Congressional Visit Day 2010 – opportunity for scientists & engineers to impact science policy issues

When you think of IEEE, you tend to think of conferences, standards, and publications, right? A professional organization for scientists and engineers, pretty typical and pretty science-focused. Until recently, I didn’t know that IEEE has a slick, professional public policy arm as well. Their political operatives whose advocate for science and engineering policies at various levels of government. IEEE is one of several organizations that participates in Congressional Visit Day (CVD), an opportunity for scientists and engineers to have an impact on science policy issues.

If you’ve never had the chance to visit your congressional representatives, I highly recommend it—though it sounds a little wonkish, it’s actually a really fun time. For this year’s CVD, I visited Washington, D.C., along with around 50 other members of IEEE from all over the country. I’ve written to and called my congresswoman, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, before (and she always writes back), but being backed by IEEE, with 40,000 members in my home state of California alone, definitely added some gravitas to my visit. I didn’t quite know what to expect at CVD, but the congressional staffers definitely took us seriously and it felt like we got to have a real impact.

IEEE split us into groups based on our home states. My three-person California delegation met with staffers from the offices of Senators Feinstein and Boxer, and Representatives Waxman and Pelosi. It was especially exciting to visit Nancy Pelosi’s office. She’s been a strong supporter of scientific research over the years, as well as of women in science issues, and it was kind of a trip to see the Speaker’s office in person. We even got to leave behind the congressional offices and venture into the majestic Capitol Building for that meeting. (My excitement was dampened a bit when it took me three tries and twenty minutes to get through security. No food or drinks allowed, and who knew how many squished-up granola bars were hidden away in my laptop bag?)

Accompanying us for all the meetings was an IEEE staffer, a professional lobbyist named Russ who really knows his stuff. He was a great help through the whole thing—the calm, knowledgeable political operative surrounded by spazzy engineers. We mostly advocated for the America COMPETES Act, which aims to double funding for basic scientific research in three federal agencies. It initially passed three years ago but is up for reauthorization. By the end of our meetings, the COMPETES Act had been approved by the House Science and Technology Committee—and since we left it’s been introduced on the floor, pulled from the floor, and reintroduced. I don’t know what’s ultimately going to happen with the bill, but it was exhilirating to depart from my usual Silicon Valley engineer role to play a small part in advocating for it in Washington.

Have you ever met with your congressional representatives? Would you like to? What would or did you talk about?

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