Public Policy Must Meet The Needs Of The People

Photo by Photographs by Lucas Gouvea, Julian Myles, Juan Manuel Merino and Oladimeji Odunsi. Originally published in AphroChic magazine Issue 9, Summer 2022.

“Strategy. Action. Walk into who you claim to be and lead.” Jill Scott’s reading of her poem, Agitation Definition #3 at the nationally televised, Juneteenth: A Global Celebration, was an urgent call to action. A rebuke of America’s so-called leaders — political and cultural — who seem to be failing us at every turn. She was demanding that those in a position to lead, do so. The fiery poem, ending with Scott’s defiant scream, “LEAD!”, evoked remembrances of Fannie Lou Hamer’s emphatic rallying cry, “We are sick and tired of being sick and tired!” Half a desperate plea and half a revolutionary command, the moment captured perfectly the emotions of a nation that genuinely wants to be better than it is, yet feels itself edging ever closer to something terrible.

The Call to Lead

In a nation where the citizenry is continuing to grow more and more weary around lack of action about the things that matter, Scott and Hamer’s refrains echo down a long chamber of history. Questions of slavery, suffrage and civil rights have evolved into the current issues of gun control, law enforcement reform, the right to bodily autonomy, our right to vote, and so much more. Though the majority of Americans agree on wanting more progressive approaches to many of these issues, we are often made to feel like we are yelling into the abyss. Like Scott, we demand that our members of Congress lead, but these calls are going unanswered. Every day it seems harder and harder to get the leadership in our nation to do anything that will change things for the better.

Often, when faced with the question of leadership, our attention naturally goes to the federal government. At that level, there are many clear reasons that change is not occurring: the filibuster has made the Senate an almost completely inactive part of the legislative branch; the Biden Administration lags behind in the progress that many Americans voted for; and today’s Supreme Court—a rolling catastrophe of blatantly partisan and logically contradictory rulings — is the most actively conservative that our nation has had since the 1950s. But our government takes place on many levels, from the three federal branches at the top all the way down to state legislatures, city councils and school boards. At stake for all of them, is the question of public policy.

It Is What It Is. Isn’t It?

Public policy is the part of government that most directly affects the day-to-day lives of the people. It’s not only an integral part of our democracy, it literally defines our way of life and guides many of the most important aspects of our society: your access to medical care, its cost and your right to specific procedures; the workings of public utilities and availability of public transportation in your community; the presence or absence of domestic violence and sexual assault prevention programs in your community; the minimum wage you can earn; who can vote — when, where and how; even the books your children read in school — all of these things are guided by public policy. As a result, a lot of the things we look at as, “just the way things are,” are actually the result of specific policies. Public policy is with us each and every day, determining what we can and can’t access, can and can’t do, and how we should or shouldn’t behave in our society. In a healthy political system, democratically elected officials are attentive to the needs of their people and create public policy to shape the actions of government in response to those needs. In an unhealthy system, the relationship between elected officials and the people is broken or distorted and public policy becomes something else.

As recently as 2020, scholars such as Antonio Lassance and Sara Rinfreft have defined public policy technically as “an institutionalized proposal to solve relevant and real-world problems, guided by a conception and implemented by programs as a course of action created[...] typically by a government or nonprofit organization, in response to social issues.” However, much of what is currently being called public policy does not fit that definition. Instead of responding to social issues, many of the policies currently being introduced by governors, school board leaders and members of Congress are guided by political, corporate and cultural agendas fostered by special interest groups like the National Rifle Association, wealthy donors like the Koch Brothers and conservative think tanks like The Heritage Foundation.

These groups have focused their energies on putting forth socially prescriptive conservative legislation including anti-trans bills, forced-pregnancy legislation, and laws that would limit education by banning inclusive histories and diverse books. These bills do not originate from or respond to any social need and many are in direct contravention to public opinion. Instead, they are an attempt to dictate the shape of American society, restricting the promises of this nation to a few, while disenfranchising most. While these initiatives sometimes hide behind a veneer of strict constitutional interpretation, increasingly they are naked grabs at control with no veneer at all. When legislators ignore the will of the people in favor of individuals and groups with wealth-based access and bills are focused on establishing a tightly controlled way of life around a restrictive ideology rather than the realities of public need, public policy becomes social engineering.

Learning on the Job

In theory, it’s easy to blur the distinction between public policy and social engineering. After all, both are interpretations of power relationships between government and the people, resulting in action that directly affects — even determines — the outcomes of people’s lives. Put into practice however, the difference (in general) is clear: public policy frees people to live the lives they want, while social engineering restricts them into lives determined by someone else. I learned the difference, and the power of public policy while working as a policy attorney for one of California’s top non-profit organizations.

Focusing on domestic violence and sexual assault prevention, I worked on bills with the Obama Administration, projects with a young San Francisco District Attorney who is now our Vice President, worked on improving signature legislation introduced by our current president, and was tasked with developing solutions to help address social issues on both the federal and state level. My job was to do exactly what Lassance and Rinfreft stated — look at the problem and develop policy to address people’s needs. But my approach to policy had been shaped even earlier.

While attending law school in Washington DC, I interned at a women’s organization that provided direct services to victims of domestic violence. The organization had lawyers on staff working with families in need. On any given day, we helped women and their children escape violent situations, get into shelters, file restraining orders, and anything else they needed.

