Agendas, Public Policy

Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.1 Finding Emerging Legislation in State and Federal Jurisdictions Stephanie

Davis, Research Librarian, University of California, Irvine

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INFORMATION

In 1995, a team of librarians and technologists from the Library of Congress created THOMAS, under a

federal mandate from the 104th Congress to make federal legislative information freely available to the

public via the Internet. THOMAS, located at http:// thomas.loc.gov, is named for Thomas Jefferson and

provides access to many types of political and government information:

• Legislation: text of bills and information about those bills introduced into the House and Senate, text

of laws passed by Congress, record of how members of Congress vote on bills, motions, and more (roll

call votes)

• Congressional Record: an index to and full text of the official record of the speeches, remarks, issues,

and other happenings in Congress

• House and Senate Committee Information: membership, charges, schedules, text of hearings

• Senator/Representative Directories: links to homepages with contact information, constituency

information, profiles, legislative agendas; finding aids for locating a specific member by ZIP code and

state

• Other Congressional Internet Services: the Government Printing Office, the General Accounting Office,

the Congressional Budget Office, and others

• Links to guides on the legislative process in the House and Senate, database of historical documents,

and more

Your library may have access to a subscription database called Congressional Universe, which provides

much of the same information as THOMAS. Both are excellent resources for finding federal legislative

information.

STATE LEGISLATIVE INFORMATION

Finding state information is, in general, not as streamlined as finding federal information. States

generally do not have the same mandate to place their legislative information on the Internet. Often the

best way to find state information is to look for Web links on your state’s homepage to government,

legislature, agencies, elected officials, and state libraries or archives. You might also wish to explore

websites of the National Council of State Legislatures, at www.ncsl.org/, and the National Governors

Association, at www.nga.org/. These are excellent starting points.

eXerciSe

First, spend some time getting acquainted with THOMAS. Select a topic of interest to you, and search

for bills or laws on that topic (i.e., health care, welfare, children).

Next, using the search engines we discussed in Chapter One, find your state’s homepage, and then find

your state legislature’s website. If the website allows for searching introduced and passed legislation,

repeat the search you did in THOMAS.

• Compare the results of your searches—how are the bills or laws similar? Do they address the same or

similar problems? How is the state’s approach different from the federal, and vice versa?

• Who introduced or sponsored each piece of legislation? Find their homepage and compare their

legislative agendas.

• From your perspective, is the solution to the problem addressed in the legislation a good solution or a

poor solution? Critique each piece of legislation as if you were a member of the state legislature faced

with voting on that piece of legislation.

Were legislators to debate a large fraction of these proposals, they would work themselves to

exhaustion and not give careful attention to any of them. When many peo- ple with different

perspectives and constituencies are involved, it takes time and effort to consider even simple pieces of

legislation. In each chamber of Congress, for example, subcommittees consider the policies and forward

them for further debate and votes to the full legislative committee, which forwards them to the full

chamber for floor debates and votes. If each chamber enacts a different version, they may have to be

sent to a conference committee composed of members of both chambers, and then to the president.

Moreover, during this process, many legislators must spend endless hours with lobbyists and other

citizens. It is no wonder, then, that leaders of legislatures decide not to put most measures on the

legislative agenda, thus reserving their scarce time for those pieces of legislation they want to

concentrate on.

Legislators often avoid issues that appear to give them little or no political advantage in reelection, for

example, not selecting issues that will not help them obtain or retain con- stituents’ support. A

particular issue may seem too controversial or may antagonize an important faction or interest group,

even if it pleases other people. Yet legislators some- times do select issues that they realize will be

difficult to enact or controversial. So it is important not to assume that such issues cannot attract

attention from those legislators who may be willing to invest political capital on them, such as when

various presidents from both parties sought to enact national health insurance when they knew it would

be controversial.

Unlike agency executives who often want to avoid contentious issues that could dis- rupt their agency,

politicians are often attracted to issues associated with conflict if such issues can gain them support

among their constituents. For example, liberal politicians may deliberately support an issue to anger

conservatives and thus prove their ideological leanings to their liberal supporters. Legislators may

opportunistically select issues that will give them media exposure and a resultant advantage over their

opponents in an upcoming election battle. On other occasions, however, specific legislators decide not

to invest their limited time and resources in issues that stand little or no chance of success.

