Public Affairs Specialsit at Mothering Justice – Detroit, Michigan

The Public Affairs Specialist is the legislative intelligence engine of Mothering Justice's public affairs function, responsible for owning the organizational legislative tracker in real time, developing and working whip counts for priority legislation, building and maintaining comprehensive legislator profiles across voting records, donor bases, caucus alignments, and committee positioning, reviewing introduced bill language and draft legislation for statutory construction problems, and executing rapid response when floor votes move without warning or hostile amendments drop during markup. This role sits at the intersection of legislative intelligence, policy analysis, and partner coordination, and it is built for a practitioner who already knows how to run a whip operation, read a bill in its introduced form and identify a statutory construction gap before the organization goes on record, distinguish a leadership ask from a member discretion vote, and execute across all of those functions simultaneously during an active session calendar without losing precision.

Day to day, this role drafts public comments during federal and state agency rulemaking periods at a level of substantive depth that earns entry into the formal record, prepares witnesses and written testimony for committee hearings including coaching on committee room protocol and member questioning dynamics, develops member-facing materials including one-pagers formatted for legislative office leave-behinds and talking points written for the Director's use in member meetings, conducts opposition research to anticipate floor debate arguments and build counter-narrative frameworks before they are needed, coordinates organizational sign-on processes and endorsement campaigns with attention to political timing and bill cycle positioning, and serves as the real-time intelligence interface between the public affairs team and the communications team when legislative developments require a public response.

Candidates must have a minimum of three years of direct experience working inside state or federal legislative processes, including bill tracking, vote-count development, legislator research, and independent engagement with elected officials and legislative staff as a principal representative of an organization. Preferred candidates will bring established relationships with Michigan legislative staff, caucus directors, and committee offices, fluency in Michigan legislative culture including floor calendar control dynamics, germaneness determinations, and sine die implications for carryover legislation, prior exposure to bill drafting processes through collaboration with legislative counsel offices or model legislation development, and working knowledge of MARA registration requirements and c3 and c4 lobbying compliance distinctions. Candidates whose experience is primarily administrative or communications-facing without direct legislative engagement will not meet the requirements of this role.

Starting salary is $60,000 annually. This position is based in Lansing, Michigan and requires the candidate to live in Lansing or within 20 miles of the city. Mothering Justice is a Detroit-based political advocacy organization advancing the Mamas Agenda, a policy platform developed by and for mothers of color that centers universal childcare, paid family and medical leave, Black maternal health, and basic needs security. This role exists to advance the Mamas Agenda, and candidates should be prepared to commit to that mission. Mothering Justice is an equal opportunity employer that values diversity and does not discriminate in employment based on race, socioeconomic status, national origin, color, disability, religion, gender, age, marital status, sexual orientation, or gender identity.

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