One woman who I’ve never forgotten had three children and was working to escape her abusive husband. Every time she came to the office, she carried a purse so big it visibly weighed her down. In place of the things people typically assume fill a woman’s purse, hers carried files. There was one for her herself and one for each of her children holding birth certificates, medical histories, social security cards, and a host of other documents. That purse held all of their lives on paper, her way of being prepared for the day she needed to escape with her little ones in the night. And she never let it leave her side.

The image of that mother and that huge, weighted bag stayed with me throughout my career in public policy. When I worked on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, I kept her story in my mind every day. It was my goal to write public policy that would make it easier for that mother and anyone else facing such horrific violence to access the services they needed to get to safety. I thought about how the legislation I was helping to write could literally take the load off of victims of violence who had to carry so much to survive. My job was to write good public policy to respond to her needs and the needs of her children.

Electing a Healthier Society

A healthy democracy has good public policy. Good public policies begin with elected officials understanding and responding to the needs of people. The community, therefore, is the most crucial element in shaping policy and determining the overall health of our democracy, beginning with the elections that decide who our officials are. So it is vital that we, the people, recognize the importance of public policy and accept the responsibility of our roles in creating it. We must elect responsive, community-focused lawmakers and continually hold them accountable for their actions and inactions, because a return to community-based public policy is a vital step in shaping America’s future for the good. Fortunately, it’s a trail that’s already being blazed.

Community-based public policy approaches have already been successfully adopted in public health and policing in cities, states and other countries. The University of Toronto Dalla Lana School of Public Health has a specific program on community-based approaches. Their community development program “addresses the economic, social, and physical well-being of communities. The process requires skills in education, planning, policy, organizing, and political action.” This cross-disciplinary, people-centered approach is a way of looking at how to assist communities by responding to a variety of needs including social policy, health and education all at once. Such an approach is becoming ever more important as our society deals with a web of complex issues, like racism, climate change, global pandemics and our current gun violence epidemic. And such approaches can go from outliers to the norm with deeper citizen engagement.

LEAD!

Like Fannie Lou Hamer before her, Jill Scott, in a moment and a word, laid at the feet of our nation’s lawmakers the full weight of our frustration, our hopes and our demands. But that word was not for the lawmakers alone. While there are three branches of government in the United States, they are all beholden to the citizenry, and it is critical that the citizenry participate in developing better policies that respond to our needs. It’s never been more important that each of us get engaged and thankfully, it’s never been easier to become an engaged citizen. Through social media and new technologies all it takes is an instant to take action on the issues that are important to you — issues that need you to be in the fight for the long haul. Here are some ways that you can get involved in shaping public policy in your community:

1. Stay Informed. An informed citizenry is an important part of a functioning democracy. Staying informed on the issues that matter to you is as easy as signing up for text messages from some of your favorite nonprofit organizations. They’ll let you know about upcoming legislation, issues or activism activities that you can get engaged in.

2. Meet. Citizens can’t rely on representatives to lead without their involvement. We have a role in ensuring that representatives do their job and holding them accountable for the jobs that they do. Meeting with your local, state and federal representatives is a great way to inform them about community needs and hold them accountable. You can plan a meeting via a citizen’s group, a non-profit or simply call and schedule an appointment with your representative’s office. It important to remember that council members and representatives are not celebrities, aristocrats or lords. They work for you and you have a right to meet with them.

3. Call. Calling your local, state and federal leaders is also a good way to communicate if you’d like them to support specific legislation. It’s simple. Call their local office, leave a voicemail or speak to a staff member letting them know you are a constituent. Provide your name, your zip code and let them know the issue that you’re calling about. Offices have to document calls from constituents and it’s a great way for leaders to gauge what issues their constituents care about.

4. Volunteer. An active citizenry is also an important part of a democracy. You can volunteer to make calls on election day, volunteer as a poll worker, and volunteer to register people to vote in your community. Dedicating even just a few volunteers hours every year can be a huge help. And if you don’t have the time, look into donating to help support the work being done on the ground.

5. Rally. Protest works! Host a rally, participate in a march, take the to the streets and help amplify the issues that are important to you. Protest is an important way for citizens to raise their voices in a very visible way. Whether it’s a small group or millions of people, protest makes it hard for elected officials to look away and it raises the public consciousness and awareness around an issue.

6. Stay Committed. This is a difficult time. But times just like it can be found all throughout this nation’s history. Each time things improved it was because of people who believed in the promise of America and who urged us forward. Elections will go wrong, rulings won’t always go our way and social engineering agendas and the people behind them will never stop trying to bend things into the way they think they should be. But the only thing between us and their vision of American society — is us. So let every setback be a call for more engagement, because it’s only over when we give up.

If you’re just getting started, here’s our list of organizations, many Black-founded, that will keep you informed about important public policy, legislative activities and that also have ways for you and your family to volunteer and get involved:

When We All Vote. Founded by Michelle Obama, When We All Vote is a leading national and nonpartisan initiative to change the culture around voting and increase participation across race and age. whenweallvote.org

Color of Change. A progressive nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization focused on strengthening the political voice of African Americans. colorofchange.org

ACLU. The American Civil Liberties Union is a nonprofit organization founded in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individ- ual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States”. aclu.org

NAACP. The NAACP works to disrupt inequality, dismantle racism, and acceler- ate change in key areas including criminal justice, health care, education, climate, and the economy. naacp.org

Jeanine Hays worked in public policy for over a decade. She developed the Know More campaign, a national domestic violence and sexual assault prevention campaign for college students and drafted key areas of the federal Violence Against Women Act focused on the prevention of violence against women and sexual assault on college campuses.