Public policy and the room where it happens.

Policy expert and climate scientist Anna Farro Henderson explores how science is done, discussed, legislated, and imagined in her new book, Core Samples: A Climate Scientist’s Experiments in Politics and Motherhood. Grounded in her experience as an environmental policy advisor to Minnesota Senator Al Franken and Governor Mark Dayton, Henderson brings readers behind the closed doors of discovery and debate—and illuminates the messy, contradictory humanity of our scientific and political institutions. Here, Henderson is joined in conversation with Tenzin Dolkar and Roberta Downing on getting your voice heard in politics.

Anna Farro Henderson is an award-winning writer, PhD scientist, and environmental policy expert. She is a fellow at the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota, teaches at the Loft Literary Center, and works in climate advocacy. She lives with her family in St. Paul, where she makes daily visits to the Mississippi River.

Tenzin Dolkar has more than 15 years of experience in policy development, advocacy, community organizing, and management with state and local governments. Dolkar is a council member on the Metropolitan Council, and has previously served as the State of Minnesota’s Rail Director and as a policy advisor on transportation, agriculture, and rural issues for Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton.

Roberta Downing is a public policy professional with more than 20 years of experience. Downing held a congressional fellowship administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science and served on the US Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions under Senator Edward M. Kennedy; has held several academic and policy-focused positions, including for the offices of US Senator Sherrod Brown and DC Mayor Muriel E. Bowser; and is principal and co-founder of Harper Downing LLC, a Minnesota-based government affairs consulting firm.

Praise for the book:

“Honest and immersive, this book offers a behind-the-scenes look at how culture (and who crafts it) shapes everything from the sediment the narrator studies to the policies that define climate action today.”

—Elizabeth Rush, author of The Quickening

“Anna Farro Henderson’s deep encounters with Big Science and Big Bureaucracy will help you understand why progress on matters of life and death can be so maddeningly slow; her encounters with herself may help you figure out how to live your own life.”

—Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

“With fierce intelligence and wild exuberance, Anna Farro Henderson throws herself headlong into the biggest challenges of our time: how to love fully, create abundantly, and stop the ruin of the precious ecosystems that sustain us.”

—Lia Purpura, author of All the Fierce Tethers

“Some books are so good I want to shout about them to the rooftops. Core Samples is one of those.”

—Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News

Core Samples: A Climate Scientist’s Experiments in Politics and Motherhood by Anna Farro Henderson is available from University of Minnesota Press.

Episode Transcript

Anna Farro Henderson (00:05):
Packing for an overnight at the state
capitol. No one likes conflict,but with the smack of a fist and
a million particles of brilliantlight. However, tonight, I'm
taking the punches. The letterfrom the house and senate chairs
of the agriculture committees isa direct threat to the
governor's water agenda, a bluntwhack to the nose. I haven't
been home for dinner in days,and I can't remember what it

(00:26):
feels like to help my boys intotheir pajamas.
I'm tired and mad and for amoment frozen in place. It's
Friday, well past the bid maysunset. My life has been reduced
to a countdown to the end of thetwenty eighteen legislative
session, Sunday at midnight.Firm in my commitment to leave
politics and write, I'm seeingthe last legislative session of

(00:47):
the administration through. Ijump up and look into the
hallway of quarter sawn oakdoors.
Realizing I'm barefoot, I grabheels from my bottom desk
drawer. The door cracks open.Tenzin's long black hair and
heart shaped face. She pulls mein. When we look back, won't it
be obvious this was anotherFlint?
I say. We shouldn't negotiate.She winds her arms into the thin

(01:10):
wool of her white shawl. Ismile, relieved that at least
she and I won't be battling eachother. Tanton grew up as a
Tibetan refugee in India whereher well ran dry in summer.
I don't have to convince herthat safe drinking water is a
choice we make over and over.When she immigrated during high
school, I was finishing college.I admire her political
instincts, and though she isyounger, she mentors me. In our

(01:33):
jobs advising the governor, ourpeers are our best mentors. We
can't trust the motives ofanyone else.
Their constituents don't believedrinking fertilizer can kill
babies? I ask. While thegovernor's signature buffer law
protects lakes and rivers, itdoesn't prevent contamination of
the groundwater we drink. Itisn't about that, Tenzin shakes
her head. I notice the bigcircles under her eyes.

(01:55):
I wonder if I look as worn outas she does, maybe worse. That
was an excerpt from my book,Core Samples, a climate
scientist's experiments inpolitics and motherhood.
Confrontation, negotiations, andgut bunches are all part of
political offices, but we willget back to that after I
introduce myself and the expertsI'm in conversation with today.

(02:17):
In today's podcast, we're gonnafocus on how one gets their
voice heard in politics. I'll bespeaking with policy experts
doctor Roberta Downing andTenzin Dulcar.
We will talk about ourexperiences working inside
political offices, and then wewill talk about our experiences
working outside politicaloffices. We'll get into issues
around work life balance, all ofus are raising children, and we

(02:38):
will end with concrete advicefor how to get your voice heard.
This is my first book and I'mreally excited. I'll be doing a
book tour traveling around thecountry to bookstores,
universities, and even a spiceshop. More locally, I have a
grant to do a book tour of ruralMinnesota with a community book
writing project at locallibraries.

(02:59):
I wrote core samples in part inthe hopes of bringing science
and politics together and makingthem more accessible. The
institutions of science andpolitics literally belong to us
all, but it doesn't always feellike they do. I'm hoping this
podcast episode will make yourstate capital and our national
capital feel more approachable.My background is in earth

(03:20):
sciences. I got my PhD in02/2010 reconstructing periods
of climate warming in thegeologic record.
During a postdoctoralfellowship, I decided to leave
academics. I first served as anadvisor to senator Al Franken in
DC. Then I returned to Minnesotawhere I led the state's second
climate plan before serving as awater advisor to governor Mark

(03:41):
Dayton, where I oversawimplementation of the state's
buffer law, a new regulation onfarmers to protect water. I was
always a writer, but I didn'tstart publishing my literary
work until I left academics. Myurgency to write only increased
when I became a mother.
At that time, I used the penname E. A. Farrow. I'm now
publishing under my name, AnnaHenderson, though I've hung on

(04:05):
to the Farrow as a middle name.So next, I wanna introduce the
policy experts who are here withme today.
So you might have heardreference to Tenson Dolcar in
the excerpt at the start of thispodcast. She and I served as
advisors together for Minnesotagovernor Dayton. She was the
rail director and coveredtransportation, agriculture, and
rural issues, which meant ourwork overlapped a lot. Even when

(04:28):
it was stressful working at theCapitol, I always found Dulcar
grounded and clairvoyant, as ina really great leader. She also
serves as a council member onthe Metropolitan Council, which
is the regional governing agencyat Minnesota.
Dulkar served as a climateadvisor to the city of
Minneapolis through a NaturalResource Defense Council
partnership with BloombergPhilanthropies American Cities

(04:49):
Climate Challenge. Dulkar holdsa master's degree in social work
from the University of Minnesotaand a bachelor's degree in
international studies from theUniversity of St. Thomas. Next,
I want to introduce Doctor.Roberta Downey.
While Roberta is not a characterin core samples, she and I had
similar paths to policy. We bothstarted as academic researchers

(05:10):
and left that work to go toCongress. While my background is
in Earth Science, Roberta's isin social psychology. But we
both made our way to CapitolHill through a fellowship from
the American Association for theAdvancement of Science. Roberta
served as a US Senate Committeeon Health, Education, Labor, and
Pensions under Senator Edward mKennedy.

