@donaldball What I find, over & over, is that the groups who take the time & have the resources to make the rounds to congressional offices have more influence for all sorts of reasons.

And yes, there are certainly very visible attacks on science by some, but there are 535 members & thousands of staff. We tend to focus on the most outrageous & extreme, but they're not representative of everyone. Plus, a staffer's party affiliation doesn't always reflect that of their office.

@jkbecker if only it were that simple. Staff are super busy juggling a lot of policy issues at once while being bombarded with multiple meetings on the same issue each day by all sorts of groups. If the science community - especially scientists already engaged in & focused on policy - hope to have greater influence, we need to learn more about the culture of the Hill.

I write this as a scientist & former Senate staffer who studies where staffers get scientific information.

* New friends on Mastodon - The link above is to Unelected Representative, a newsletter solely focused on my current research/dissertation about scientific decision making in the U.S. Congress.

I started writing on substack last December & so far it’s been quite helpful & interesting to explore & unpack ideas there. Thanks to those reading along! /2