Weekly Wonk: Advocacy When the Earth Moves Underneath You
How advocacy is evolving, building safety culture, & Chafee on the move
From the Founder’s Desk
Welcome to the latest Weekly Wonk.
We hear consistently from those working to develop, inform, and advance policy that it feels as though the ground has shifted beneath them.
Trusted tactics that consistently worked before don’t, or they produce less impact than expected.
This week’s Deep Dive from Senior Contributor Doug Steiger unpacks why, setting the stage for an upcoming premium series on ways to upgrade your strategy in response.
Our latest premium brief builds on last week’s exploration by Dr. Michael Cull of where our assumptions outpace evidence in child welfare.
Evidence was also the thread connecting my recent WonkCast with Dr. Jill Berrick, discussing where policy narratives drift from the evidence, and why it matters.
Special thanks to Binti for their foundational sponsorship of WonkCast.
We talk a lot about deeper trends pointing to the limits of current policy and advocacy frameworks, and the emerging next era to which they point.
Through a nonprofit I founded, Bolder Horizon, we’re launching a cross-partisan fellowship for leaders who want to build that next era. Learn more and apply here.
Let’s get into it.
Weekly Wonk Deep Dive
How Advocacy is Evolving
Why what works is changing and what it means for moving child and family policy.
By Doug Steiger, Senior Contributor
Some aspects of policymaking, power, and persuasion are timeless.
Others are a function of their era, reflecting shifts in fundamental political coalitions and communication technology.
A consistent theme we hear from child and family policy advocates is a feeling that the ground has shifted beneath them.
Approaches that worked before don’t, or they produce less impact than expected.
This policy vertigo reflects structural changes in how Washington operates that our field’s strategy hasn’t fully caught up to yet.
This is the first in a three-part series on engaging Congress on child and family policy.
Here we will map what has changed and why it matters for your work.
The next two pieces will focus specifically on how to upgrade your strategies for engaging Congress based on those changes, and will be available exclusively to our premium Wonk Briefing Room members.
The Traditional Pathways Have Eroded
Historically, federal child and family policy has advanced through bipartisan committee work, evidence-based framing, and coalition credibility.
2018’s Family First Prevention Services Act was a key high water mark.
As fellow former Senate Finance Committee staffer Laura Berntsen laid out on WonkCast in March, it reflected significant negotiation and coalition building.
The Maternal, Infant, and Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program’s 2022 reauthorization grew from Member relationships, advocacy efforts, and committee process, as Ways and Means Subcommittee Ranking Member Danny Davis described on WonkCast in January.
It was more than cosmetic; it doubled MIECHV funding.
Other recent bipartisan child welfare legislation might seem to suggest these pathways still hold.
2024 saw a Title IV-B reauthorization. The ongoing process to reauthorize the Chafee program has Hill momentum and a boost by First Lady Melania Trump.
But those are different in kind rather than degree. They make modest reforms while keeping the core structure and funding intact.
As Zach Laris has highlighted, that’s the tell: these vehicles persist but are increasingly underpowered relative to the problems they target.
That’s a deep challenge and a unique opportunity to leverage what will work.
How Power Changed
A dysfunctional and polarized Congress has not only ceded power to the White House and Supreme Court, but also redistributed it internally.
Where it has moved matters for your strategy.
The Chokepoint Congress
Thin margins used to reward bipartisanship; power flowed to members - especially Senators - willing to cut deals across the aisle
Polarization has inverted that, creating chokepoints.
Small blocs and individual members can block movement, which generates leverage for them and gridlock for everyone else.
We saw this in last year’s reconciliation process The One Big Beautiful Bill Act was a partisan vehicle, so what mattered were the fault lines within the Republican caucus, not persuading the other side.
With fewer Senate “gangs” and House moderates, leadership tracks internal coalition dynamics like caucus blocs, White House positioning, and who holds veto power.
That reduces the importance of harmonizing priorities across committee chairs.
An election might result in slightly larger majorities, but polarization appears likely to remain a central feature of Congress for years to come.
That’s especially likely given the latest Supreme Court Voting Rights Act decision, which builds on prior jurisprudence that paves the path for partisan gerrymandering.
Committee Chairs Without a Wheel
Committee chairs retain influence, but rarely drive direction.
Thin margins and less bipartisan dealmaking favor big legislative packages and partisan budget reconciliation over the accretive committee process.
That horse trading, relationship building, and deliberate markup sequence historically moved child and family policy
Committee leaders instead now largely deliver action within containers that leadership has already shaped.
Formal committee process validates decisions made elsewhere, often through opaque internal caucus negotiations that advocates rarely see until positions have hardened.
The Vehicle Determines the Entry Point
The committee-driven bill still exists, but it is no longer the primary pathway for major policy change.
It is increasingly reserved for narrower, technical, or lower-stakes issues.
As Congress passes fewer standalone bills, the ones that do move are larger.
That doesn’t just change the policy content, but how and who gets to shape it.
Major policies are increasingly legislated through:
Budget reconciliation
Continuing resolutions
Omnibus spending packages
Debt limit negotiations
These vehicles are controlled by leadership, structured around deadlines, and governed by fast track procedures.
This invariably crowds out the deliberate cultivation that child and family policy has historically required.