(05:32):
She is now a principal andfounder at Harper Downing, a
Minnesota based governmentaffairs firm specializing in
public policy, congressionalappropriations, and strategic
engagement for businesses,nonprofits, and universities.
Since leaving her academicposition at John Hopkins, she
has worked for the FederalReserve Bank, the state of
Minnesota, for DC Mayor MurielBowser, and senator Sherrod

(05:54):
Brown of Ohio. So I wanted tostart out today's conversation
with a question for both of youabout how none of us started in
politics, And I'd love for youto share a little bit about why
you left the path you are on togo work in a political office.

Roberta Downing (06:11):
So this is so interesting, Anna. Like you, I
also left academics during apostdoctoral fellowship. For me,
the key reason why was while Ireally appreciate all the work
that's done in academia, theeducation of future generations,
and the ability to make animpact on individuals' lives, I

(06:35):
also felt frustrated by the pacein which you could make a
difference. I would publish apaper and I would often think,
how many people will even haveaccess to this writing? How many
people will ever even read it?
Versus when you're working inpublic policy, you can make a
change that could affectmillions of people. I really

(06:57):
wanted to put my energy andpassion towards making as big of
a change as I could. I startedmy career working in the AIDS
community in the early 1990swhen the pandemic was very
different then and people weredying in large numbers still. I
really saw how federal policieswere impacting individuals with

(07:18):
very serious health conditionsand saw how the interventions
that we were doing at acommunity level weren't enough,
that there needed to be morelarge scale change. Seeing how
policy was written, learningabout it was really, really
important for understanding howI can make as big an impact as

(07:38):
possible in my work.

Anna Farro Henderson (07:40):
So just a follow-up question, like, did
you find policy work exciting?

Roberta Downing (07:45):
Oh, it's wildly exciting. I listened to the news
differently. I understood whatwas happening at the federal
level in our country. Iunderstood it differently. You
had the leaders of the countryin meetings with you, you know,
with the senator and got to talkto them directly and got to see

(08:05):
them as real people.
I found it exciting andintellectually engaging and
really loved it.

Anna Farro Henderson (08:13):
Thank you. Zulkhard.

Tenzin Dolkar (08:15):
So I think I'm the perfect model for when we
say you can stop from notknowing something to really
being brilliant at something.That's been my sort of journey
and interest in public policy.And this is your typical
immigrant story. Like, you comeinto a country, and we, as
siblings, all immigratedtogether. And what that meant is

(08:36):
you really had to figure out thecontext of where you're living.
Like, what does that societylook like? What does the rules
of engagement look like? How doyou succeed? How do you
assimilate into the country?What that meant is really early
on, I realized and recognizedthe value of government and the
value of policymaking.
Because everything from whattype of services individuals

(08:59):
were getting to what type ofcommunities people were living
to, what type of school you wentto, and how the school was
funded, everything was designedaround policy. Very early on, I
had the fortune of working withthe League of Women Voters of
Saint Paul, participated intheir leadership program, really
stayed active in it, and thattaught me both at the same time

(09:20):
organizing skill as well aslearning the differences in how
government function to whatpolicy creation look like. And
then further back, there were acouple of different things that
really kind of pulled me towardspolicy making versus the work
that I was doing on the groundworking in homeless shelter or
working in domestic violenceshelters. I was working with

(09:41):
individuals and families andtrying to make a difference one
at a time, but very soon, yourun into situations where the
systems are the barrier and eventhe countless of them. Like, I
would think about design abouthow intake process work from
somebody to go from homelessshelter to a more transitional
unit to rental housing.

(10:03):
We would take women to get orderfor protection, which were,
again, designed in the law.Somebody influenced the policy.
So very soon, when you're tryingto influence individuals'
behavior and you are trying totake care of family and children
and making sure they were doingwell, that they had services
from the government, that theycan succeed, you very soon start

(10:24):
adding up the systems thatyou're running against. And so
very soon, I had this feeling,like, I wanted to make a
difference. And, yes, it feelsreally good when you're making
difference one person at a time,one family at a time, one woman
at a time.
Unless you're redesigning thesystem, it was pretty much like
banging against the wall. Like,you would hit your head over and

(10:45):
over again expecting a differentresult. So that was, like, one
thing where I wanted to make adifference. I knew the system
wasn't an issue. The secondthing I would say that really
came through for me is the ideaof and I held this, and I still
hold this to be true today isthe people most impacted by the
issues are usually the bestpeople who can actually design

(11:07):
the solutions.
And that is not what I thoughtwas happening in public policy
arena. So I would work in theshelters, and I would go at
association meetings or acoalition of batterman would
hold public policy meeting, andwe would talk about housing
issue. We would talk about allthese different services and
changes that we wanted to see inpolicy arena, but we didn't have

(11:27):
visibility into whether or notthose policy designs that we
were recommending aspractitioners on the ground
could actually be implemented.And so that meant, again, like,
there was a draw for me to thenstep outside of it and actually
learn. And so doing all of thoseparallel things, being part of
the league of women orders,organizing in communities, being

(11:48):
driven by the idea that I wantedto make a difference, and then
seeing the system as a whole andrecognizing that the system
didn't always talk to eachother.
People who are impacted didn'treally design the systems really
drove me into public policy, andI think that was my calling on
why I wanted to be a legislativedirector and why I wanted to
spend thousands and thousands ofhours just trying to understand

(12:10):
different laws and how theyinteracted and what I can do to
change those law, but, again,going back to the communities
that I was serving.

Anna Farro Henderson (12:18):
Thank you both. This is really interesting
to hear. And I just wanted tosay that when I went into
political work, I had grown upin Providence, Rhode Island. My
dad is from Canada and he didn'tvote in The US at the time. And
we never talked about politicsand in my public schools, we
didn't learn about public policyor political procedure.

(12:39):
And so even though I had a PhDin the physical sciences, when I
got to Congress, I didn't reallyknow how it worked at all. And
I'd listened to the news, but Ididn't understand. And I think
that part of my motivation forwriting the the book was to get
the hopes that it seems reallyunnecessary that people not know
and understand how ourgovernment works and wanting

(13:01):
people to feel that it isaccessible. And I think I just
sort of taken for granted that Ididn't know how it worked and I
wasn't gonna know how it worked.One follow-up question.
When you first went to socialwork school, Delcar, or when you
were in your graduate program,Roberta, did you think you were
gonna go into political work, orwould that have surprised you if
someone told you that?

Tenzin Dolkar (13:21):
For me, it was totally a surprise. And to this
day, I think I often tell thestory. I remember taking a tour
of the state capital, again,thanks to the League of Women in
Order's leadership program. AndI remember walking by cafeteria,
and somebody said mybrother-in-law is a lobbyist,
and I had no clue what that termactually meant. And so the idea
that nine years down the linethat I would be working for the

(13:43):
governor of Minnesota in thatsame exact building was
completely just unheard of.
And I think that's the one thingthat I would say is, you know,
we use interchangeably, youknow, the idea of policy design
with politics. And sometimesthey are two different things.
You can do policy design withoutever touching the politics. But
I think the three of us, and Ithink we all can speak to it, is

(14:07):
we all found ourselves both withthe policy design side of things
as well as managing the politicsof policy making, which I'm
really curious how the two ofyou experienced that.

Roberta Downing (14:18):
There's one thing kind of a hard lesson that
I've learned through the yearsworking in public policy is that
even the best ideas and what Imight see as the right thing to
do may take twenty or fiftyyears or may never happen. And
lots of times, that's becausethe politics stand in the way.

