Well friends, all good things must come to and end. This is the last installment of our “This is What a Lobbyist Looks Like” series during our Membership Drive. In today’s episode I took to zoom to chat with Texas Impact’s Public Witness Mobilizer, Kyle Riley.
In October, Kyle was approved for ordination in the United Church of Christ. During our interview, Kyle shared his faith based approach to preparing for the upcoming session.
You can read excerpts below or watch the full interview here:
Kat:
Hey everyone. I am Kat Karbach, Membership Manager for Texas Impact, and I am joined today in our next episode of “This is What a Lobbyist Looks Like” with our very own Kyle Riley. Hi, Kyle.
Kyle:
Hey.
Kat:
Nice to see you. Thanks for being here. So we’re doing this interview series, getting to know our lobby team, especially during our annual membership drive, so our members can have a little sneak peek behind the curtain of the work that you are doing as a member of our lobby team so they can know why it is so important for them to be a member of Texas Impact. That being said, I know things about you. I know your hobbies, I know what you do for Texas Impact because I have the pleasure of being your coworker, but for some of our members and some of the people that interact with Texas Impact, they don’t. So I would love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself, your educational background, maybe some of your hobbies, let the people get to know you.
Kyle:
Yeah, so I went to undergrad at UT. I have a bachelor’s degree in history with a concentration in religious studies. So I then went on to Duke University for a while, started my MDiv there. It’s a Master of Divinity. That’s the degree that a lot of the faith communities, the Christian faith communities require for ordination. So I started my degree there and then I transferred to ILIFF School of Theology in Denver, and I just finished up all my credit hours in November. So I’m officially done with that degree. Graduation’s, not until May because it’s a small school. But yeah, I’m super excited to have that done and have my free time back in the evenings, although that’s about to be taken up a lot by the Texas legislature for the next few months. And speaking of that free time, so you asked about my hobbies. I know Kat, but I have recently taken up crochet thanks to our folks at the UWF conference. So last UWF I got a crochet kit and it really kicked off a hobby and I have been crocheting ever since. So I have a lot of projects I’m excited to share with folks as I see them over the next few months.
Kat:
The gift that just keeps on giving, right? The UWF Legislative Conference, it’s bringing people together from the public policy standpoint, but also from the mental health and hobby standpoint of giving you a really fun hobby to help you during the session. I love that story. The blanket that you made from the kit that you got last year is so beautiful, which leads me to, not the blanket, but the fact that you’re about to become, or you’re about to orated, no ordination. Your ordination is coming up and session is coming up. And so there’s this, I’m curious about where your head is, your head space around or preparing for session from that theological standpoint? From the standpoint of having your ordination No, being ordained. Sorry, clearly I don’t have the degree in this, but I guess the question straightforward is you’re about to become ordained, we’re about to enter session. Tell me a little bit about where your head is.
Kyle:
Yeah, so ordained. Yes. So I’m about to be ordained. I didn’t mention this earlier, but I’m a member of the United Church of Christ. So we have several members who are also part of that denomination, several of our board members, and I am going to be ordained in February. So it’s super exciting. This is what I wanted to do. So my ordination call is going to be to Texas Impact, and so I’ll be ordained into doing justice work, and that’s why I got the degree in the first place. That’s what I wanted when I started pursuing the degree. And I am just so excited. And honestly, I keep saying it’s really crazy that I feel like I’ve gotten my dream job at 25. That feels a little early, so who knows what’s to come next. But I’m super excited to be here and I’m really excited to head into this session.
I talked a lot with my denomination ordaining body and about the importance of me being ordained at the start of the session so I could be a lobbyist like anybody else and an advocate for our justice issues. But my entire call is to be an ordained advocate and the power that holds in these spaces, and especially our entire organization exists because faith voices have power in policy. And so being an ordained minister going into this session seemed really important. And so they were kind of wanting to wait until I officially had that degree in May, and I said, I think it’s really important that I do this beforehand. So we talked a lot about that, and I’m super excited for that coming up. It’s a big life change in some ways. It brings a lot, I know several of our members can relate to this experience. We have so many ordained clergy, but I am just super excited to head into this space and start doing what I have already been doing. But in a more official capacity.
Kat:
Because you’ve been in and around and through and around the capitol for a while, especially going to UT, but this is the first time as a lobbyist, correct?
Kyle:
Yeah, so I started going to the Capitol when I was in eighth grade. We did some really fun trips down to Austin all the way from Amarillo. And last session in 2023 was my first time doing any sort of advocacy work. And so I did some volunteer advocacy with several of our partner organizations, and especially I landed with Texas Impact, and that got me in fully. But that was my first time really experiencing and having a full understanding of what the legislature does and how it all works. And yeah, it was exactly what I wanted. It really secured a lot of things for me as far as this is what I want to do, like I said, and having that experience last session just really, really solidified that for me.
