On Feb. 7, 2013, HEAL Utah, the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club and Utah Rivers Council presented Green Lobby Night in room 130 at the State Capitol building. About 50 people attended the event billed as a “citizen advocate training.”
Mark Clemens, the Utah chapter manager of the Sierra Club, presented the dos and don’ts of lobbying.
“It is easy to become jaded about lobbying, but lobbying, in fact, is a right guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” says Clemens.
Clemens stressed the importance of using friendly persuasiveness with sweet reason. People should only state those things that they know with certainty. That means doing the research and only using information from trusted sources.
Dress should be “at the formal end of casual.”
Be positive and optimistic about the bill.
“You never really know what the power in the argument might be,” says Clemens. Legislators are people and something in their personal lives might affect them to be favorable toward a bill that might follow along traditional party lines.
No matter how angry you are about a subject or about the conduct of the legislator, do not begin with a threat.
“That’s the wrong way to start a conversation,” says Clemens.
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