(14:38):
And that's frustrating, but thething that you learn if you
really wanna get things done isto listen to people who disagree
with you and to find compromiseand find where you can work
together. In my experience,there were individual bills that
I worked on that became law, anda lot of it was from building

(15:01):
relationships with people acrossthe aisle. We differed on a lot
of things, but we were able tofind this one issue where there
was agreement about what neededto happen.
If you want to actually makechange in anything with public
policy, you're not doing anyfavors for yourself to demonize
people who disagree with you.It's much more productive to

(15:24):
find a way to work together. Itmay not be the dream policy
solution, but you can makeincremental changes along the
way. That's my perspective. Alot of people don't like the
idea of making incrementalchanges.
But the way that I look at it isyou can do nothing or you can
have incremental change overtime. And lots of times, having

(15:47):
those trusted relationships withpeople who have a different
perspective is how you can makemultiple incremental changes
that can lead up to largerchange over time. For some of
us, a change that needs tohappen may look obvious, but you
have to bring people along.

Tenzin Dolkar (16:05):
Roberta, I think you'd point to a really good
thing, which is so much ofpolitics in relational work. And
I think we have forgotten Imean, as we have become more
partisan and more divided as acountry, I think we have
forgotten that as a lesson. AndI think so much of what you
wanna try to do as you aretrying to pass bills, executive
orders, policy positions, all ofit depends on relational work,

(16:30):
having relationship with theother person as well as trying
to get the other person tounderstand where you're coming
from. And I am curious for thetwo of you, Anna, your book
references this. Given both ofyou have doctorate degree in in
your respective field,psychology and geology, how much
of policymaking did you feellike had to do with the content

(16:51):
and the substance of the workversus the stories?
And, Anna, your book alluded tothis a lot. I'm curious. How did
that come across when you weredoing your policy work?

Anna Farro Henderson (17:03):
So when I was working for senator Franken
in the senate, one of the reallybig bills we were working on was
at the time, it was calledJaheem Portman, but it was an
energy efficiency bill. So itwas focused on addressing
climate change through this winwin of more efficient use of
energy that would reducegreenhouse gas emissions. And
the goal was very much aboutlowering utility bills that

(17:26):
individuals and companies payfor electricity and reducing
emissions. That being said,everything had to be carried by
a story and understood by astory. And as people came to
lobby us, they could send a factsheet or have like glossy
pamphlets, but it really camedown to both.
So sometimes people would try tojust tell a story, then I would

(17:50):
need to ask questions. So Istayed focused on the content
because I think partly with myscience background, like I
always wanted to know but justtelling somebody science facts
wasn't enough to make the story.So there are problems that are
very real. And generally, Ifound that people recognize the
problems. When I worked on waterpolicy in Minnesota, people from

(18:10):
the far end of the otherpolitical spectrum would tell me
that they had run on waterpolicy, like they ran on clean
water.
So we all wanted clean water,but then how we get there and
what that means and, like, whatis the process or, like, what
are the rules or the philosophyof how society works were really
different. But then it also ispeople and personalities and

(18:31):
relationships. So it's a lotharder to get something passed
if the person proposing itdoesn't get along with other
people or hasn't worked withthem on their pieces. In this
transition from not being inpolitics and not knowing about
it to going in politics, one ofthe things that I find well, I
found shocking at the time is Ihad really simplistic ideas

(18:51):
about climate action, and Iunderstood how important it was,
but like I didn't understand whywe weren't doing it. And then
working in politics, it becameclear very quickly that the
things that felt non negotiablethat I thought we had to do to
reduce emissions were reallycomplicated.
And there were a lot of peopleand communities and aspects of
all our daily lives that were atstake. And so the process was

(19:15):
gonna have to be iterative. Itsounds really simple, but it was
very shocking. And on the otherside, now when I look at social
media, I didn't really look atsocial media that much then, but
it's so much bigger now. Andpeople assert positions and they
kind of other anybody whodoesn't agree with their
position.
And I find that a little bitshocking. Coming from politics,

(19:37):
the way you get things done isworking with people on the other
side of the aisle. And even whenDulkar and I were in the
governor's office, the House andSenate for Minnesota were
controlled by the otherpolitical party. I spent the
majority of my time talking tofolks who were actually in the
other political party becausethey were running the House and
Senate.

Roberta Downing (19:58):
I wanted to jump in about your question,
Dholkar, in that I think themost effective way of
influencing policy is both usingdata or research as well as the
story, the story that humanizesthings. I think that people
often don't recognize howimportant stories are to pushing

(20:19):
an issue along. There are peoplethat came to meet with me when I
worked in the Senate that Istill remember. I remember them
vividly. I remember what theirstory was.
And this is more than a decadelater. There was a woman who had
a gigantic tumor growing out ofher head, and she had been

(20:41):
dropped from her insurancecompany because she participated
in a clinical trial to try tosave her life, and this was
before the Affordable Care Act.You can't do that now. We
introduced a bill to make it sothat insurance companies could
not do that, and that wasincorporated into the Affordable
Care Act when it passed. But Ican remember her, and I remember

(21:03):
other constituents and peopleand exactly what their stories
were.
Seeing them, seeing theirstruggle in person, hearing
their story, combined with thedata was the most powerful
combination.

Tenzin Dolkar (21:18):
Anna and I experienced this working on
water policy issue. I thinkthere was one really old law
that forbids a farmer from suinganother farmer. And I'm not
going to recall the lawcorrectly, but there was a
runoff. And it was wording of,like, one to two, three words
that people wanted to change it.There's a nonprofit called Land

(21:42):
Stewardship, and they broughttheir farmers.
And I remember people bringingpictures and stories and then
showing pictures pictures of,you know, when it rains heavily,
the runoff. That was happeningfrom one farm to the next farm.
And then I also remembersomebody telling the story about
manure that was running off fromone field to the other and what
that impacted in terms of familylife and living situation. And I

(22:05):
think that was one of the mosteffective story in preventing
the change that individuals wereseeking at that point. And it
was so simple in terms ofchanges it was making, but only
if you understood the meaning ofthe law.
Like, you understood the impact.But, again, you had to be paying
attention to that policy. Like,you had to know. And if you

(22:26):
weren't a policy expert or ifyou were an expert on that
issue, like, you would not haveknown. But the stories was the
one that made the difference inrepealing the law.

Anna Farro Henderson (22:36):
Images are really powerful because I
remember also in waterprotection laws with this
requirement for buffers ofperennial vegetation between
agriculture, row crops, andpublic waterways, It was a
really visible solution. Itwasn't necessarily the most
impactful thing we could havedone, but it was visible. And
one of the big arguments for itwas an image of runoff coming

(23:00):
into the Mississippi River. Inthe book core samples, there's
an essay I write about beinglobbied and I wrote it in the
form of like a running dialoguethrough my head because I wanted
to give to share that with thereader of what is this person
thinking about. But at the endof that, I end the essay by
saying putting numbers intostory form that is ammunition in

(23:21):
politics.
So just echoing what both of youhave been saying. I wanna just
give listeners a little bit ofcontext. We've all been in this
like the room where it happens,serving as advisors to elected
officials and meeting with somany people that have issues
that are so important to them.And just to help people kind of
understand that work that wedid, I was wondering if one of

(23:43):
you would kick off with talkingabout why is it that when folks,
they have a concern and they'regoing to an elected official's
office, why are they talking toan advisor instead of the
elected official themselves?

