HOW TO ORGANIZE FOR LEGISLATIVE LOBBYING

Having an effective organization is crucial to successful legislative lobbying. You have to gather your allies, create a coordination structure, do your homework on the issue, define your message, establish and maintain a communication network, and cultivate media relationships so that you can use everything you have when you need it. Finally, legislative lobbying demands that you take the long view, and expect that you’ll be at it for a long time.

Step 1: Marshaling your allies

There is strength in numbers. Identifying the people in your camp and getting them to commit to a lobbying effort are your first steps toward building a powerful organization. Who are the people you need to bring in.

• Any legislators who are already in favor of your position. Approach those who’ve voted to support your issue in the past, or with whom you’ve had recent positive conversations. Legislators who have a personal interest are natural allies.
• Actual or potential beneficiaries of the policy you’re lobbying for.
• People who work in organizations offering services aimed at the issue in question. In addition to being sympathetic, these are the people who usually know the most about the issue.
• Recognized “experts” in the field. Academics, former legislators who’ve dealt with the issue, beneficiaries of the policy in question and long-time providers of services are the types of believable, authoritative voices that legislators often listen to.
• Supportive community and business leaders and other citizens who understand the issue. These include the community opinion leaders- business people, heads of organizations, newspaper columnists who are able to influence large number of others because of their standing in their field or in the community at large.
• Professional or other organizations concerned with the issue.
• Be careful not to write off people with whom you may disagree on other issues. If they’re in favor of your issue, and support your position, they’re allies. Furthermore, the ties you establish as a result of this lobbying campaign, may mean that you’ll be allies again in the future, or even that they’ll be more willing to listen to your arguments about the issues on which you disagree.

Putting together a core group for a lobbying campaign takes some serious work. It means using your network or creating one to reach an ever-widening circle of concerned people and organizations. Generally you start with those you already know, or who you know are allies. It helps to have some connections (approach sympathetic legislators, for example, through people in their districts, where possible, or people who know their assistants), but sometimes you simply have to call and ask for an appointment.

When you find recruits to your lobbying issue, you are also finding through them, people who are part of their networks. Ask each recruit to become a recruiter, so the more allies you find, the faster the circle grows. You may be alone, or almost alone, at the beginning, but if you can interest a few people, your lobbying campaign can grow quickly.

As you collect allies, make sure that everyone agrees on the basics of what you’re lobbying for. It’s better to have a smaller group that is solid than a larger one that’s split into factions, or that can’t agree on a reasonable message.

Step 2: Creating a Coordination Structure

It’s vital to have a single coordinating individual or body at the core of your lobbying effort. This facilitates communication and decision-making, but, most important, it puts at the center of the effort one person or small group whose business it is to know what’s going on, and to act or react quickly, decisively, and effectively. The coordinating individual or group should, of course, involve all the participants as much as possible, but there may be times when the whole lobbying group will need to trust the coordinator to make a decision and mobilize support for it.

As you gather supporters, you may want to explore forming a coalition. A coalition of equals can sometimes serve the purpose of coordination without raising the concerns about who has power that often wreck lobbying efforts before they get started.

Whether you form a coalition or not, it’s usually a good idea to have a coordinating body that represents a number of different groups and interests involved in the lobbying effort. The individual coordinator might come out of that group.

The coordinator should serve as the focal point for the campaign, orchestrating communication, direct action, or whatever else needs to be done. He/she might also be responsible (either personally or by enlisting others) for acting as the coalition’s spokesperson, writing and distributing press releases, drafting public statements or position papers, contacting sources of information, keeping track of and passing on the latest information about legislative developments etc.

Step 3: Doing your Homework

• Know your issue inside out. If you’re going to lobby effectively, you and everyone else involved has to learn as much about your issue as possible. You should have all the statistics available, both at your fingertips and on the tip of your tongue. If there’s science or political philosophy or history involved, you should know it well enough to explain it in a way understandable to the average person.
• Know the other side. If you’ve opponents, or if there are drawbacks to what you’re lobbying for, you need to know the arguments against it as well as your own, and to develop point-for-point answers to them. If there are legitimate arguments that you can’t answer, you should at least consider rethinking your position on those issues. If that’s not possible, i.e. if you see what you’re lobbying for as far more important than its negative consequences, then you should at least acknowledge those arguments as problems, and offer to work solutions with your opponents. It’s absolutely essential to be honest in these situations, because your credibility is at stake. If you downplay or ignore arguments unfavorable to your issue, people will assume that you’re exaggerating, or even, inventing, the favorable arguments as well. Successful lobbying depends in part on legislators’ and the public’s trust in you and what you tell them. The best way to assure their trust is to tell the truth. It’s important to know the other side personally as well. If you have opponents, either legislators or others, you need to know who they are, why they are opposed, and what they’ll respond to. If you can maintain a personal relationship with them, regardless of your disagreements, all the better. You may be allies in the future, and they’re most likely to deal reasonably with you if they see you-and you see them as reasonable people.
• Know the committees that are important to your issue and who’s on them. Find out the legislators or staff who tend to support your issue or position, the legislators or staff who tend to waver between support and opposition to your issue or position and what will convince them.
• Know who other key legislators are and their positions on your issue. Chairs and Vice-Chairs of important committees, legislative leadership, legislators who are willing to take up your issue as a personal cause, individuals whom other lawmakers respect and listen to. Learning who the players are should be an important part of your preparation.

