody votes to pass it out of the committee.

[00:11:27] Megan Larkin: Yes. After the executive session, it gets reported out of committee.and it has to get passed out of the policy committee by a cutoff date. And then there's a slightly later cutoff for the fiscal committee.

The fiscal committee does the public hearing and executive session and all of the stuff that the policy committee does, only it's just looking at fiscal impacts. So it'll attach a fiscal note to the bill report that came out of the policy committee. 

I know this sounds like very inside baseball, but it's good to know because one of the important things that we can do as advocates is to is ask our representatives and senators to move the bill out of committee or to give testimony during the public hearing portion of the bill's stint in the policy committee or the fiscal committee.

[00:12:24] Jasmine Pulido: So are the fiscal committee and the policy committee looking at it at the same time and they just have different cutoff dates? No, it goes to the policy committee first and then goes to the fiscal committee. 

[00:12:32] Megan Larkin: Yes. 

[00:12:33] Jasmine Pulido: I see. 

[00:12:34] Megan Larkin: Yep. That's how it happens. 

So after a bill gets out of the fiscal committee, or the policy committee if it doesn't have any fiscal implications, then it gets referred to the Rules committee. And the Rules committee is interesting because it's where the party leadership exercises a lot of control over the bill. It's like a gatekeeper so everyone on rules picks like two or three bills that they want to move forward and that's another place where we can do a lot of advocacy. 

[00:13:05] Christie Robertson: The Rules committee is such a black box. It's one of those... there's a couple steps in here... like a lot of stuff is very out and open, but the Rules committee is one where, it's like behind the scenes influence at that point.

[00:13:17] Megan Larkin: Yes. So it's very much like “what does leadership want?” Yeah, it is very black box. That's a great way to describe it. Black box and gatekeepy.

Okay, so once you're out of Rules, if you make it that far, then you get a second reading on the floor so this is when the bill is often debated and people offer amendments and things like that. and then you go for a vote. The third reading is the roll call vote on the floor. That also has to happen by a certain cutoff date. 

So if a bill survives all of that in its chamber of origin, then it gets to repeat the process in the other chamber. 

[00:14:05] Christie Robertson: From the beginning. 

[00:14:06] Megan Larkin: From the beginning. So the policy committee, the fiscal committee, the rules committee, all that, only on a more compressed timeline. 

And then if a bill makes it that far, then it goes back to its chamber of origin and different things can happen depending if they like the amendments that the opposite chamber gave. Do you want me to go into the specifics around that?

[00:14:33] Christie Robertson: No, probably not. I think it's going to be really cool how we're planning to follow a set of bills through the process. Because then we'll get a chance probably to talk about reconciliation and all that.

[00:14:42] Megan Larkin: Yeah. Cause that does get interesting. 

Advocacy

[00:14:45] Jasmine Pulido: Should we talk about how community members can have a say or advocate within the legislative session? What does that look like, megan?

[00:14:54] Megan Larkin: Okay. So the first thing I would say is find out who your reps are. There's a district finder that is going to get linked in the show notes. So that's a good first step to find out who your reps are. You have two house reps and one senator. 

Once you know that, it is good to remember that you're really the expert here. It's not your job to know all of the intricacies of the legislative process. That's their job. You are an expert at whatever issue is impacting your life, right? Because that is what really matters, the impact that these laws have on the people of Washington state. 

To be more focused and therefore more effective with your advocacy, I think it's also important to really think about, okay what is the issue that I'm passionate about? What is the one thing that I want to zero in on? Because even if you're like, “oh I want to zero in on education”. That's like half the budget, right? So that's a lot of bills. So you want to think specifically, oh, like maybe you're a special ed parent and you want to focus in on special ed or maybe you are having a hard time getting your kid to school and transportation is your thing. 

Whatever it may be, focus in on something that you're really passionate about and find a group that is also dealing with that. They are going to help you figure out how to interact with this complex web that is the legislative process. And they can also help you attach numbers to all of this, help you identify where the biggest funding gaps are, the biggest service gaps are, because they are going to know how this issue impacts more than just yourself. 

[00:16:51] Christie Robertson: And who are these groups you're talking about?