Roberta Downing (23:54):
So it's interesting. Sometimes people
find that off putting. Why am Imeeting with the staffer instead
of the member of Congressthemselves or the senator
themselves? And I think people,often don't understand how
extraordinarily busy thatelected officials are. So, for
example, if you're a member ofcongress or senator, you're

(24:14):
flying back and forth to yourdistrict, your state every
single week.
And you might have hearings thatgo on until 02:30 in the
morning. The schedules can bevery, very grueling, and there's
not enough time in the day forthem to take all of these
meetings. And so they havetrusted staff who take the
meetings and who do a lot of thelegislative work. And

(24:36):
oftentimes, it's just as good tomeet with the staff as it is to
meet with the member because thestaff is gonna be the one that
does the work. One thing that Iwould advocate is the importance
of having long termrelationships with the
congressional staff and themember too, but especially the

(24:56):
staff so that they know who youare.
They know what your expertiseis. If an issue policy issue
comes up related to the work youdo, they'll reach out to you and
ask you, can you review thisbill that we wanna introduce and
give us feedback on it? Or, oh,there's gonna be this hearing.
You'd be a great witness. Thoselong term relationships with the
staff is, a really good way tohave your voice heard.

Anna Farro Henderson (25:22):
So when we took meetings with folks who had
concerns, and then we wouldcommunicate back to our elected
officials. And I know it worksdifferently in every elected
official's office, but maybe,Dolfkar, do you wanna say
something about how youcommunicated with the governor
or what that looked like?

Tenzin Dolkar (25:39):
Yeah. As the policy staff, your job is to
become the expert on the topicthat you're advising on, whether
it's, like, one topic area ormultitude of topic areas. And it
is also your job to keep thepulse on what is happening and
what the stakeholders are sayingand what the trends are, what do
the public wants. You'll readthrough or skim through

(26:00):
thousands and thousands ofletters and phone calls that
come through the office. So youget a general sense of where the
public stands.
And so by the time you approachyour principal, in our case, it
was the governor in Roberta andyour previous case, it would
have been the senator. Youpretty much are coming to the
table and advising the governorand saying, here's the position

(26:21):
that I think you should take,and here are the reasons why.
And it could have been a 10 pagememo that you have written or
people have written to you thatyou have compiled, but your job
is to make it as succinct aspossible with the data, with the
story, and say, here's theposition I want you to take. And
if that person says and why andthen objects or takes contrary

(26:44):
position, then you can have acounterpoint for every one of
them. And you can say, I'velooked at every point of angles.
I've looked at how this could go10 different ways, and this is
the best course of action. Ithink that's the level of
confidence we need to have as astaff. I was very fortunate with
governor Mark Dayton in thesense that he was a policy wonk.
If there was a policy wonk inpolitics, he was it. He read

(27:09):
everything.
He understood. He cared aboutthings very deeply, and he
wanted to really dig in deep.And so our combination of how we
communicated were in forms ofemails, memos that went to him,
and then we would do hour longsmeeting with him where we
debated our policy, and we wouldpresent information to the
governor. For each issue, youmay have less than five minutes

(27:30):
because you're running throughso many issues. You're
effectively running the stateagencies, the government, and
then caring about all thedifferent issues that come up
throughout the day, includingany emergency that were coming
up.
So more often than not, you onlyhad about five minutes per
topic, whatever you're talking,and you just had to make sure
you were succinct and you hadclarity and that you had a point
of position. And then you didn'tcatch the governor by surprise

(27:53):
by not letting him anyinformation that he needed to
know. So regardless of whetherthat was something coming out of
a different group, something whowould have spoken against the
position he was taking, or aposition that, you know, should
have been a better one, butwe're not approaching because of
x, y, and z reason. I think thatwas the approach we took.

Anna Farro Henderson (28:13):
So just to kind of reiterate, we were
taking lots of meetings withdifferent folks and that
information was getting boileddown and shared in some form
text or memo or verbalcommunication to the elected
officials. When I worked forSenator Franken, we sent him
home with this giant binderevery night, so it was like
written memos. He wouldsometimes call people in the

(28:35):
middle of the night because thetime that he was getting home
from like all the differentmeetings and events he went to
might be like midnight or a timewhen I I had two little kids
like being asleep. It was reallyexciting to work for somebody
who's so engaged, but then alsointimidating. But any memo I had
sent, I would have by me in bedin case I got called so that I'd

(28:57):
be able to answer questions.
So when you guys were beinglobbied, like your experience of
people coming in, we have somemythology around lobbyists, I
think, and and what they'relike. And I was kinda surprised
because it my experience of whoactually came in was really
different than what I'd seenrepresented on television, which
is that the spectrum of peoplewho came to me were across the

(29:19):
board in terms of age andlifestyle and appearance. But
just wondering, like, how youfound it? Like, who was coming
to you and how did they interactwith you, and what were
different things that wereeffective for getting something
across to you?

Tenzin Dolkar (29:33):
So the minute you choose to act and go in front of
your congressional offices oryour elected officials or
governors or other forms ofelected officials, you're
showing up because you'reconcerned about some something.
You're impacted by something,and you want to see a change in
the law. And you can either cometo inform or engage, or you're

(29:55):
coming because you haven'tasked. But the other part is
what is still very true is thereis a professional group of
lobbyists, legislative director,government relations director,
individuals who hold a positionand their entire work is driven
by holding externalrelationships and maintaining
relationships with differentoffices. And that means both the

(30:18):
elected officials down to theaids or the secretaries or the
individuals that work in theoffices.
I mean, that is their job. It'slike figuring out who they are,
what do they care about, and howcan I make sure my issues are
represented in that area, or howdo I have a relationship in that
community? So I think that's thesecond. You know, there is a

(30:39):
professional group of lobbyists.

Roberta Downing (30:41):
I would say my experience was similar. You had
a array of people coming to ouroffice. I think there's a
difference between advocacy andlobbying. Some people come as
advocates. Some people are paidlobbyists.
Lots of times people hear theword lobbyist, and they have a
negative connotation of it. AndI think that that's a misnomer

(31:04):
because lobbyists are often verypassionate about the issues
they're working on and extremelyinformed. And, passionate about
the issues they're working onand extremely informed and can
be really helpful with providinginformation that you need and
being accessible so that you cancall and ask questions, when you
need something answered quickly.One of the best things that you

(31:24):
can do is be succinct in howyou're speaking about an issue,
saying upfront what your ask is,being really clear about that,
and the very beginning, showingwhy this issue is important and
what is the urgency behind it.If there's not urgency, then why
would anyone wanna do somethingabout it?

(31:45):
Oftentimes, what people strugglewith the most is being succinct
in describing their issue andnot too technical and not using
acronyms and talking about it asif you're on the bus with
someone you've never met before.You don't know what their
education level is and beingable to talk about your issue so
that it's crystal clear to themwhy the issue is important and

(32:06):
why something needs to be doneabout it.

Anna Farro Henderson (32:09):
Just a example of this, what gives
something urgency because I feltlike that was a thing people
really struggled with. The essaythat I wrote in the book about
being lobbied, the people whoare lobbying me, there's
something they want, but it'salmost like they feel like it's
rude to state it to directly. SoI'm not clear why they want it,
and then it doesn't have to dowith the state of Minnesota, and

(32:31):
I'm working for a Minnesotarepresentative. And that was
something that would happen thatpeople might come lobby us about
a public lands issue in Utah,which might be important
nationally to everybody, but isnot primarily going to be an
urgent issue for a Minnesotasenator. But just some examples
of what might make somethingurgent is if a bill is coming up

(32:51):
where this issue would be in itlike the farm bill is coming up.
If constituents are impacted andif you have those stories. One
of the big differences betweenstate politics and federal
politics was that at the federalpolitics when you have a
hearing, the people who testifyare negotiated between the
leaders from the differentparties who are leaders of that

(33:12):
committee, and there aren't tonsof people testifying. People
can't just show up in DC andtestify, whereas at the state
level, anybody can testify. Andso one of the things that
advocacy groups do is they helpbring people to the capital and
support them, you know, showthem where to go and when to
show up to to tell their storyat hearings, which I think makes
those local politics a littlebit more. We understand that

(33:36):
urgency, and it and it's part ofour community.
But then also things that canmake an issue urgent are
economics or cultural reasons.