Agencies

Agency executives must manage organizations, raise funds, hire staff, adjudicate conflicts, and plan—

tasks that occupy most of their working hours. Executives also confront myriad policy issues, such as

deciding what kinds of clients to serve and which social problems fall within the purview of the agency,

naming overarching objectives or goals, developing policies and procedures within specific grant

proposals, deciding whether to be advocates for their clients in the broader community or in a

legislature, determining what kind of staff to hire, and developing policies and procedures to guide their

staff. Some of these pol- icies concern internal, procedural matters, while others concern the goals or

mission of the organization in its political and funding contexts.

In light of these many tasks, executives must ignore or defer many issues, even ones that seem

important to a staff member, a board member, or a client. Were executives to try to examine each issue

in considerable detail, they would become exhausted and frustrated.

Executives also ignore or defer certain issues because they would embroil the agency in conflict. Even

seemingly mundane issues such as changing an agency’s intake procedures may impassion people who

want the issue left alone. Often, they act only when they are convinced that an issue merits attention in

spite of possible political conflict and the time and effort it may take. Perhaps they like an existing policy

because it furthers their own interests, as when it facilitates a steady flow of certain kinds of clients to

their units. Often more than staff, executives take a strategic view of their agencies, wanting policies

that will give them a competitive advantage over other agencies. Policy advocates who can argue that a

specific policy innovation will help an agency increase its resources and clientele may attract more

support to it than if the policy is perceived as diminishing or having no effect on an agency’s ability to

survive.

Executives may like an existing policy or one that is proposed by a policy advocate for ideological

reasons. They may be committed, for instance, to serving a specific vulnerable population and be

unwilling to diminish services for it. Or they may be committed to a specific approach to serving a

specific population, believing it most effectively and effi- ciently meets their needs.

Policy advocates must develop a strategy to convince agency executives that their issues merit

attention. When policy advocates succeed in placing an issue on the agendas of exec- utives and agency

boards, they do not necessarily succeed in getting them to enact new policies or to accept policy

innovations, but at least the proposals have a better chance of success than if these executives and

boards develop little or no interest in the issue.

Communities

Agenda building also occurs in community settings as various issues vie for attention. Community

activists may introduce ideas to community groups, the media, city or town councils, school boards, and

other community influentials. These ideas could include blocking a freeway that will split the

community, expanding a school, securing approval for a community park, or opening a counseling

program for substance abusers. Activists may draw attention to a policy proposal by getting a story in

the mass media, holding a com- munity forum, or staging a protest. Or they may inject the issue into a

campaign for city council or school board elections, with the ultimate objective of persuading

community decision makers to prioritize it in their deliberations.

Elections

Policy advocates use their skills to get specific issues on decision makers’ agencies during political

elections. In the presidential primaries of 2016, advocates of greater equality in the United States

sensed they had a golden opportunity to place the topic, inequality, on the political agenda after it had

not been seriously considered by presidents or the Congress since the 1960s when the nation launched

a “War on Poverty.” Elections provide a favorable climate for introducing issues because the mass media

and social media “come alive” during campaigns of opposing parties. If advocates can find and energize

blocs of voters, like Senator Bernie Sanders in 2016 with respect to income inequality, they cannot only

publicize an issue but also extract promises from them to take action. We discuss their strategy in more

detail at the end of this chapter.

Three Challenges in Agenda Building Agenda building can be conceptualized as a funnel (see Figure 6.1).

We will discuss this agenda-building framework from the top down. Policy practitioners face three

challenges when considering specific reforms: they (or their allies) must diagnose the context as they

listen to others, soften or moderate the context, and activate change. The top funnel illustrates the

process that policy practitioners use to winnow a few issues from the multitude of issues that could be

presented for active consideration. At the top of the funnel are the context and the practitioner’s

diagnosing role. Just beneath these are the modified context and the policy practitioner’s softening or

moderating role. The numbers 1 through 10 just above the funnel represent the many potential issues

that exist in any setting.

After an issue is placed on the decision agenda, such as on to the agenda of a meeting or committee, it

enters policy deliberations wherein it is waylaid, defeated, or enacted. (See the bottom funnel in Figure

6.1.) This is a second winnowing process; fewer policies are actually enacted than were placed in the

decision agenda funnel as decision makers prior- itize only some of them.”