[00:16:53] Megan Larkin: There's a lot of interest groups. Probably if you're listening to this podcast, you know and love a student or an educator in SPS. So one good place to start is PTA. PTA does legislative advocacy, so you can talk to your local PTA about it. There is also WSSDA, which is the School Board Directors Association. There is WASA, which is the Administrators Association. And then I think if you go through the back catalog of this podcast, you'll find many folks who are involved with many different aspects of education, advocacy, and I bet any one of those folks would be more than happy to point you towards an interest group that dovetails well with whatever is important to you.

[00:17:40] Christie Robertson: Yeah, there's also, for teachers, the unions are very active in advocacy. And for students, there's a couple of student groups that are really active as well.

[00:17:51] Megan Larkin: Yes. Seattle Student Union and Seattle Education Association. Lots of different options. 

So let's say you've identified an issue that's important to you. You know who your reps are. You've hooked up with that group. Sign up for whatever kind of action alerts that group has. They will clue you in as to when it's most productive for you to interact with your legislator during the legislative process. So such and such a bill is stuck in a certain committee. Email your legislators to get it out of the committee or ask them to vote for this bill or offer this amendment. somebody over at your interest organization will be tracking all of this. 

[00:18:40] Christie Robertson:  Yeah, and if you are connected to other orgs as well, one of the big things you can do is if you get a message like that, to pass it along to your orgs to get as many people as possible to take that action.

[00:18:50] Megan Larkin: Yes, that is really important. And I love the way that you're framing that too, because I think we live in this age of like they're just combative vibes out there. especially when it applies to politics. But in almost all of the education advocacy organizations, there's a lot of overlap in terms of what we all want to see happen. So talking to each other, helping each other out. That's really important. 

Okay. Where are we at?

[00:19:20] Jasmine Pulido: So we're at signing up for action alerts with a group that you are now aligned with.

[00:19:26] Megan Larkin: Yes. This group might also tap their membership to testify. They're going to identify key points where they need testimony. And they might even write the testimony for you or coach you through it so you would have a lot of support in giving that testimony. So you can go down to Olympia and give it in front of the relevant committee, or you can do it over Zoom. You can also give written testimony. 

Or you can do one of my favorite things to do that has arisen since we've been more online, which is "sign in pro" for a bill. I timed myself once doing this and it literally took me 30 seconds. That is you just basically saying, "Hey, I support this." And your organization that you're aligned with will be able to identify key times for you to do this. And this is another area where you can talk to your friends, talk to your family, talk to the other orgs that are also interested in education. Ask them to sign in pro because they probably also have 30 free seconds. This can be really impactful.

[00:20:41] Christie Robertson: Someone will often read out the numbers of how many people signed in pro and con for a bill. And so that can definitely have an influence.

[00:20:50] Megan Larkin: Yes, really impactful. And I am always surprised by how low those numbers are given the population of our state. So I feel like signing in pro is also an area where it's possible to have a lot of impact by just talking to people you know and other orgs, because the baseline number can be pretty low.

[00:21:18] Christie Robertson: Yeah, so, but the key for that is to sign up for one of these advocacy orgs alerts because there's usually small windows where the signing in window opens and closes.

[00:21:20] Megan Larkin: I know as an example on the 22nd, there's going to be a hearing in, I believe it's K-12 and Early Learning, on all of the Big Three bills in the Senate. Which I mean, that's exciting. We should get a lot of people to sign in pro. But that's on the 22nd, and I think today is what, like the 16th? So that's not a lot of time.

[00:21:50] Megan Larkin: The only other thing I can think of is the lobby days.

[00:21:53] Christie Robertson: Yes. 

[00:21:55] Megan Larkin: So another way you can be involved in the advocacy process is to show up for a lobby day in Olympia. Seeing a bunch of people there physically, particularly students, is really impactful for legislators. One of the things we hear from legislators often is we need more people to show up in Olympia. We need to see how many people care about K-12 in the state. So one way to do that, even if you're feeling really unsure about the intricacies of the process, or if you're new to this, go to a lobby day. 

There is a PTA Focus on Advocacy Day, which is February 17th. There's no school that day. So bring the kids, make a day of it. Definitely speak to your local PTA and see about getting down for Focus Day.