Tenzin Dolkar (33:44):
So I'll tell you guys this story, and then I have
a question related to it. So oneof my early days of being a
lobbyist as a legislativedirector was actually coaching
community members to come andtestify, and I was lobbying on
Asian American issue, AsianMinnesota issue. There was a
domestic violence bill that Iwrote, like, 70% of what it was
proposed. It was something thatI was passionate about. I had

(34:06):
researched it.
I'd written about it for areally long time. And I had
prepared all these amazing womenwho were survivors of domestic
violence or sexual assault andcoached them through testimony,
and they gave some of the mostpowerful testimonies. And the
question I have for the two ofyou is sometimes I think about
timing. Right? Yes.
I had amazing testimonies, andthe bills didn't make it. This

(34:30):
was when I was still green as alobbyist, and I didn't fully
understand the power ofpolitics. And the timing just
didn't match up, and I didn'thave the political will of
certain individuals who wantedto make it happen. And so the
question for the two of you is,like, for anybody who's looking
from outside, you can take anyany number of issues. You can
take climate change.
You can take gun violence. Andyou think about organizing that

(34:53):
happens on the ground, thenumber of people who show up,
the public support that comesout, and it doesn't always
translate into then law. I'mreferencing the gap as timing
and politics. For folks who areorganizing at that level, what
is the thing that they'reexperiencing as a gap from where
they thought they may havesucceeded in influencing to the

(35:15):
reality that nothing is actuallymoving in terms of legislation?

Roberta Downing (35:20):
At least in congress, it is hard to get
legislation passed. The wholesystem is built for it to be
hard. And so to engage in thiswork, it's really important to
have patience and to know thatyou're not always gonna get what
you want overnight. It's gonnatake time and it's gonna take

(35:40):
persistence and you have to keepat it. And this depends on, you
know, there's so many differentways to influence policy.
It really depends on what you'reworking on. For the most part, a
lot of larger legislation, ittakes years to get to where
where you want. And that's howit is, and it's hard. It's
that's sometimes hard for peopleto grapple with.

Anna Farro Henderson (36:03):
When I worked for governor Dayton,
there was a bill that we pushed,which was not at all successful
to require that well water betested when a property was sold.
So in Minnesota, maybe a quarterof people have private wells,
and these are not regulated bythe state. So the water was
tested when the well wasdrilled. Oftentimes, people

(36:24):
don't even realize that they'reon well water and not on
municipal water. And there arecontaminants that can get into
their groundwater, and thosecontaminants have no smell and
no taste, and they candefinitely impact their health
or even cause diseases that aregonna be deadly.
So we wanted to have arequirement that you have to
test water at the point of saleof a property. And this felt

(36:45):
like a really compelling storyand a compelling idea. And we
had a senator who, like, at thestate level who was supporting
it, and then they actuallybacked out because there's a lot
of economic reasons that this iscomplicated with, like, the
sales of property and how howthat works. This is another
complication in selling housesthat could add expenses, and so

(37:07):
there are reasons that peopleare not excited about it. And
the way that I made sense ofthis is no one can see the
pollution, no one can taste it,they don't even know they have
these wells.
It's like you need a sharednarrative and I think sometimes
that stories are like virusesand this is a virus that had
like not spread. So there aresome people that knew the story

(37:27):
but there wasn't a way for it topass from person to person and
become an idea that wascompelling and people were
willing to deal with thehardships that would come with
having this new requirement.

Tenzin Dolkar (37:40):
And I like your reference to the narrative and
storytelling. I mean, I think wekeep going back to the
storytelling. Like, yes, youneed to have data and research.
Policy is about socializationand, like, what is acceptable as
a society. So you could verywell have an issue like health
care.
It took so long for everybody tosay enough is enough. We all

(38:01):
like, the basic the most basicthing you can do is make sure
sure everybody has access toaffordable health care. And I
think that socialization tooktime. And I think about the fact
that so many of individuals,like, over thirty years worked
on climate change, and peoplepresented the data. People
presented the science, and therewas that question of why could
we not move the policymaker, thedecision maker?

(38:23):
And I again, socialization.Like, it took the public
conscious where everybody justunderstood it at the most basic
level, like climate changeimpact is happening. People had
to see it. Every farmers had toexperience the different weather
changes. Every city staff had tosee it with the impact on public
works, whether it was roads,sewage system, or homeowners had

(38:46):
to experience it when there wasa historic flooding for that
level of consciousness to riseso that there is then created
the political will.
So I often think about narrativein that way. It's the level of
consciousness we can raise.

Anna Farro Henderson (39:00):
I'm curious. All of us are working
outside political offices rightnow, and we have different types
of roles. And so, Roberta, I'mwondering if you would share how
you prepare for a meeting withan elected official and what you
do in that meeting. So kind ofbeing on the outside and trying
to have that influence.

Roberta Downing (39:18):
So one of the things that I found throughout
my career is that I often end upbeing a translator and a
facilitator. Particularly as asocial scientist, I have worked
a lot for years with people thatspeak in really complicated
terms about things. And thenwhen you're working in public

(39:39):
policy, you wanna be reallyclear and succinct and talk in
plain language. It's really,really key. And oftentimes, that
can be the hardest thing forreal in-depth experts to take a
bird's eye view or to talk abouttheir research or their company
or whatever it is that theywanna talk about in terms that

(40:01):
will be understandable to anonexpert.
And so in preparing for acongressional meeting, that is
often where I spend the most ofmy time. One, in helping with
drafting talking points for aclient, but also in developing,
leave behind. So usually, that'sa one pager or a series of one
pager that describe the issue.The leave behind often has to go

(40:26):
through multiple multiplerevisions for the exact reason I
just talked about to make itaccessible in plain language so
that literally anybody who picksit up can read it and understand
it. Or the way that I often putit is you can hand it to a
member of congress who's walkingout reading it while they're
walking down the hall, and theyneed to read the whole thing,

(40:48):
understand it, why it'simportant, what the ask is
before they get on the elevatorto wherever they're going next.
And that is a really, reallyhard thing for people to do, but
it's a really important thing todo. We all have different
backgrounds. We all havedifferent experience. We have
different education on differenttopics, and so you can't ever

(41:08):
assume knowledge. And assumingknowledge will make you less
effective.

Anna Farro Henderson (41:13):
That was great. That's really helpful, I
think, to hear, to be being thistranslator and facilitator. I'm
assuming that both when youworked in a political office and
working outside politicaloffice, you're doing that
translation? Because thatcertainly, for me, is something
that, like, a role I'm servingkinda wherever I am, I think.

Roberta Downing (41:31):
Yeah. It's it's really interesting. I have been
working with people that work onissues that are completely
different, that I have nobackground in. And so how they
pitch their work to me, I kindof have my hat on as a
congressional staffer as ifthey're coming to me and
lobbying me. I think all of usthat have been lobbied, you

(41:52):
learn a skill for askingcritical questions or often
clarifying questions.

