Lobbying comes to Sisters

Some 60 Sisters High School juniors and seniors got a taste last week of what it takes to make things happen and bring change in government.

Joe Lessen, a professional lobbyist in Washington, D.C., volunteered his time to share his expertise with students in Jon Renner's politics class. Lessen works for the federal affairs department of America's Health Insurance Plans, representing nearly 1,300 companies that provide health insurance to more than 200 million Americans.

Lessen was introduced to Sisters schools a few months ago when he and his wife came to Sisters with friends David Allen and his wife Leslie Satcher for a break from the Washington D.C. rat race. Satcher and her husband have been in love with Sisters and its schools ever since Satcher performed in the Sisters Starry Nights Concert series (see related article, page 8).

Renner picked the foursome up at the airport, and on the ride to Sisters as good conversation flowed, Lessen offered to be a guest speaker in Renner's government class.

"So my wife and I spoke in this class earlier in the year, just kind of telling them what we do," Lessen said.

And last week Lessen was back, traveling to Sisters at his own expense, to work with Renner's class once again. This time Lessen's wife stayed in D.C. as she is helping newly-elected Senator Bob Corker set up his office.

Lessen explained his motivation for helping.

"When I saw your school, I was just mesmerized," he said. "I wish I would have had a high school that was run like this when I was going to school. And my home town was about the same size as Sisters."

Renner, a hands-on type of instructor, set the stage for Lessen. The scene in his classroom is dynamic and thought provoking as he bullets questions, drawing not only from students' memory banks of American History but also from the repertoire of everyone else who happens to be in attendance - including Principal Bob Macauley and the reporter.

A question was even shot at a lone photographer as he opened the door and entered the room: "Who was Jonas Salk?" A little startled and completely unaware of what was going on, he fired back: "He developed the polio vaccine."

Renner went on to fill in the gaps for his students providing some background about the disease and the iron lung, a concept foreign to the majority of young learners.

In talking about Jonas Salk and how people working for a cause can bring about change, Renner pointed out that the March of Dimes funded Salk's efforts. He asked, "Was that zero sum gain?" Helping the students, Renner answered his own question. "No it wasn't; we got way more back out of it, because none of you know what an iron lung is. None of you have had polio. We just about completely eradicated that disease because nickels and dimes ... actually conquered the disease."

The concept of zero-sum gain was carried into the simulation of a committee hearing that Lessen staged. Students were divided into two groups.

One group supported providing health care to illegal immigrants. The other advocated increasing funding for grants for students to go to college. Mimicking what happens when a bill is discussed in committee, the students debated the issues.

This exercise provided a real life experience to Sisters High School juniors and seniors of how bills in the U.S. House and Senate are actually formulated. They now understand that after debates like the one they experienced, proposed bills are examined line by line and word for word to decide what will be kept and what will be excluded.

Lessen's goal is for the students to experience real politics. He is so impressed by what he sees going on in Sisters schools that he wants to give back what he can.

"I support it 1,000 percent," he said. "What you have going on here at your high school is phenomenal. In doing this, I am hopefully helping the kids to really know what's going on up on the hill and maybe some of them might get involved with local politics or state politics and not be afraid of it."