There are also other opportunities, there's the Billion Dollar Bake Sale, which is on January 30th. A lot of folks are doing that, too. They have a website you can go to that is pretty accessible and explains what they're about. Check out the Billion Dollar Bake Sale. 

And if you do connect up with an education advocacy org, and I really do hope you do, talk to them about their Lobby Day, because I know there are other Lobby Days out there. 

You might also have an opportunity to meet your legislators in person, which is pretty cool. If you connect with an org, they are more than likely going to set up legislator meetings and facilitate them. Don't be intimidated. Oftentimes, you're just going to be another person in the room. You might share your personal story, but you don't have to have a huge specialized level of knowledge to participate in a legislator meeting that is organized by whatever organization you link up with.

[00:23:50] Christie Robertson: Yeah. One thing I've learned is that legislators really do not know very much about education. Most of them don't have kids in public schools. Many of them never did, or it was ages and ages ago, and they don't know things that seem really basic to us. So just even providing that information.

And like Megan said, I've heard from a lot of legislators that education is something that they hear about very little, so any little bit that you can do to just let your legislator know that you're thinking about education and that you're watching them is a big deal.

[00:24:23] Megan Larkin: Yes. I would add too that there are many like. impactful but easy ways to interact with your legislator. For example, if you want them to signal support for a bill, ask them to sponsor the bill. It could be a short email, and then if your legislator signs on as a sponsor, you can just send a quick thank you.

Thanking your legislators is another underrated tool because not only is it building that relationship with your legislators. you're going to see them again, right? Because unfortunately this isn't like a one time only deal. We have to show up and advocate for education every year because if you are not at the table, you are in fact on the menu.

So thanking your legislators builds that relationship and it also lets them know you're paying attention on a pretty granular level, right? You know when they sponsor something, you know that particular piece of legislation, so they can't just generally say, "I believe that children are our future," and then leave it at that. They know that people that are interested in education advocacy are watching them very closely. 

[00:25:35] Jasmine Pulido: Is it possible to advocate on your own or is it always necessary to sync up with a group?

[00:25:43] Megan Larkin: It's definitely possible to do it on your own. If you go to the legislature's website, and you type in the number of whatever bill it is that you're interested in, there are little buttons that will show up on the side where you can get email updates on the bill. You can send your legislator's direct comments on the bill from that page as well. There's a little button for that. I think there's even a button where you can add it to an RSS feed. You can also subscribe to updates on particular committees,what they're doing. So you could definitely build your own bill tracker and track your own legislation and have your own plan about when you want to do all that stuff. Give your own testimony. You don't have to be affiliated with an org. 

But it's way, way easier if you are, especially because advocacy is definitely a numbers game and we've got busy parents with jobs and kids and all the stuff that's happening in the world. There's no need to spend your time reinventing the wheel if there's a group of people who are already working on the thing you're interested in. You can instead join that effort and help it be even more successful. So it's good to be with a community.

[00:27:08] Jasmine Pulido: Thank you. This was super helpful and I found it understandable as someone who's new to this. So yay. 

Anything you want to say, Christie, to close up?

[00:27:19] Christie Robertson: I was just going to give a quick intro to what's coming next. We are planning on doing a series with Megan where we will take the approximately six bills that correlate to the Big Three issues all these orgs are advocating for. And we're going to kind of track them through the legislative process so that you can see how this all works.

[00:27:42] Megan Larkin: I'm super excited for that.

[00:27:44] Jasmine Pulido: I'm really excited. Yay. 

[00:27:47] Megan Larkin: Yay, go Big Three. 

[00:27:47] Christie Robertson: And that concludes this episode of Rainy Day recess. You can find our show notes at rainy day recess.org and email us at hello@rainydayrecess.org. We love to hear from you.

And if you like us, make sure to rate and review us so other people can find us. 

I'm Christie Robertson. 

[00:28:06] Jasmine Pulido: I'm Jasmine Pulido. 

Special thanks to Lester Mayo and Manzana Movement for our music. 

[00:28:11] Christie Robertson: Stay curious, stay cozy and join us next time for Rainy Day Recess.