Anna Farro Henderson (41:57):
Thank you. So you're not working as a
lobbyist and you're not workingin a political office, but you
are working to help shape orinfluence public policy. There's
kind of like a whole ecosystemout there, and there are paid
lobbyists who are most directlyworking with elected officials,
but then there's a lot of otherpeople who are part of this
ecosystem.

Tenzin Dolkar (42:19):
So there is a difference between advocacy and
lobbying. Lobbying, there's alegal term for it. In the state
of Minnesota, there's arealistic definition for what
lobbying is. And if you'renonprofit or if you're a for
profit businesses, you have toregister. You have to calculate
the hours or the dollar amountyou spend, and you have to
report it every year.
Federal definition is lessstricter than Minnesota. In

(42:41):
terms of the ecosystem of, like,who's organizing, in my
experience, both having been inpart of nonprofit and somebody
who now works primarily withnonprofits in my professional
career, what I will say is wetake the public engagement,
organizing, education, inform,educate, organize, and then

(43:04):
advocate. So you really areengaging at informing the
public, engaging with them, youknow, having one to one
interaction with everybody fromevery walks of life on the
issues you care about, gettingthem educated on it. And then
you're turning them around asadvocates. And the most simple,
easier way that I think about isthe early days when there wasn't

(43:24):
a policy around solar energy orallowing solar or renewable
energy policy framework, moreoften than not, the first
individuals who were sort of thebrave citizens who went out and
got solar when it was reallyexpensive, they then turn around
and became advocate for whysolar was so great at reducing
energy bill, why it was greatfor climate, and how it was

(43:46):
actually a very, very durableand sustainable way of getting
your energy sources.
And that's one way of, like, howfolks can turn around and be an
advocate. And what nonprofitecosystem does is they work in
so many variety and differentdiverse sector, and they
directly serve a very specificgroup group of people. So if you

(44:07):
take some of the nonprofitorganizations, they organize the
rural community or they work forthe benefit of economic growth
in rural communities. And a corepart of their work then is
engaging the very communitymembers that live in their
neighborhoods and then turningthem around as advocates and
bringing them to the statelegislature or to the governor's

(44:27):
office or congressional officesand speaking on what they're
experiencing and telling theirlived experiences as stories.
And I think that is where thenonprofit groups does really
good job.
Somebody who has started withthe League of Women Voters, you
know, I often think about thisone woman, and she said she's a
member of league, and shedonates because she knows there

(44:50):
are people who are organizingand who are advocating for
issues that she cares about. Andshe doesn't, as a regular
citizen, have to show up at thestate legislature. And that's
what I think about whatnonprofit ecosystem does for our
community and the civicinfrastructure. When we think
about professional lobbies fromprivate sector, different
industries, you have a group ofnonprofit activists or advocates

(45:12):
who are dedicated, who arepassionate about the community
they live in, passionate aboutthe issues they work for, and
are turning around and engagingin public policy design.

Anna Farro Henderson (45:23):
So the NGO sector is helping serve a
societal need of raising certainissues and and being able to put
time in or follow the laws sothat not all of us at home have
to track everything happening atthe legislature. I don't know if
any of if either of you guysremember the exact number, but
the number of bills introducedin a legislative session is

(45:44):
like, thousands, and it's a lotto track. And, you know, you
worked through the League ofWomen Voters, and that was a way
to get tied into politicalorganizing. And I wanted to take
a moment to talk about otherways that voices could be heard.
So if you own a business, youcould hire a paid lobbyist, but
just for regular people outthere, you can call your elected

(46:07):
officials office.
When I was working for electedofficials, they would ask for
those call numbers and theywould be reported to them. So it
was really, really important howmany people had called on an
issue. You can write letters.You can send emails. Roberta
wrote a book chapter about waysto get your voice heard in
politics for researchers.

(46:27):
And in there, she talked aboutthat there are forms that you
can follow. So NGOs are outthere and they will put together
a form with some of that contentabout bills that are out there
that are relevant where there'san immediate urgency. So you can
also testify at your cityhearings or state hearings. You
can meet with a staff person.And then this, like, not going

(46:50):
it alone, but working with anorganization, an NGO, or a
volunteer group is a way to toget some support and also to
make it social.

Roberta Downing (47:00):
Yeah. Just to add to that, Anna, the first
time I ever called my senator ormember of congress, I was
daunted. And this is before Ihad worked on Capitol Hill. I
was nervous about who was gonnabe on the other line. And what's
funny is now I know it's anintern.
They're taking thousands ofcalls every day, and they're
totally used to having peoplecall and share their opinions.

(47:24):
And I say that for people thatare just getting started in
this. You don't know what it'sgonna be like, and it can be
intimidating. But it's reallyimportant to recognize that this
is for everybody. Our electedofficials are elected to
represent us.
And And so if they representyou, they need to hear from you.
And that is your right. There'sno reason not to be heard. When

(47:48):
I worked for senator Brown, wewould have staff meetings, and
he would start every staffmeeting with asking, you know,
what are the top 10 thingspeople are calling the office
about? And he would get a reportout.
Okay. What are the top 10 thingspeople are writing letters about
or emails about? And he wouldget a report out on that. People
engage with Congress oneverything you can think of.

(48:09):
Like, there are cigar smokeradvocacy groups.
There are heart disease advocacygroups. There's an advocacy
group for just about any issueyou can possibly think of. There
is public policy written onvirtually any topic that you can
think of. There's usually alwaysan infrastructure of people like

(48:31):
what you talked about, Anna,that are already working on the
issue and that you can engage inthe beginning until you get
comfortable doing some of thiswork by yourself. Don't be
daunted.
Just do it. And the more you doit, the more comfortable you'll
get doing it.

Anna Farro Henderson (48:46):
So when I worked in Franken's office,
there were a couple people whoanswered the phones. They were
really young. They might havebeen interns or right out of
college. Two of them later ranfor office, and they're in
really powerful positions now.Somebody might be really young.
They might be new at this, butthat doesn't mean the
relationship isn't important orthat they aren't really smart

(49:09):
and headed somewhere. If you'rethe person answering phones in a
political office, the power ofhearing other people's voices
and stories is really powerful,and it changes who you are. In
both offices I worked in, Ianswered phones for a day during
different crises, and it was areally incredible experience.
There was a full spectrum ofpeople who were calling and

(49:31):
calling about different types ofissues. I had this very kind of
emotional feeling that we areall out there trying so hard to
do different things and toactualize our ideas and express
ourselves.
It's really important that wehave this government
infrastructure to work together.So we've talked about that

(49:52):
making political change, it'siterative, it can be slow, we
need to have long termrelationships because this is
gonna take a while. And I'm justwondering about what are the
successes along the way forpeople who are trying to get
their voice heard and trying tomake political change. And and
I'm thinking about that forsuccesses that could be from
your perspective in lobbying,your perspective in political

(50:15):
office, or your perspectiveworking in the NGO field.

Tenzin Dolkar (50:18):
I would say I mean, people spend hours,
months, years designingcampaigns, building a milestone
on how they can measure successalong the way. But the simplest
way, I would say, is did youshow up? I mean, that's the easy
one. Right? Like, if you careabout an issue, did you show up?
Whether it is a phone call,email, letter, or going to a

(50:41):
meeting, whether it's anaffinity group or a forum that
the elected officials wereorganizing. Like, did you show
up? I think that's the firstmeasure of success. Then the
second part is, did you thenengage on that topic? The third
measure of success could be, wasa bill introduced?
There's a difference betweenlegislation that you're trying
to pass and lobbying and thenthe pal public policy design.