From Figure 6.1, we can tell the stage at which an issue is by asking several questions: Has the issue

been floated with little or no discussion? If so, it is in the original context or the modified context. Has

the issue been forwarded to a committee, a task force, or some other deliberative entity for further

discussion? If so, it is on the decision agenda. Have systematic deliberations begun? If so, it is in policy

deliberations. Has the issue been enacted by deci- sion makers? If so, it is positioned for implementation

at the bottom of the second funnel.

Policy advocates need to diagnose the context to identify contextual constraints and opportunities as

they listen to others. If they decide that specific policies will be extremely difficult to change, they must

do considerable work to change the context or to focus on alternative policy changes. When they decide

that the contextual opportunities far out- number constraints, they can initiate a policy-changing

strategy at once. In some cases, the prognosis will be guarded or unclear.

Having diagnosed the context, policy advocates must soften or moderate it; that is, they must make it

more amenable to a specific policy initiative. Even when the context appears bleak, they may discover

that engaging strategically placed persons will make the progno- sis more optimistic or will indicate that

their pessimistic forecast was unwarranted. Or they may work with a coalition or advocacy group to

pressure decision makers to take interest in a specific issue, such as by sending a delegation to them or

by getting the issue placed on the meeting of a city council or school board.

At some point, of course, policy advocates need to activate change. They need to get a community

decision maker or legislator to put an issue on the agenda of the other decision makers in the agency,

community, or legislative setting. The chairperson might place the issue on the agenda of an agency

committee or staff meeting. Perhaps a legislator drafts a piece of legislation and initiates a search for

cosponsors. Or maybe a state’s director of health and human services presents a detailed analysis of a

particular problem in the administration of his or her program.

Agenda building is, then, often a precursor to other policy-practice tasks, although in some cases policy

advocates may proceed with other tasks, such as developing a policy pro- posal, even before decision

makers have shown an interest in a specific issue. Even in this case, however, policy advocates must

return to agenda building to get the issue on decision makers’ agendas lest they find their issue stymied

for lack of interest by them. And if policy advocates have successfully softened or moderated the

context, they may make ultimate success in placing an issue on decision makers’ agendas more likely.

In our discussion of agenda building, I rely heavily on the pathbreaking work of polit- ical scientist John

Kingdon. Before Kingdon wrote his classic work, Agendas, Alterna- tives, and Public Policies, many

people had ignored the agenda-building task altogether, conveying the misleading impression that

policy reforms magically appear with no prior work by policy practitioners.3 Or they used simplistic

explanations. Some ratio- nalists assumed, for example, that decision makers placed issues on agendas

whenever they received technical reports or data that recommended a specific change. While this

assumption is sometimes true, issues are often placed on agendas without empirical studies—and

technical reports often gather dust in agency, community, and legislative settings. Indeed, legislators

and even agency executives sometimes retain policies that they know to be ineffective if they are

supported by powerful lobbyists or bring revenues to an agency.

Some incrementalists assumed that administrators and legislators often introduced modest changes in

existing policies in response to complaints or pressures, as when federal legislators expanded the Head

Start program to include children with phys- ical and mental disabilities in response to lobbying by

groups representing these chil- dren. While incremental change often takes place, Kingdon rightly

argues that decision makers, in both agency and legislative settings, often support major changes in

existing policy.4 Legislators sometimes seek a major overhaul of a program or the enactment of a major

social reform. Agencies sometimes launch new programs that diverge markedly from their existing

programs.

Another theorist developed the garbage can theory of agenda building. Emphasiz- ing organizations, he

noted that many ideas bubble up regarding problems (e.g., social problems, service delivery problems,

and administrative problems) and solutions (e.g., service delivery, program, or administrative

innovations).5 These problems or solu- tions may surface at staff or committee meetings, or at a retreat

of the executives and the board. Even when agency members and executives consider an issue

fleetingly, these problems and solutions often retain a place in their memories, remaining in a state of

limbo—a figurative garbage can—until they are placed on the agendas of decision makers at a later

point in time as they recall them. Similarly, we can say that myriad problems and solutions exist in the

“garbage cans” of legislatures. These prob- lems and solutions derive from such sources as lobbyists,

reform-minded legislators, think tanks, professional associations, and citizens. The garbage can theory

suggests a more fluid and dynamic process than the rationalist or incrementalist theorists, but it does

not discuss in sufficient detail how certain issues are activated or placed on policy agendas.

