Getting Involved Means Starting With The Basics

A reader called Monday to say how frustrating it is that so many people have such limited understanding of our political system.

But Shannon Selland’s frustration is no match for her persistence.

Besides running her own family day-care, Selland is public policy chairperson for both the Eastern Washington Family Day Care Association and the Washington Association for the Education of Young Children.

Until she got involved in those organizations, Selland admits, she didn’t know all that much about how to contact her state or federal lawmakers, how to get information about legislation, how to influence what happens to it.

So she’s not talking down to the folks of whom she says: “They don’t even know what district they live in.”

“When I would talk to different groups and encourage them to get involved and to call their legislators and write letters, I would get these blank looks. They felt like I used to.”

So she set about sharing what she had learned, starting with such basics as how many representatives and senators each district has or who’s in the state Legislature and who’s in Congress. She gave out the legislative hotline number. She pointed out campaign signs.

If she sounded overly simplistic, she reassured people, she wasn’t patronizing them. She just didn’t want to take anything for granted.

It must have worked. Not only do she and her colleagues call officials, the officials now call them.

An aide to state Sen. John Moyer called Selland to find out what her group thought of a legislative issue. Gov. Mike Lowry asked her to participate in a federal roundtable discussion that was held in Olympia.

“I wondered, ‘What am I doing here?”’ she recalls. “I’m just Shannon who worried that kids’ welfare might be in jeopardy.”

Selland’s experience indicates that the closed-out feeling so many Americans feel about the political system may not be because of locked doors but because they lack the self-assurance to knock on it. Several times if need be.

“I’m a perfect example of how it does work, how one person can make a difference.

“My goal is to get people focused that way, so they could make a difference. You can write a letter, you can make a phone call, you can talk to your neighbor.”

Other readers who have stories like Selland’s, or responses to it, are encouraged to call.

, DataTimes MEMO: “Bagpipes” appears Tuesdays and Thursdays. To respond, call Cityline at 458-8800, category 9881, from a Touch-Tone phone; or send a fax to 459-5098 or e-mail to dougf@spokesman.com. You also can leave Doug Floyd a message at 459-5577, extension 5466.

The byline did not run with the published story.