Step 4: Defining your message

You need to be specific and crystal clear about what it is you’re lobbying for, whether it’s funding, legislative language, a new policy or a change in policy, recognition of a particular need or concern, or some combination. In order to be sure that your message is one that all your allies can happily support, you can develop it through a process involving representatives from all constituent groups. Alternatively, if there’s a lobbying group that everyone supports, it could be agreed that the message developed by that group will be the message voiced by everyone.

The lobbying message has to make sense, be easily understandable to those unfamiliar with the issue, and effectively address the issue in reasonable ways. If it offers solutions, they should be feasible, given the economic and political climate and the resources available to the state or federal government, or to the agencies which will implement laws or administer funding.

There are several reasons why a clear and specific message is so important:

• A well-defined message is easier to pass on to your allies, easier for them to understand, and less likely to be misstated.
• A clear message is easier for legislators and the public to understand, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the issue.
• A message that’s specific and concise is more likely to be heard favorably by legislators, especially if it asks for some specific action.  Legislators dislike ambiguity; if there’s something they can actually do that will benefit constituents and that they can take credit for, they’re apt to favor it if it’s not too controversial. If it is controversial, they will appreciate the fact that you’re absolutely clear about what they’ll have to do if they support you. They can then weigh the consequences of that support, and know what they’re getting into.

The clearer and better your ideas, the better your chances of success. If you can make a powerful argument that’s easy to understand and difficult to counter, you’re more than halfway home.

Often, if it’s a piece of legislation you’re after, the best strategy is to write the legislation yourself and try to recruit legislators to sponsor it. If you’ve already thought everything out carefully and done the work, legislators appreciate the savings to them of time and effort.

• An advocacy effort must speak with one voice. Having a clear and specific message that everyone agrees on makes that possible.

Step 5: Creating a Communication Network that works

It’s vital that you and your allies be able to reach one another quickly, and to mobilize for immediate action. You’ll often have a day or less to make an impact, and you have to make every minute count. The best way to insure effective action (putting together an urgent strategy meeting, calls to legislators, organizing a public event on a short notice, etc.) is through an effective communication system. Effective systems vary with circumstances, but they have a few features in common:

• An individual or small group responsible for coordinating communication. A communication system needs someone at its hub to manage it. The logical person for this is usually the lobbying coordinator, but it could be a separate communication coordinator who works with him/her, or it could vary from situation to situation. If it isn’t possible for one person to play this role, then it should be shared among a few people as possible to minimize errors and missed opportunities. Being at the center doesn’t mean that the communication coordinator should do all communication by himself/herself, but rather that he/she should oversee and manage it.
• A fast and reliable way of getting information out to everyone who needs it. E-mail is probably the best if it’s possible, because it’s instantaneous and can be sent to a large numbers of people at once with a single stroke. A well-maintained website with an e-mail link may also be an excellent and nearly instantaneous source of information. Communication methods obviously need to be geared to what’s possible and need to be adapted to the needs of the people involved.
• A feedback loop so the coordinator can determine whether a requested course of action- phone calling to legislators, information-gathering, etc. is being carried out and what its results are. If people report back to the coordinator about the results of their contact with legislators, for instance, he/she’ll have the information that will allow the group what to do next.
• Messages to the whole group originate at the central point, so there will be no doubt about their content and accuracy. If someone has new information or a message for the whole group, it should go through the communication coordinator.
• Links not only to the lobbying group or coalition, but to the media, allies in the legislature and elsewhere, and other outlets and resources- other coalitions, national groups, etc.
• Regular updates. People and organizations change jobs and staff people move, switch their Internet service providers, get new phone lines, etc. The communication system has to be constantly checked so that everyone’s information is accurate and they can be reached on the first try.
• A crisis management plan. If something happens that results in adverse publicity or scandal attached to your lobbying group, a plan will help to minimize the damage.

Step 6: Cultivating the Media

Publicity is often a major element in a lobbying campaign, and the best way to get it is through the media. In order to make sure you have access, you need to develop and maintain relationships with both newspapers and radio and TV stations and with individual editors, columnists, reporters, producers, and broadcasters, so that you can get your message out quickly and at the right time. In particular, you might want to arrange some or all of the following before there’s an emergency or an all-out campaign, so that you’ll have the procedure down when you really need it.

• Press releases
• Press conferences
• Stories you write or arrange
• Editorials you write or arrange
• Public events the media will cover

Step 7: Taking the long view

One of the fundamental pieces of a solid lobbying effort is the understanding that lobbying takes time. A particular success- getting money in the budget for your issue, for instance, can often be accomplished in a short burst of furious activity. But it may take years to get a law passed, or to have your message become common knowledge among policy makers. Your group has to be willing to keep at it, even in the face of apparent defeat, or worse, indifference. There is no guarantee that sustained effort will lead to success; but there is an absolute guarantee that a lack of sustained effort will lead to failure. Perhaps the hardest fact for lobbyists to swallow is that success doesn’t mean it’s all over. Once you’ve achieved a goal, it doesn’t mean you can relax. Legislators change, memories of politicians are short. As soon as lobbyists turn their backs, their issue ceases to exist for legislators (and to a great extent, for the public as well, to be replaced by the issue of the moment. A solid lobbying effort never ends and never stops for a rest. It has to continue all the time, essentially forever.