Speaking to CA legislature at a public hearing about the two anti-homeschooling bills.
In early 2018 I helped defeat two, major anti-homeschooling bills, introduced in the California State Assembly. What an empowering experience that was.
When I first heard about the two bills, AB 2756 and AB 2926, and the child abuse case that inspired them, the Turpin case, I felt horrified and scared. I felt horrified about the facts of the case. And, as a homeschooling parent myself, I felt scared about being unfairly judged by legislators and the public, based on the utterly non-representative, misleading nature of the case. This led to a related fear that our family’s amazing homeschooling life might be taken away.
At first I just wanted to bury my head in the sand and hope it all would go away. But it didn’t. Not only did the case and the bills persist, but members of my homeschooling group soon notified me that:
- I was the only active member of our group who had an Assembly member on the relevant committee; and
- It was therefore critical that I try to schedule a meeting with him.
At first I felt fearful about the idea. After all, I had never even been to the legislative offices area of the state capitol, let alone met with a legislator.
And boy was I right. Not only did I love it, but I was good at it, according to a number of onlookers, including the president of the Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA). He and I discussed what I was doing at nearly every turn. And he could not have been more encouraging and complementary about my legal and lobbying skills, to the point of even suggesting I considering applying to work as an attorney for HSLDA.
But after giving myself some time to relax and think about it, I realized this might be a perfect opportunity for me to try something new in my political activism – something I might be quite skilled at, given my legal and public speaking skills. I might even want to do more of it going forward.
Here’s a sampling of my lobbying efforts:
- I had a chance, one-on-one meeting with my Assembly member himself, which I took full advantage of;
- I had a one-on-one meeting with my Assembly member’s aide;
- I researched, drafted and sent a legal-brief-like letter to the Education Committee and its members;
- I sent numerous, substantive, follow-up emails to this letter;
- I placed countless calls to Assembly members; and
- I spoke briefly at a public hearing on the bills.
It all went so well. And, to top it all off, we won! We defeated both bills!
And what an unprecedentedly uplifting, empowering, confidence-building experience it was! It left me with a whole new sense of possibility, regarding how I could contribute to causes I believed in. Maybe I could become a public interest lobbyist. Or maybe I could help bring cases challenging laws on the basis of other constitutional violations, cases that could change the law fundamentally.
Fast forward to today, and this is just the kind of work I’m focused on. More specifically, I am researching how I collaborate with others to try to get changes made to some of the home occupation code sections for the city where I live, Sacramento, California. I could even see pushing for statewide legislation along similar lines. I would like to big changes. But, at the very least, I’d like to see home occupation codes loosen their limits on home business square footage, number of home businesses and number of resident-participants. Such limitations are particularly injurious to low-income and minority families, which are more likely to have large numbers of economically disadvantaged people living in relatively small dwellings. And there are less injurious ways of protecting neighborhoods from feared business-related nuisances. This fact gives me extra motivation to pursue the work ahead. I’m at just the beginning of this project. So stay tuned for details and updates.
By Tiffany Clark, an activist attorney, public interest lobbyist, public speaker, researcher and author, working to protect families and help the whole world live more like family. Tiffany lives and works in Sacramento, CA, with her husband, two sons and their pets. You can find out more about Tiffany, her activities, and her offerings, as well as read more of her writing at www.tiffanyclarklaw.com.
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