While we draw on Kingdon’s theory, we also modify it. We include more factors in the context than he

does, and we add the diagnosing (or listening), softening (or moderating), and activating stages because

they clarify the roles of policy advocates in bringing issues to the agenda.

As can be seen in Figure 6.1, agenda building is a precursor to actual deliberations. Agenda building

merely gets specific issues or policies on the table, to be followed by actual deliberations of decision

makers in agencies, legislatures, and governments. In this delib- erative process, some of the issues and

policies are also sifted out. Some are defeated. Some are cast aside. Some are tabled. What we have,

then, are two funnels that each winnow issues and policies. What is actually enacted or approved—a

small fraction of the issues and policies that began this trip at the top of the first funnel—comes out by

the bottom of the second funnel.

Even though many issues, problems, or solutions do not emerge from the bottoms of the funnels—or

only make it through one of them—it is important to realize that many policies do emerge from both

funnels, as is illustrated by the many policies that are enacted or approved by legislatures, communities,

and agencies.

The Diagnosing or Listening Stage

When diagnosing the context, policy advocates must analyze streams of problems and solutions, recent

professional decisions and trends, and political realities. Streams of Problems and Solutions When policy

advocates begin their work, they must carefully consider the kinds of problems and solutions that have

already been considered in a setting. Indeed, we can use Kingdon’s language, as he refers to problem

and solution “streams” in specific settings.

In many agencies, one needs to merely examine developments in the agency during, say, the last five

years to see whether a problem stream exists. Take the earlier example of a small agency that provides

job placement and career counseling services to women. The social worker who directs these services

also founded the agency. In the begin- ning, the agency had a relatively narrow set of services, consisting

mostly of posting job openings from area firms on a bulletin board and holding career-planning seminars

for women. In the 10 years since its founding, the staff, the executive director, and the members of the

board have identified problems that the agency could address. They initially discussed some of these

ideas in meetings or in personal conversations, but over time, many of the ideas have led to new

programs, funded grant proposals, and cooperative projects with other agencies. The agency has added

special job placement and career-planning services for Latinos, single teenage mothers, and displaced

home- makers; a job placement program for unemployed women funded by the federal Job Training

Partnership Act; and job fairs for high school women in a local school district. Each of these programs

stemmed from a problem that someone placed in the agency’s general problem stream in conversations

or meetings. Of course, many other problems have been discussed that never reached solution. For

example, the agency staff decided not to pursue a suggestion to provide a support group for

unemployed women with a mental health orientation, because they believed it fell outside their

mission, which emphasizes concrete services like job referral, job search, and career development

services.

A stream of problems exists in legislative settings, too. Policy practitioners interested in reforming the

child welfare system of a specific county, for example, would be likely to interview advocates and highly

placed officials to find out what kinds of problems concerning the child welfare system have already

been discussed. (See Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.2 for ways to search for legislative proposals that are

in the hopper.)

Similarly, a stream of solutions exists in agency, community, and legislative settings. In our women’s job

placement agency, the staff, the board, and the executive director have considered decentralizing

services, adopting a sliding-fee schedule, merging with a local YWCA, developing joint programs with a

community college, and developing a computer lab to help job seekers. In a specific county, the board of

supervisors and child welfare offi- cials may consider new management systems, new record-keeping

systems, partnerships with local schools, use of evidence-based practice, and different ways of

recruiting foster parents.

We can classify solutions into three broad groups. Some propose specific programs, such as

interventions to help children, single mothers, or older people. Others aim to correct institutional

problems, such as financing a program, changing an agency’s fee structure, or enhancing the

collaboration of different agencies in serving a specific client group. Still others propose methods of

making decisions, such as setting up a task force, establishing a committee, or organizing an interagency

planning committee.

We should place more emphasis on finding funding strategies for specific problems or proposals. Minus

resources, specific problems are not addressed and proposals are ineffec- tive. In the case of decreasing

inequality by proposing programs that increase resources of relatively poor people, policy advocates

have to identify resources that might fund these programs as part of their proposal.

Policy advocates rarely begin policy practice with a blank slate. By examining streams of problems and

solutions in specific settings, policy advocates discover where their issue fits into this larger picture.

