The health effects of cell tower radiation was probably the winning argument (among many) that was used in 2017, when opponents of SB 649 kept bringing up the fact that firefighters were exempted in the bill from having a cell tower near their station, resulting from their fierce objections due to their past experiences of major neurological deterioration as a result of such towers. If firefighters are protected, what about children, the elderly, and all the rest of us? In what upside down universe does that make sense?
So, no, it's not true that you have to avoid any mention of health impacts when lobbying state representatives.
You may have been told legislators have short attention spans, so you need to make your message very short and catchy. They are not going to read a long letter with a lot of research attached.
Not true. They might not read every long letter, especially if it's filled with rambling thoughts and unsupported assertions, but if your letter is well organized and accurately addresses what the bill says, their aides/staff will look it over, since it's their job to know all the facts related to the bill. Some even appreciate that you are helping them do their job, and activists' research will influence how they write up the bill.
Your task as a lobbyist is to explain all the reasons why the bill will be extremely bad for California. Yes, it's good to choose your words carefully, but if it takes you more than one page to explain all the reasons, that's OK. If you're short on time or energy, it's totally fine to focus on one or two key points, as long as you can back up your arguments with some form of documentation, and can explain how they relate to the bill.
As far choosing which issues to focus on, don't limit yourself to a neutral and non-controversial argument, e.g. local control is an important principle that should be upheld, or 5G next to people's houses will reduce property values. Legislators are already aware that these bills remove local control, and many cities will be writing to strongly remind them of that fact.
We are trying to transform the legislator's entire worldview about the supposed miraculous benefits of saturating our lives with wireless radiation. A neutral message like "someone's property values could go down" is not likely to convince them. (Is it even true that someone's property values will go down from having a small cell tower in front of their house, if every third house in that community has a small cell in front of it, as the authors of these bills intend?)
This brings me to the very prevalent use of "talking points," which are very condensed messages that can be used by members of groups to attempt to sway legislators. There is a school of thought which says the main goal in lobbying the legislator is to get the largest number of people possible to call into their office and/or wait in line at a hearing to give a "me too" statement. The "me too" statement only allows them to present name, organization if any, and a yes or no position on the bill. And since the main goal is to get large numbers of people to call in, you don't want to burden potential citizen-lobbyists with a lot of details about the bill. It's better, this theory goes, to just give them some sound bites that then can be repeated endlessly by everyone who calls in.
There is some truth in this approach, which is if you can get a large enough number of people from the legislator's own district to call in, they might be responsive to the sentiments of their constituents--but probably not responsive enough to overcome the power of the telecoms to establish the discussion parameters about why this bill is so necessary.
If there is a group of activists who all live in the same legislator's district, they should try to set up a meeting with the legislator, or if that's not possible, the top aide working on the bill. That would have a much greater impact, as opposed to all the activists in that district calling in with the same few, identical talking points.
One problem with talking points is that they make it less likely you will be able to make an authentic connection with the aide. They've heard it all before, maybe ten or twenty times before, and their goal will be to get you off the phone as quickly as possible.
Another problem with talking points is that they're not always true. What?? I saw it on a flyer or I saw it on a website, so it must be true! I've already talked about the issue of wrong information being widely circulated. I think it's like the game of telephone we played as kids. The first person in the circle whispers something to the next person, who whispers it to the next person, and by the time it reaches the last person, the original message has been changed into something totally different.
You need to ask yourself, does this argument make sense? Can I find documentation to back it up?
Regarding what I described as the telecoms setting the "parameters of discussion," they claim that due to the Covid-19 crisis, when people in low income and rural communities are unable to receive high-speed internet access, their ability to access government programs, education for their kids, and to earn money for their survival, is severely threatened. Providing high-speed access to these groups should be the main concern of legislators who are trying to help their constituents.
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