And because these policy products often emerge from intraparty negotiations, the entry points are narrower and different from what advocates are used to.
This also determines to whom policymakers are responsive.
For example, during last year’s Medicaid reconciliation debates, advocacy constituencies more aligned with Democrats had little input regardless of the merits of their perspective.
What mattered was key constituencies with leverage on marginal decision makers.
That’s why the specific views of hospitals in North Carolina became critical as Tom Tillis moved to opposition, and why GOP-driven Medicaid expansion politics shaped what Senator Josh Hawley needed before he could move.
Changing Media Changes Minds
The channels that once reliably moved policy debates no longer consolidate influence the way they did.
That has real consequences for how advocates reach members, and also what reaches those Members before they hear from advocates.
Policy debates were shaped through core channels of concentrated influence; national media, committee briefings, reports, and formal reports and evaluations by trusted, credible institutions with widespread acknowledgement.
An advocate could reasonably track and influence the inputs shaping a member’s thinking. That’s no longer the case.
Our Information Buffet
Television news is no longer about Walter Cronkite or CNN; sources once trusted across the political spectrum.
Even an ideological mainstream communications channel like Fox News doesn’t consolidate conservative viewers anymore.
Social media platforms, podcasts, and YouTube are now filling that space , and they reach members directly, often before any policy briefing does.
One activist with a video camera can seed an “anti-fraud” narrative that reframes a program before advocates know it’s happening.
For many members, these non-traditional validators now carry more weight than editorial boards or think tanks.
Even when those validators matter, they’re now often downstream of these more niche influencers. That has major implications for messaging and policy strategy.
What Moves Members
Members are influenced by inputs that do not move through formal policy channels and are often not visible to advocates.
A niche media outlet followed by their base can shape their understanding of an issue before any policy briefing does, and outside the view of advocates confused by a sudden turn in their thinking.
Signals from trusted political allies or leadership can reset their position quickly.
Issue salience can shift quickly outside formal policy channels.
Messaging is also fully visible across audiences who share different contexts for what it means and how to “decode” it, meaning communications intended for one group are often interpreted by others.
This also means messaging containment is largely gone
Communications crafted for a progressive audience can receive reframing by conservative media and vice versa.
Language to activate a coalition partner can create resistance with another.
Members can shift position in response to signals that never pass through formal policy channels and aren’t visible to advocates until the damage is done.
What Hasn’t Changed, and What Needs an Upgrade
Although so much has changed, many core advocacy elements still matter.
It’s as important as ever to have strong issue framing that resonates with those making decisions.
Power flows from credible coalitions that can drive what Congress cares about.
Data and direct experience is still central to shaping arguments around policy. Enrolling the alignment of key influential messengers matters more than ever.
Building broad support, working through committees, refining policy through process, and winning floor votes all continue to be necessary steps.
They’re just no longer sufficient on their own.
What has to change is the strategy layered on top. Advocates need a working map of internal power centers.
This means planning your approach not just around committee chairs, but also taking into account caucus blocs, intraparty fault lines, and who holds veto power over the relevant vehicle.
The members worth engaging early are not necessarily the ones with the loudest public profiles.
They’re the ones with strategic leverage over marginal decisions, and their positions can harden quickly and without warning.
Engaging them early and often to build relationships and credibility before the hardening of positions is non-negotiable.
Putting it Into Practice
These dynamics apply differently across parties, requiring a tailored strategy.
Hill Republicans operate with a fragmented coalition with competing power centers, plus the dominant and at times unpredictable influence of President Trump.
Hill Democrats are shaped by constraints rather than control.
As the minority, they struggle to set the agenda, with a base eager for them to show resistance to the President but limited legislative tools for doing so.
Our upcoming premium pieces will map engagement strategies for each, with how you can most effectively engage with decision makers amid these changes.
From the Wonk Briefing Room
Child welfare’s accountability structures rest on a wobbly assumption: that the key to safety is reliably implementing evidence-based interventions.
This week’s premium brief by Dr. Michael Cull is a companion to his recent Weekly Wonk piece, going into why research on other high stakes safety fields says they key is cultures that learn faster than they fail.
This piece lays out questions you can use for discussions with your team as you work on policy and practice issues related to safety when uncertainty table stakes.
Wonk Briefing Room members get pieces like this every week — analytical depth calibrated for leaders who need to make decisions, not just understand issues.
To read the full brief and access all our premium resources, join the Wonk Briefing Room. Individuals can sign up here, or get the team membership rate here.
Wonkatizer
Bipartisan Chafee Bills Advance
The U.S. House Ways and Means Committee held a full committee markup, advancing six bipartisan bills to modify the Chafee program for older youth.
The bills emphasize housing, education, and workforce preparation.
While cost neutral, they would expand what the program can cover and how it supports young people.
Why it Matters
The unanimous votes follow the recent boost by First Lady Melania Trump, maintaining momentum for the bills.
Unanimous votes position the legislation as non-controversial and widely supported, opening pathways for inclusion in larger legislation or the suspension calendar.
What to Watch
The weekly floor calendar for House votes and how the Senate responds.
There’s also the “yes, and” support from policymakers and advocates backing reforms while staking a claim in longer-term talks tied to funding and policy structure.
That’s it for this week.
Stay sharp, Wonks.
Z
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