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Comment by bombcar | Hacker News Reader

"Doing policymaker's work for them" is something like 80% of lobbying.

If you have something you want done in your town, and you come with the work done AND not asking for funding, you're likely to get it.

If you come with the work done and a PLAN for getting the funding, you also have a good chance of success.

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Unfortunately, most of the political changes that I want to see go against some special interest. Examples include liberalizing professional licensing, reducing medical paternalism, and streamlining the litigation system. I can think of a zillion ways to do this, but every one of them cuts out some toll booth with concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, and our political system is not capable of dealing with such things in a reasonable way.

I am very open to be told strategies to fight this more effectively without becoming a full time career activist for years on end for one issue at a time.

The OP is saying, if you show up with a bill to fix one of these problems, in a scoped way — like, actual working text they can put to a vote, not a general ideal of what to do — and can explain exactly what you're trying to solve, you have a decent chance of them putting it on the floor.

Just in general saying "please fix professional licensing" isn't actionable, you aren't doing the work for them. You're asking them to turn a vague idea into law, when it wasn't their problem to start with.

I think the challenge is that when such things get to the floor, you find out that special interests kick in with ad campaigns or backroom deals.

Have you tried?

I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but probably 80% of the value of lobbying comes from just showing up and talking to the representative. You won't know what works, unless you do the same.

Well, I wouldn't even expect to be able to have access to any platform to be taken seriously enough even if I had such a bill. For example, most professional licensing is at the state level, so it requires a state legislature vote. I've already spoken to both of the state representatives' offices for my area, and they give me a hard wall of they won't even talk to me about it in any detail unless I come back with a huge number of people demanding the same. And, I can't get that because of concentrated benefits and diffuse costs — very few people will both care enough to show up, and be on the side that is not the special interest with concentrated benefits (i.e., current license holders).

This works at the office too.

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