They might discover, for example, that others have already intro- duced the issue, but that it failed to

progress because of budgetary implications. Or they might ght discover that their issue has never been

discussed, but that related issues were the subject of initial discussion several years ago. By piecing

together the history of streams of problems and solutions, policy advocates get a better sense of their

issue’s prognosis.

Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.2

Using the Mass Media to Discover Issues That Might Be Placed on Policy Agendas

Bruce Jansson, Ph.D.

Over a period of several weeks, collect stories in a local newspaper that suggest items, prob- lems, or

solutions that might be candidates for policy agendas in your jurisdiction. Group them under issues,

problems, and solutions. Also analyze which public officials, parties, high- level officials, or advocacy

groups might be candidates to champion them, and at what level of government or in the private sector.

Are persons and parties with different ideologies likely to approach the issues differently

Recent Professional Developments and Trends

Fads and trends can powerfully shape the prognosis of a policy reform. For example, partnerships and

collaborations between agencies became popular in the mid-1990s, partly because many professionals,

public offi- cials, and funders came to believe that their clients required more intensive and sophisti-

cated services than specific agencies could give. A policy reform encouraging collaboration would have

fared better in this environment than if it had been introduced a decade ear- lier, when less attention

was given to collaboration. More recently, evidence-based practice has been widely emphasized in

professional literature—making it more feasible for policy advocates to put forward policies that are

grounded in research, such as proposals for dif- ferent or new interventions in a specific agency. With

respect to inequality, for example, political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson discovered that so-

called blue states with relatively high investments in education, infrastructure, urban quality of life, and

human services are substantially improved with higher levels of education, longer life expectancy, and

lower levels of poverty than so-called red states with lower levels of these investments. These data

strongly support policies that reduce inequality. Fads and trends can be dis- cerned by examining

professional journals, conversing with professionals, and analyzing the kinds of innovations that funders

(such as foundations and government agencies) prioritize.

Problem and solution streams exist in a cultural context, whether in nations or in spe- cific settings.

“Problems” in one setting are not perceived to be problems in other settings. Americans are less likely to

view great discrepancies in wealth as a problem as compared with many Europeans. High levels of

conflict between staff may be viewed as problematic in one agency but not in another. Similarly, some

solutions, such as national health insur- ance, are widely accepted in European nations but not in the

United States. It is important, then, to be familiar with the culture of specific settings to better

understand the kinds of innovations that are relatively feasible in them, while also realizing that decision

makers sometimes make policy choices that are discrepant with these traditions.

Political Realities

Background political developments powerfully influence whether specific issues will be placed on policy

agendas, as our discussion of the big picture in Chapter Four suggests. Let’s start with legislative

settings. When working on a policy issue or reform, policy advocates need to consider the viewpoint of

important officials by find- ing out what position they have taken on similar issues or reforms in the

past. This consid- eration should include the following:

• The viewpoints of heads of government or chief executives

• The viewpoints of legislators, particularly those who have official positions (like major- ity speaker or

committee chairperson) or who have influential roles in specific caucuses such as a women’s caucus

• The viewpoints of the legislators from one’s own district because they often support proposals made

by their constituents

• The viewpoints of legislators who have assumed leadership on similar issues in the past, such as

legislators who have taken a personal interest in child welfare issues

• The viewpoints of key members of government bureaucracy, whether political appoin- tees or civil

servants, particularly those who oversee programs and policies relevant to the present issue

• The viewpoints of lobbyists or the heads of interest groups that are active on the issue or policy

• The viewpoints of the public as reflected in polls or in recently contested elections

• The extent to which a policy reform is likely to receive sympathetic coverage in the mass media as

reflected by media coverage of similar issues in the past

Read Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.3 for an example of how policy advocates capitalized on the

sympathetic viewpoints held by the Democratic majority in the House and Senate in 2008–2010 to pass

legislation to address homelessness. Policy advocates also need to consider court rulings that are

germane to their issue. With respect to homelessness, for example, court rulings have required some

local juris- dictions to provide shelters for homeless people. In agency settings, policy advocates must

consider a range of factors that shape the prognosis of a specific reform or issue, including the following:

• The extent to which a policy reform is consonant with the agency’s mission

• The state of the agency’s budget, whether it is running a deep deficit or is balanced

