Capitol Weekly Podcast: Jennifer Fearing, fearless advocate

Lobbyist Jennifer Fearing operates Fearless Advocacy, a small “white hat” lobbying outfit that represents nonprofits, animal rights groups, environmentalists and other clients with feel-good causes. With clients like these, Fearing isn’t the highest-billing advocate on the block, but her record at the capitol is the envy of many of her peers. She shared her most immediate concern: the pandemic has made this a difficult year for many of the nonprofits she represents; funding is suddenly unstable, and for many, demand for services is way up.

We asked her about her recent Twitter post highlighting a list of good news among the seemingly never-ending downpour of terrible that is 2020. She also discussed the ugly end-of-session wrangling that ultimately doomed the ambitious recycling bill SB 54 (and, same bill, AB 1080) that she was working – similar legislation will be on the ballot in 2022. That 2022 election may be a ways off, but this year’s Presidential election looms large. Fearing is going all-in: we caught her just as she prepared to relocate to a rural Pennsylvania swing county (voted twice for Obama, then for Trump) for the duration of the election season.