(51:03):
Policy design sometimes don'talways have to be with elected
officials, state legislature, orthe governor. It can be policy
design at the state agencies orfederal agencies where a simple
rule or simple way of redoingintake process or redoing the
application. And they again,those takes years, but the
question is, was an act or anaction taken after you had

(51:28):
initiated something? Did theother person reciprocate and
said, I'm gonna do somethingabout it?
And then if you are trulycommitted to making sure a law
is passed and you have thebandwidth to dedicate more time
towards it, then, yes, there arevery strict schedule at the
state level, state legislaturefollows. And that's the worst

(51:49):
thing true for congressionaloffices where there's a deadline
in their timeline, and you canfollow them. But the flip side
of that is organizing people.We're talking about having your
voices heard in public policymaking. There's the inside game
and there's the outside game.
And so the word more often thannot on this podcast talking
about the inside game, but onthe outside game, you can

(52:09):
measure success by whether ornot you're engaging the public.
And if what you care about isthe discourse within the public
arena. And I think that's adifferent way of measuring
success. I am curious ifsomebody who was listening to
the podcast is looking for alobbyist, what would be the key
skills you would look to makesure that your lobbyist has it?

Roberta Downing (52:33):
Well, I think you want somebody who's gonna be
passionate about your issue, whoyou know, it's not just kind of
a job in taking home a paycheck,but that they're going to really
bring their experience and alsotheir creativity to your issue
so that they are creating amulti pronged strategy for you,

(52:53):
but also thinking about all theother various ways that they can
advance your issue with electedofficials or federal or state
agencies?

Anna Farro Henderson (53:04):
That's a great question. Switching
topics, I do wanna acknowledgethat all of us are raising
families, live in households,and are balancing that with our
work. You know, for anybody outthere listening who has any kind
of family responsibilities,caring for older parents or
children or other familymembers, that doesn't mean that
you're not able to be part ofthe political process. And I

(53:27):
made the decision in writingcore samples to include intimate
personal experiences in the bookwith the hope that sharing that
full spectrum of the humanexperience would really humanize
science research and humanizethe political process and in
that way make them relatable andfeel more approachable. And I
was just wondering if each ofyou might be willing to just

(53:48):
share something about what itmeans to be balancing that or
what value you think it bringsto political work to actually,
you know, be balancing that withfamily responsibilities.

Tenzin Dolkar (53:59):
So I think depending on what level of
government you work in, I thinkthe work could get easier. But I
think, and I know this to betrue for myself, when I was
working as legislative directorand then working for governor,
legislative session was mybusiest time. And May,
particularly May and certaindeadlines, it was the norm to

(54:20):
work till midnight or so. And Idon't think I could have done
that work without a strongfamily support. And in your
book, you reference yourhusband, Dan.
You reference not seeing yourkids at times, not being able to
put them in beds. And I thinkMay was a particular time where
all of us just stayed at thestate capitol, and I know the

(54:41):
book goes into it, in moredetails on what that looked
like. And the governor stayed uptill two to 3AM. His doors were
open. You could call him at 5AM.
And that meant all of us worked.The legislators worked really
hard, and I knew there were alot of women legislators who
were young mothers at that timewho were taking care of their
kids and still doing this. Youknow, it's a time and a period

(55:03):
when there's a calling and youdo it. Would I do it again?
Probably not.
But, you know, it's doable withthe support of your family, and
I think that matters the most.

Roberta Downing (55:13):
I agree with what you're saying. I mean, one
thing that I'm always reallycognizant of is public servants
are making often incrediblesacrifices by doing their jobs.
One thing, I really appreciatedin the book, Anna, was all of
your honesty around those kindsof sacrifices because they're

(55:34):
often invisible to the peoplethat you're working with. I
often think there's only twentyfour hours a day, and where are
you putting those hours? I mean,I have a very supportive family,
very supportive husband.
I had it about as good as Icould have had it. And each one
of my jobs, people have alwayssaid, oh, this is a very family
friendly place to work. And ifyou need to leave early because

(55:58):
you have to pick up your kidsfrom day care or you have a sick
kid, it's fine. Don't worryabout it. But you still feel a
pressure if you do have to leaveor if you're not in the office
someday because your child issick.
When I worked on Capitol Hill,nobody else in the office, there
was only one other person, twopeople, I think, in the whole

(56:19):
office that were married. Nobodyhad kids. Or the ones that had
kids, their kids were alreadygrown in in college. If you had
to leave early, you felt guiltyand bad about it. And other jobs
that I worked in that were noton Capitol Hill, To make things
family friendly, we would haveconference calls at ten or

(56:39):
sometimes 10:30 at night.
And by then, you're totallyexhausted, and it's really hard
to have substantiveconversations that late in the
day. I've worked a lot of jobswhere I woke up 6AM, got on the
computer, worked for an hour,then the kids wake up, get them
ready, you go to work, you comehome, you have dinner with your

(57:00):
family, and then you're back atyour computer again until 11:30
at night or midnight. A lot ofjobs, I think, are family
friendly. I just don't know now,reflecting on all those
different jobs, I kind ofquestioned, was it really family
friendly? Because I was reallyexhausted all the time.

Anna Farro Henderson (57:21):
Family friendly, but maybe not family
sustaining.

Tenzin Dolkar (57:24):
Not a family sustaining. Anna, your last
book, sort of, is the goodbyebook and sort of wrapping up the
chapter. You do talk about thedecision not to seek employment
again. Like, we all knew thegovernor term was ending, and I
think most of us had a choiceof, like, staying into the next
administration. I remember I hadthe choice of staying into the
rail director role.

(57:46):
We had conversation because youroffice was different than my
office, but you were very clear.Like, you were leaving the job,
and you were going to take timeoff, and you were going to write
a book. And I imagine thatdecision wasn't easy. Would you
mind going into sort of, like,what led to you deciding this is
it? Like, you were taking stepaway from the center of
politics, the center of power,the center of your ability to

(58:09):
influence a number of issuesthat you care about and really
leaving your professionalidentity, which is so much of,
like, 90% of our identity at ourage.
What did that feel like?

Anna Farro Henderson (58:21):
I think the identity part was, like, the
scariest. You know? It's like,oh my god. Who am I? What am I
doing?
COVID has really changed thingsbecause it felt at first like,
wow, everyone else is going toan office and I'm not. But I
also had this very strongclarity that I wanted to be
writing, and I had been writingshort pieces and publishing them

(58:43):
and doing that while alsoraising kids and working these
jobs that are 20 fourseven. Itfelt really, really exhausting
and unsustainable. And I feltlike there was this part of
myself that I kept stuffingaway. There had been this idea
that like sometime I'm gonnahave more time to write and it
started to feel like that's notgonna happen unless I make a

(59:04):
decision.
And so I'd made a decision thatI was gonna do that and it
wasn't gonna make sense toanybody. My parents weren't like
excited about that. It was adecision I was gonna make and I
was just gonna have to like bebrave and like see what
happened. But maybe also to putit in perspective, like my idea
of not being employed actuallyended up being kind of busy

(59:26):
because I taught a class at theuniversity. When I look back on
it, it's like actually there waslike no time when I wasn't doing
something, it's just that I wastrying to do things that left
some time for writing.
I think my perspective is skewedin that thinking that I'm giving
myself open time but actuallystill having quite a lot of

(59:47):
responsibilities for me to workon like creative writing, which
I'm doing besides this book, I'mwriting other things, but that
it's this continual boundarythat I'm setting up that doesn't
really make sense in the worldthat we live in, but it's just
like a personal maybe likespiritual choice. And I think
it's interesting for my kids tosee that and I don't know what

(01:00:12):
it means to them yet and how howthey're gonna look at that. You
know if they'll be like wow thatwas so cool or if they'll be
like man you could have likemade a lot more money doing
something else. But I haven'tregretted it. And I think it was
also like a thing of likelistening to my body.
So when we were leaving thegovernor's office, people would

(01:00:33):
call about jobs that were reallycool jobs to recruit me and the
idea of doing them made me feellike I was gonna throw up. So it
was like I was like I have thislike very loud strong message
from my body that there'ssomething else I really need to
do even if it doesn't make sensein our economic ways of thinking

(01:00:54):
about work or even, like,societal power way of thinking
about work.