• The amount of interest that specific agency funders are likely to have in a specific issue or problem

• The viewpoints of the key agency officials, such as the director, top administrators, or members of the

board of directors, and the directors of important agency programs, as surmised from their position in

previous years on similar issues

• The viewpoints of the agency officials or staff who are likely to be most impacted by a reform or issue

• The viewpoints of union leaders (if staff are unionized)

• The likely effects of a specific reform on an agency’s clientele

• The likely position of the agency’s accrediting bodies

In community settings, policy advocates must consider the following: • The viewpoints of key

community leaders • Local public opinion • The perspectives of the local media

Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.3

Combating Homelessness Through Policy Advocacy at the Federal Level

Gretchen Heidemann, MSW, Ph.D

Policy advocates at the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) saw a silver lining in the economic

recession that began in 2007, which wreaked havoc in the lives of thousands of Americans who lost their

jobs and their homes. Advocates saw a unique opportunity to bring the issue of homelessness to the

forefront, pushing it onto the policy agenda of Congress and the Obama administration, and

accomplishing significant gains.

With a Democratic-controlled Senate and House of Representatives, these advocates were met with

sympathetic ears when they came to the table to share the results of a study they had conducted:

“Foreclosures to Homelessness: The Forgotten Victims of the Sub- prime Crisis.” Their efforts in

Congress resulted in the passage of S. 896—Protections for Tenants in Foreclosed Properties—that was

signed by President Obama on May 20, 2009. This bill includes a nationwide 90-day pre-eviction notice

requirement for tenants in fore- closed properties. This provision will prevent countless renters from

being forced into homelessness.

In addition, the NCH, along with other national homeless advocacy organizations, pro- vided comments

to the Obama administration that led to $1.5 billion of federal stimulus going to the Homeless

Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP). The $1.5 billion in HPRP funding was distributed

throughout the nation to homeless prevention and assis- tance programs, making it the largest

investment in homeless prevention and eradication in history.

Finally, NCH and the National Low Income Housing Coalition are working to capitalize the National

Housing Trust Fund, which was established as a provision of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of

2008. The housing trust fund is a permanent program not sub- ject to the annual appropriations process.

Once capitalized, it will provide communities with funds to build, preserve, and rehabilitate rental

homes that are affordable for very low-income households.

When considering the prognosis of policy changes in any setting, several factors often suggest when

specific policy innovations will be relatively difficult to achieve:

• The sheer magnitude of a policy change: Large changes are often more difficult to obtain than more

modest changes.

• Whether an issue is already politicized: If the issue has already excited consider- able political conflict,

it is likely to be associated with political conflict when it is reintroduced.

• Whether persons with considerable power believe that specific policy changes will harm their

economic, professional, or political self-interest: If they have this negative orientation, policy reform will

be more difficult.

• Whether a specific reform will be expensive or difficult to implement: Policies that pres- ent logistical

or funding problems are often opposed by agency executives.

When engaging in diagnostic work, policy advocates should not prematurely abandon an issue when

they believe it has a negative prognosis. Reforms that will help powerless or oppressed populations, for

example, often encounter opposition. Had Martin Luther King, Jr., abandoned the civil rights movement

in the 1950s because of its poor prognosis, the subsequent enactment of civil rights legislation in the

United States would have been significantly delayed.

The Softening or Moderating Stage

Policy advocates can sometimes attempt to improve the prognosis of a policy reform even before it

enters policy deliberations by working in problem and solution streams and by building political support.

Working in Problem and Solution Streams

As Kingdon suggests, those who want deci- sion makers to take their problem seriously have to convince

them that it is a problem and not merely a condition.7 Unlike a condition, a problem poses a threat or

danger to someone, whether a group in the population, an agency, or politicians. When a condition is

perceived as a problem, legislators, agency officials, and others are more likely to view it as important—

and believe that someone (or they themselves) will suffer dire consequences if it is not addressed. If

agency executives believe that their agency will suffer important con- sequences if they do not support a

reform, such as loss of resources or clientele, they will be more likely to support it. If proponents of

measures to end homelessness can persuade public officials in a specific jurisdiction that they will save

resources by helping homeless persons find affordable housing and jobs—such as by cutting welfare

costs and the use of emergency rooms—they increase the odds that they will support reforms.