Kat:
And so I know you’ve mentioned your 25, this is your dream job. Our lobby team is actually quite young. I’ve interviewed Gracie who also, this is her first time being a lobbyist, is also in her mid early twenties. I’ve interviewed Bobby. This is not his first time. He’s by all intents and purposes an old hat at being a lobbyist compared to you and Gracie, Gracie and I were chatting about the pros, the cons and the strengths she thinks that she’s going to be able to bring being younger and this being her first time. Any thoughts or comments about it being your first time being a lobbyist, maybe being on the younger side? What are your thoughts there?
Kyle:
I think in some ways I bring a little bit of optimism that might be missing from some folks. It’s a hard place to be in the legislature, and I know that especially doing what we do, you don’t often get wins, and that can be really exhausting. And so I think that one of the things that I’m bringing is that freshness, that naivety almost. But I think that’ll serve me well, at least for the first while, especially while I get my footing there. I have a lot that I don’t know yet, and I think it’s good to recognize that. And I’m really just, I’m excited to learn. So I’m also going into this session, no matter our political climate or what we may or may not think we can accomplish. I think there’s a lot to learn and there’s a lot of connections to be made, especially with our members. And this is a really, we’ve said it in other places, but this is the time to be doing that organizing, that community organizing and that grassroots mobilization. And I think that my presence in the capitol and with our members is going to really help me to build some of that with them. And so as I learn, I hope they learn and we can work together to be able to do some really good stuff when the time is right.
Kat:
Yeah, amazing. Speaking of learning and building, I know that our lobby team is meeting with Beaman Floyd, our outside counsel, but tell me anything that you’ve learned and want to share with our members as you prepare tips and tricks for navigating the capitol, tips and tricks for what to bring to the capitol, tips and tricks for how to interact with the staffers and the legislators and the senators. Any wisdom you can give to our people.
Kyle:
Yeah, I’ve learned a lot from Beman already. I mean, I said it before, but our session, last session, our advocacy days were really my first time doing advocacy that felt really good and meaningful, and a lot of that had to do with our lobby experience from Beaman and everything that was shared at that event. And that has just multiplied being on the lobby team with him. One of the things that Beaman has recommended that I’ve started is a binder of things to keep at the capitol, things that you need for a session and for any given day. So I’ve got that started. You can see it wasn’t very full, but I’m sure it will fill up quite quickly once bills start moving and needing to know where everything’s at. So that’s one of the things I’ve done personally that I’m getting ready for. One of the other tips and tricks that I will just share is learn the makeup, the layout of the capital as best as you can.
It can be pretty confusing, but I think knowing where you’re at and knowing you may not know exactly where each legislature’s office is, but knowing the numbers and how to get to those places, it just makes you look a little more confident not having a map out necessarily in the capitol. And so I think that helps a little bit. When you go into an office and folks see you walking around. You may not know that they’re from an office when you’re walking past them with a map, and then two seconds later you’re talking to them. And so I think that can be really helpful is doing some of that work beforehand and trying to really get yourself grounded in where you’re at. Yeah.
Kat:
And I think that that kind of really ties it in a bow for us, because part of what being a member of Texas Impact does is allows us to equip and mobilize our people, equipping them with something like the pink building, which is a gorgeous pink document. It’s a map of the capital, and we’re able to provide that because of the membership dues that our members give us. So thank you for that. That was, I know unintentional, but a really great segue into the membership drive. Well, I know that you’re doing a lot of great work with the repro team that you work with and work on, and I know y’all have had some wins and maybe not some wins, but I know that you’re gearing up to do the work, and I know you’re preparing as a lobbyist, and so I’m just doing these interviews with you and Bobby and Gracie. I’m not being tr, it’s very inspiring to hear the work that my coworkers are doing, that our members are doing. And so I just really appreciate you taking the time to share that with me and share with our members. And that’s all I have for you. Those are all of my questions. So thank you so much.
Kyle:
Thank you, Kat. Yeah, I’m really excited to share this. And yeah, to echo what you said, we couldn’t do any of this without our members, our repro team. I’m partial to them. I spend every week with them, but those folks make my job just so much easier, and they also make my job really exciting. I get to chat with some really awesome people, and I know that’s true for all of our teams, so we definitely could not do this without them.
Kat:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, thanks again for being here. And for those of you that are listening that are not members, our membership drive is not over. You can go to Texas impact.org and join today. You can join Kyle’s repro team and learn more about the work we’re doing around reproductive rights or any of the other issues that we’re working on by going onto our website. Thanks again. That’s all from me.