Good morning, Senator McCaskill! Day two of Congressional Visits Day began with a constituent coffee "hour" with Sen. McCaskill at her office on Capitol Hill. Most Senators have a weekly gathering with anyone from their state to meet briefly with the Congressman and to have a photo taken. While we were scheduled for an hour meeting, Sen. McCaskill was only able to meet with our group, which was composed of five individuals lobbying for immigration reform, three couples on vacation, and Richelle Weihe (from the Missouri Botanical Garden) and me, for about 15 minutes. She started by greeting all of us and informing us about what was currently going on in the Senate (which had just struck down the Paycheck Protection Bill and were now looking at nominations for various positions). She described the battles between the "devil" and the "angel" on each of her shoulders, i.e. the "politics" and the "policy," respectively, that she has to contend with. Following that, the floor was opened up for any questions (really, any at all!) we had. The first group to speak up was the immigration group, who just wanted to know about her stance on and the possibility of any immigration reform that might be in the pipeline. Next, an older gentleman who had previously worked on military airplanes wanted to know her thoughts on proposing a bill preventing military pilots from disabling their tracking system to go "black," which, he said, happened a lot in Vietnam. Then, just as I was about to speak up, Sen. McCaskill looked at her watch and decided we needed to take pictures before she had to leave. During the picture taking, I shook her hand, introduced myself and told her where I was from, and gave her my best smile. While I didn't get to speak about science policy, I left her my business card and headed out, along with Richelle, to have a meeting in the hall with her science policy aide, Mr. Mark Fowler. It was then that Richelle and I were able to discuss science funding, my experience with federal funding for my own research, and ask him to send an invitation to Sen. McCaskill for touring the research part of the Missouri Botanical Garden. I was very positive after the meeting, having felt that our messages were well received, and, even though Sen. McCaskill did not end up signing the Markey Dear Colleague Letter in support of $7.5 billion for NSF in FY 2015, it was good to know that she is in favor of funding for the sciences, particularly in Missouri, and that it is her policy to just not sign any sort of letter.
Following the constituent coffee hour, Richelle and I joined our group for the rest of the meetings. These included conversations with the staffers from the offices of Sen. Blunt and Rep. Lacy Clay of Missouri, Sen. Rand Paul, Sen. Mitch McConnell, and Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Martin Heinrich, Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and Rep. Steve Pearce of New Mexico. It was interesting to see not only the differences in the offices of Senators and Representatives (the Senate offices are much nicer), but also the differences in viewpoints on science policy between the Democratic and Republican offices. The Republican offices seemed much more, well, conservative with money issues, suggesting (at least for Sen. Paul's office) that we should expect no changes in funding until after this election year and that they prefer budget cuts across the board, rather than picking and choosing certain programs to eliminate or reduce the amount of funding they receive. In other Republican offices, they were much less blunt about discussing their views on funding to the sciences, but they did have many excellent, legitimate questions for us. For instance, in Sen. Blunt's office, I spoke about the differences between science funding in China and the US, mentioning the differences in the percent of funding from year to year that the Chinese versus the American governments are investing in science R&D. Sen. Blunt's aide wanted to know from me how those percentages translated into actual dollar values (which I couldn't recall, but followed up with him in an e-mail), as well as how, in the US, the process by which scientists are awarded federal funding.
One of my main goals was to establish excellent connections with the Senate and House offices of Missouri, so that I can cultivate those relationships over the coming years, with the hope of helping to inform them on science issues. Perhaps the best connection I made was with Ms. Noelle Lindsey, the Legislative Assistant for Rep. Clay (MO), who immediately guessed I was researching kudzu when I told her I was studying an invasive plant species. She laughed as I gave her my business card, on which a photo I took of kudzu in Missouri dominates my contact information on the front of the card, recalling her father who year after year fights against eliminating kudzu from his property. This allowed me to converse easily with her about my project and how federal funding has helped me along. As I left Rep. Clay's office, Noelle said she was immediately going to text her father about meeting someone who is studying that ruthless plant he can't seem to eliminate from his life. Hopefully those little kudzu business cards and stories of my science research I left behind will likewise establish, grow, and create a stronghold in the minds of my representatives and their staff members.
For other pictures of my time in DC (which also includes many images of the cherry blossoms that were at peak bloom during my visit), see my Flickr folder: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjXb7AUG
One of my main goals was to establish excellent connections with the Senate and House offices of Missouri, so that I can cultivate those relationships over the coming years, with the hope of helping to inform them on science issues. Perhaps the best connection I made was with Ms. Noelle Lindsey, the Legislative Assistant for Rep. Clay (MO), who immediately guessed I was researching kudzu when I told her I was studying an invasive plant species. She laughed as I gave her my business card, on which a photo I took of kudzu in Missouri dominates my contact information on the front of the card, recalling her father who year after year fights against eliminating kudzu from his property. This allowed me to converse easily with her about my project and how federal funding has helped me along. As I left Rep. Clay's office, Noelle said she was immediately going to text her father about meeting someone who is studying that ruthless plant he can't seem to eliminate from his life. Hopefully those little kudzu business cards and stories of my science research I left behind will likewise establish, grow, and create a stronghold in the minds of my representatives and their staff members.
For other pictures of my time in DC (which also includes many images of the cherry blossoms that were at peak bloom during my visit), see my Flickr folder: https://flic.kr/s/aHsjXb7AUG