Advocates of policies to reduce inequality in the presidential elections of 2016 contended that excessive

inequality spawns an array of social problems such as poverty, homelessness, poor health, and

depression, as well as alienation of large segments of the population who view them- selves as out of

the economic mainstream.

But how do we as policy advocates convince other people that certain conditions are problems? We can

use data to argue that a condition is serious by virtue of absolute num- bers involved, that some subset

of the population is afflicted far more than other portions of the population, or that the problem is

steadily worsening.8 Absolute numbers, such as EP 7a the percentage of women with inadequate or no

child care, can shock decision makers into believing that a condition is a problem. Someone with data

indicating that Latinos lack adequate child care in far greater numbers than white women may be able

to use these data to persuade legislators to fund day care for Spanish-speaking children. Data showing

that a problem is worsening may convince legislators that it will reach crisis proportions without

governmental intervention.

EP 3a Advocates for corrective action often use words such as crisis to describe a condi- tion. Because

this word is overused, the advocate needs some evidence or rationale for its use. Take, for example, the

dramatic spread of tuberculosis in the United States in the 1990s, which particularly affected AIDS

patients and immigrants. When drug- resistant strains of the disease spread because many persons

failed to take the prescribed medications long enough, advocates of greater funding for tuberculosis

programs were able to convince federal, state, and local officials to prioritize funding for public health

programs.

Policy advocates also need to demonstrate that a problem is not hopeless and can be ameliorated. For

example, advocates have often found it difficult to secure support for inner cities, the underclass, and

people who are homeless, because many legislators see these problems as unsolvable, in contrast to

simpler ones. Advocates can buttress their cases by citing research or finding successful projects that

demonstrate that specific reforms could well yield positive outcomes. As one example, Senator Bernie

Sanders and other advocates of equality in the presidential elections of 2016 contended that increases

of the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour from $7.25 per hour over a number of years would greatly

augment the resources of millions of Americans without inducing employers to lay off many employees.

In addition, policy advocates can appeal to values such as the ethical principles of beneficence, social

justice, and fairness by arguing that society (or a legislature) has a duty to address an issue. They can use

value-based arguments, and they can illustrate them with specific case studies of persons who suffer

from problems. Advocates of equality used the ethical norms of “fairness” and “equity” in 2016 to

buttress their case for policies that would give working families “a fair shake.”

Because politicians often consider the effect of corrective action on their careers, advocates often try to

state problems in relatively broad terms. They may stress the absence of child care for working women,

the increased incidence of Alzheimer’s disease among all social classes and races, or inadequate sex

education in American schools. By presenting problems in general terms, advocates increase the

likelihood that more politicians will see the problem as important to significant segments of their

constituencies.9

Terminology is important when describing problems. For example, some policy advo- cates may refer to

a social program as “investing” in human needs rather than merely “spending” resources. Legislators

and citizens are more likely to respond to the word investing because it suggests that society will receive

a return on its expenditure of funds. Data developed by political scientists Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson

demonstrated that public investments in states not only reduce inequality but also reduce levels of

many social problems including increasing student graduation rates from secondary schools, improving

health outcomes, and decreasing levels of poverty. Social scientists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett

have demonstrated that industrialized nations with lower lev- els of inequality have lower rates of

homelessness, mental illness, poverty, crime, teenage pregnancy, and dropping out of secondary

schools. Nomenclature can also take advan- tage of socially acceptable symbols.10 The Obama

Administration named its major health reforms The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010

to underscore how it would protect health consumers from health insurance companies and from lack

of health insurance.11 The legislation succeeded in providing health insurance to 20 million people by

2016 who had lacked it in 2010 although President Trump vowed to repeal it during his presidency in

2017.

Policy Advocacy Challenge 6.4

Framing Issues to Attract Support for Policy Reforms

Bob Erlenbusch, Ph.D.

Go to www.cengage.com to watch this video clip. Policy advocates often have to ponder how to “frame”

issues so that other persons are more likely to take them seriously. They have to decide what symbols,

words, values, and proposed outcomes will compel other persons to take note of them. Listen to the

video in this policy advocacy challenge, in which Bob Erlenbusch, Executive Director of the Sacramento

Regional Coalition to End Homelessness, discusses how he is trying to make homelessness an issue that

persons who own their own homes can understand.