HOW TO APPROACH LEGISLATORS AND OTHER POLICY MAKERS

Lobbyists don’t have to and in fact shouldn’t wait until there’s a burning issue to make contact with policymakers. Establishing and maintaining regular contact with as many legislators, staffers, and other influential people as possible will serve you when the crunch comes.

There are three basic rules for this kind of contact: approach policymakers personally; have a clear goal in mind to talk to them about; and make sure they understand the advantages of supporting you and the costs of not doing so.

Approach Policy Makers personally

• Make sure that everyone involved in the lobbying effort knows who his/her representative is, and that he/she has a personal relationship with someone in each person’s office. The ideal is to have enough contact with the legislator or his/her assistant so that that person recognizes your name and will answer or return your calls.
• Make sure to establish relationships with key legislators. It is best if the lobbyists involved are actually constituents of those legislators, or if this isn’t possible, they can be identified as officers or representatives of a coalition or formal lobbying group. Sympathetic legislators can also be helpful here, in arranging introductions and vouching for your legitimacy.
• Use your constituency. Mass visits to legislators’ or other policymakers’ offices (scheduled, or at least routine, rather than invasive or threatening) can be extremely eye-opening for legislators. Legislators often don’ realize the strength of grass roots support for an issue until they actually have a large group of people facing them and asking for action.
• Try to create, with the help of allies in the legislative body, a caucus to deal specifically with your issue. A group of interested legislators and aides who meet on some regular basis, and who are well-grounded on the intricacies of the issue, the goals of your initiative, etc. can be tremendously helpful in getting support made into law.
• Make it personal. Introduce policy makers to people/representatives of organizations that are or will be directly affected by their policies and let those people, and let those people tell their own stories.
• Stage educational events for legislators. Hearings, information sessions, presentations can help educate legislators and gain allies for your issue. Legislators are more likely to attend such an event if they are invited formally by letter by other legislators.

Approach Policy Makers with a clear goal in mind

Your goals should be clear, specific, and involve something a lawmaker can actually try to accomplish. Clear goals are easier to understand for both those you are trying to convince and those working with you. Legislators and other policy makers have many demands on their time, and many people asking them to do something. If your message isn’t clear, specific and accomplishable, they’re not likely to want to spend much time with you.

It’s particularly helpful if you can come up with something substantive that a legislator can use or do: an already-drafted version of a bill you want passed; a list of items you want included in legislation; a specific sum of money you want appropriated in a specific budget item or bill (and be sure you know the line-item number or bill number); a letter you’d like the legislator to sign on.

Most legislators think only from election to election; if you can give them the chance to do something they can take credit for when they run next for office; they’ll be far more liable to try to make it happen.

Approaching Policy Makers with the consequences of their actions

Make sure that legislators and other policy makers understand how their support of your issue will benefit their constituents. The issue of consequence should be brought up only subtly. Letting legislators know the extent of the problem is one way to address this matter. Another way is to see to it that legislators receive a steady stream of phone calls, and e-mail from constituents who care about the issue (and make sure that they ask for information on how the legislator ultimately votes on the issue). Yet a third more dramatic possibility is to gather thousands of signatures on a petition and to have as many of the signers as possible present it to the legislator(s) in person.

Regardless of how a legislator votes in a given situation, maintain contact and good relations. Today’s opponent may be tomorrow’s ally, depending upon the issue and upon the circumstances of the issue and the legislator’s life. Your ability to keep talking to someone may ultimately mean that he/she’ll see you as a friend, and will be willing to listen and support you.

Whether a legislator has been swayed by your arguments or supported you from the start, be sure to thank him formally if he/she voted with you, especially if the legislation or funding you lobbied for was passed. If a major hurdle has been cleared, it might make sense to write a letter to be sent to each legislator thanking all of them for recognizing and understanding the problem they addressed in their vote, and telling them what will happen as a result of their action. Lawmakers want to know not only that they have done the right thing, but that someone has noticed, and will remember at the next election.