Tenzin Dolkar (01:00:59):
Yeah. We often ask public to show up at meeting
spaces all the time at differentlocations, and sometimes those
meetings are happening, like,after work hours. So we we
generally tend to have thoseexpectations. Roberta, very
similar question to you. If youthink about the different
offices, political offices youhave worked at, you know, it's
the center of gravity, power.

(01:01:19):
Your ability to influence goesup by, like, % from when you are
outside to when you are insideand you actually have direct
line of communication with thedecision maker. For each one of
them, you made a choice to stepaway from those rules. Were
those decisions hard or werethey driven equally by, like,
trying to find more sustainingfamily life?

Roberta Downing (01:01:42):
I think that it is a huge issue that is not
examined enough at all in theworkplace is how organizations
lose talent because they don'thave managers that know how to
believe in their employees ormicromanage their employees. And
when I worked in the senate,it's like you really are a part

(01:02:03):
of the team. And I think youguys have this in the governor's
office because everybody isyou're working as a team. You're
working for that person toadvance the initiatives. And so
you have, like, thiscohesiveness, and a lot of jobs
don't have that.

Anna Farro Henderson (01:02:18):
I really miss that cohesiveness. I think
from hearing from Roberta and Ithought essential to maintaining
talent in an office is thatmanagement is lifting up and
supporting the experts, trustingthem, and giving them
flexibility. There's no reasonthat somebody with children,
even really little children,can't be incredibly effective in
these positions and that theperspectives of people with

(01:02:42):
family responsibilities, whetherit's for older people or or
younger people, bring so muchthat is important to political
offices. Because really whatwe're trying to do in politics
is create a society thatsupports everybody and supports
care, and so we really need theperspective of people who are
caregivers to be part of that.

Roberta Downing (01:03:02):
One thing just to add to that, I found time and
again, being a working mother, Ihad different insights into
different policy issues thatpeople who did not have kids
couldn't see. Whether it wasthings that happened in daycare
or things that were going on inschools, when you're living it,
it's a lot different than, it isfor people who aren't living it,

(01:03:26):
and you understand itdifferently. And it can also
really spur the fire in yourbelly to make changes, when you
see real kids experiencingthings.

Tenzin Dolkar (01:03:38):
So as we're wrapping this up, Anna and
Roberta, I am wondering as wereflect on our background and
our having worked in policymaking both inside and outside,
I am wondering what are the topthree to five takeaways. So my
sort of kind of three bigtakeaway is, one, the public
service. I think public serviceis a calling. And, truly, when

(01:04:01):
people say public service is apublic servant, there's some
truth to it because you do a lotof thankless job. And there and
there are often days when youfeel this way where elected
officials or the publics don'tsee the work that you're doing.
But in my time, having workedwith state agencies, having been
part of the governor's office, Ihave not met a single person who
wasn't extremely passionate andthat that was working in public

(01:04:23):
service. It's a truly callingand dedication that you make
towards because you believe insomething beyond yourself. You
care about an issue. You careabout making something. And
sometimes you go into the mostdetailed implementation process
that most general public don'teven know the details.
They will see the mishaps in thenews, but they don't see all the
fine details that you go throughand that you worry about to make

(01:04:45):
sure a state is running smoothlyor somebody's life is getting
better or that we're runningthings normally like, you know,
the light is going on. Theenergy is running on time.
People are getting their billpaid on time. People are getting
their insurance on time. Ittruly is a calling.
The second thing I will say iseverybody has the ability to
influence, and everybody has theability to access that power of

(01:05:10):
influencing. And you can have avery dominant voice in what
happens in our public policyarena, policy design,
influencing elect electionofficials. It takes time. It
takes organizing. It takes beingreally, concentrated and
dedicating time to it, but it isdoable.
The third thing I will say isthe power of people, and I've

(01:05:31):
watched this over time.Sometimes, I think elected
officials are not god. They'renot omnipresent beings where
they will know everything. Andsometimes I think the public is
ahead of where the politics are.And we have watched this over
and over again where theorganizing of people really
leads to massive legislativechange that people work at it.

(01:05:56):
People get really smart. Theyorganize. They strategize, and
they make it happen, and theycreate the political will. And
so I think the power of peopletruly stands outside influence
over anything that happens inpublic policy arena.

Anna Farro Henderson (01:06:12):
So I have a couple thoughts on my own, but
I wanted to restate a couplethings said earlier in the
podcast, which is the importanceof combining a personal story
with data to get your voiceheard and to really communicate
the urgency and importance ofyour issue. And then the other
thing I wanted to restate is theimportance of listening to
people who disagree with you.And following on that, don't let

(01:06:35):
perfect be the enemy of good.Success in politics is
incremental change. It's notgetting exactly what you want.
We are working together as alldifferent kinds of people in
your state and in this country,and we have different
perspectives. Success is havingyour voice heard. It's having

(01:06:55):
small changes made. It isongoing engagement over time. In
terms of going to speak toelected officials offices, I
can't overstate the importanceof just being polite.
Just be a nice person and don'tunderestimate the staff. They
might be young. They mightchange jobs. Those are jobs that
do turn over, but the people whoare in them are gonna remain

(01:07:17):
relevant. So the person you gotto know in your senator's office
is now a high level personworking at the state.
They're still probably importantto know. So it is worth your
time to get to know them andremember that they're people. My
final thing I'm gonna say isthat if you're having a meeting
or if you're making a phonecall, you're sending a letter to
ground that communication. Soelected official offices are

(01:07:39):
working on so many issues, andto to use plain language, to
start by explaining things, totell them who you are and where
you're coming from and why youcare about the issue. Well,
Anna, I really wanna

Roberta Downing (01:07:52):
thank you for bringing us together today. It's
been really fun to talk withboth of you and especially after
reading your book. Your bookreally shows perspective that I
haven't ever seen out there ofwhat it is like working in these
jobs, being on the other side ofthe table, and the personal
perspective that you brought toit as well as a working mom and

(01:08:16):
the path that led you to engagein that work. So thank you. The
book is a ton of fun to read andalso really, really informative.
I very much enjoyed reading it,and I know others really will
too.

Anna Farro Henderson (01:08:32):
Thank you. Thank you both so much for
joining me and sharing yourstories and experiences, and
thank you for reading coresamples. I'm really excited, and
I'm excited to get out on a booktour, and I'll be traveling
around the state and travelingaround to different parts of the
country and I can't wait to haveconversations and learn from

(01:08:52):
folks who are out there.

Roberta Downing (01:08:54):
This has been a University of Minnesota Press
production. The book CoreSamples, a Climate Scientist's
Experiments in Politics andMotherhood by Anna Faro
Henderson is available fromUniversity of Minnesota Press.
Thank you for listening.