Our Healthy Mothers/Healthy Babies of Central Texas Coalition is having
success with our legislative lobbying, and I thought I'd share about this
for the list, in order to demonstrate how do-able it is to get involved with
influencing public policy on bfg.

Last summer we had a brainstorming meeting to come up with some needed
legislation.  Due to the severe budget crisis in Texas we decided that,
realistically, nothing with a budget note attached would have any
expectation of finding a sponsor -- let alone of being enacted.  We settled
on 4 issues and made a list of legislators to visit to discuss our agenda.

Over time, we learned that all but 1 of our proposed ideas had either
fiscal, constitutional, or logistical problems.  So we settled on the one
that seems most acheivable.  As background, we already have public
protection in Texas for breastfeeding (thanks to our work 2 sessions ago)
and last session we lobbied for and got Medicaid reimbursement for donor
milk.  This time we are seeking creation of a Breastfeeding Physician
Designation.  It is mostly carrot (no penalty or mandate to comply) but it
provides recognition on the Texas Dept. Health website and a certificate for
the office of doctors who agree to be (and train staffs to be) encouraging
to their patients in terms of bfg.  While a somewhat low key bill, it serves
to keep bfg as a public policy issue before the legislature (one of our
goals).  Secondly, the process of visiting different legislators provides an
opportunity to educate them and to locate allies in the system to whom we
can apply when we need help with other projects.  And finally, if we can
pass this bill, we can perhaps strengthen it in a future session when more
implementation funds are available.

After many months of visiting offices and handing them our
education/information packets, we found both house and senate sponsors (our
senate sponsor has nursed 6 kids!).  Yesterday we gave testimony before the
Senate Health Committee, and our bill made it out of committee with
unanimous support (after some initially hairy hostility from one of the
committee members who is, interestingly, a medical doctor.)  It helped that
the chair of the Health commmittee chimed in at the last that she nursed her
5 kids!  And bless her, the president of The National Organization for Woman
(NOW) showed up to sign a comment card in support of this bill, really
making it seem like the bill has wide support amongst women. So now we are
on to the House hearings.

I thought Lactnetters might like to hear how this process works.  We have 5
people on our legislative committee.  Our chair is an attorney currently
home with her child, and the rest of us are learning about lobbying as we
go.  After going through this many campaigns to get legislation, it's no
where near as scary, and we are starting to feel pretty comfortable in the
halls of our state congress.   It takes surprisingly few people to influence
the political process.  I don't think we always see ourselves as capable of
taking on such big institutions, but the message is:  If we can do it, so
can you.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
LactNews Press
www.lactnews.com

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