Navigate Pennsylvania Policy & Governance

Course Overview

Don't worry - you don't need to become a policy expert to run for office successfully or govern effectively. But to develop, build connections around, and defend your platform, it's important to be solidly familiar with the major policies affecting your community: the basic background, the prevailing positions and narratives, and the political constituencies behind them. And to tune and eventually deliver on campaign promises, it’s crucial to understand the authorities and tools you will have in government, and where you may need the support of others. By the end of this course, you will be better equipped to navigate Pennsylvania's policy & governance terrain.

We will prepare you in six stages, answering key questions along the way:

1. State of the State: We start with a quick overview. Who makes up Pennsylvania and, in particular, your local community? What is the geography? What are the major sectors of the economy? What are the trend lines? And from this, where do you see opportunities and challenges ahead?
2. Pennsylvania Government & Political History: You’re interested in tackling these challenges and making positive change through government. We will look at the institutions of government at the state, county, and local level - one of which you are a part of and others with which you may need to collaborate. What do they do? How are they structured? Where is the power and how is it trending?
3. Policy Levers: Next we'll walk through the tools to implement policy you would have access to in your desired legislative, executive, or judicial role. For example, what does the "power of the purse" look like in Pennsylvania? Taxation? Regulation?
4. Major Sectors & Systems of Pennsylvania: Public policy is generally directed towards groups of people and/or industry, so here we will provide brief background on the major sectors & systems represented in the state, like: health care, education, and energy, as well as labor and justice. How are these systems structured and how are they changing?
5. Current Issues: All of the preceding sections prepare you for this penultimate unit: running through the major issues currently affecting the state and the policy discussions around each. These policy discussions involve the potential of government, to use its policy levers, to influence a set of sectors in the state. We cover 30 major issues debated in Pennsylvania: from higher education access, broadband infrastructure, and healthcare costs, to paid family leave, policing, and shale extraction. Which issues are impacting your communities and how? Focus on only those relevant to you. We’ll give you background on the topics and the politics surrounding them, and prep you for your capstone assignment: engaging your local community to hear their voices on these issues. Understanding your constituents' lived experience completes your brief.
6. Next Steps: Engaging Policy Experts:  This is a solid foundation – but if and when you need further policy insight, you needn’t fend for yourself. Who can you consult? We will provide connections to policy expertise you can tap as needed.

You will complete the course having developed your own tailored policy briefing book with stories from your future constituents that you will be able to reference on the campaign trail and beyond.

FAQs

Should I sign up?

We welcome and encourage any candidate or prospective candidate for Pennsylvania elected office to sign up. Whether you are considering a 2021 local or judicial race or a 2022 state-level race, this course will prepare you to engage on the issues that matter to your future constituents.

Current elected officials and their staffs, as well as community organization staff, may also wish to sign up. Strengthen your tradecraft, preparing to deliver results for your community and communicate your successes.

We also highly encourage candidates to bring along a partner from your (future) campaign team or kitchen cabinet with whom you can discuss issues and tackle assignments.  Please have your partner sign up on this page, as well.

Where is it?

Instruction is conveniently online, accessible through our web platform and iOS and Android apps. Additionally, we will sync up during one-hour live session each week through Zoom video conference.

When is it?

This cohort tentatively launches the week of January 11th and runs through the week of February 15th. Timing of live sessions will be determined based on a survey of those registered.

What is the structure of the course?

Lessons are split into bite-sized video lectures that you can easily fit into your busy schedules. Exercises and supplemental readings help reinforce and localize what you've learned. Pennsylvania Budget & Policy Center and Empowered To Run staff will facilitate the course and keep you on track with achievable deadlines.

In your capstone project, you will interview a diverse set of your own community members about the policy issues you've learned about, hear their perspectives, and capture their stories and language.

What are the requirements & commitments?

Requirements to earn your Certificate of Completion will be provided at course launch.

As this is the inaugural self-paced cohort of this course, we ask all participants to commit to providing periodic feedback during the course and agreeing to brief interviews with training staff before and after the course.