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I’ve had the opportunity to live and work with Richard as a grassroots organizer. He’s a great person and fantastic networker. He’s now a lobbyist working on tax issues in Sacramento, Calif.
As a legislative affairs/policy analyst with a major taxpayer advocacy organization, he tracks legislation, writes support/oppose letters to legislators, keeps various coalitions up-to-date and monitors local elections. He also works on research, voting records and a business-oriented steering committee on global warming.
The daily grind
Richard begins the day with email updates from a database of all legislation that the team tracks. He notes changes in each bill’s status and updates correspondence to reflect any changes. He also coordinates a calendar of all tracked legislation, to ensure that a letter or lobbyist arrives in time for hearings. A courier service takes his letters directly to the individual legislators. Just keeping everything current can require long hours.
Lobbying is seasonal work. During the beginning of the year, lobbyists work long days. Between meetings with freshman legislators, he wrote more than 100 letters on tax policy. Later in the year, there’s time for research projects and board meetings to keep membership in the loop.
The ups and downs
Richard loves the research projects. To track local elections, he calls each of California’s 58 counties to stay up-to-date. That level of involvement and tracking provides a direct benefit to the organization’s members.
On the other hand, an organization with a wide variety of members faces challenges in reaching consensus. Though they share things in common, it’s still hard sometimes to find enough cohesion to take a forceful stand. How do they resolve conflicts? Give and take. A member supports someone else’s need in return for support when they need it. And influential members tend to get more focus on their key issues.
What it takes
You must know how to write–and how to communicate in person. And, Richard says, you must be passionate about your issues. “If it’s not an issue you care about, the energy and excitement won’t be there to propel you.”
Misconceptions
Even though people think lobbying is all about making friends, that’s not enough. “You could get along well with the people, but if you have a thin argument, that doesn’t change anything.” You also need opportunities for growth through making mistakes.
Playing politics
While Democrats hold the majority in California, special interests hold the real power in Sacramento, Richard says. “Labor unions dominate discussions with threats to legistlators, especially Democrats, who might not vote their way.” For conservative interests like his, that means many compromises.
Indeed, political discussions are often bound by special interests, some of whom take a brazen ‘we got you voted in and we can get you voted out’ attitude toward elected officials. “Everyone’s at the table trying to grab what they can get,” Richard says. “It’s hard to enact change without give and take.”
Living with yourself
I asked Richard, “Since many people consider all lobbyists the same as the special interest groups who undermine progress, how do you reconcile your job with your ethics?”
Though he’s fighting on behalf of corporations, Richard keeps an eye on the effects legislation will have on the people those companies serve. “People like to beat up on big business,” he says, “but that money all goes to something, including paying for employees, research and development, future job growth and–lest we forget–government programs, through tax dollars.”
Lobbying is like sales, PR, outreach or any other job: you’ve got to believe that you’re making a difference in the best way you can. “Not just make-believe believe,” Ricard warns, “but really believe. If you’re saying things just to say them, people can see right through you.”
As a conservative in California, Richard’s work can be frustrating. But he says he’s fighting the good fight. “You just have to believe in the issues and that you’re making a difference,” he says. “If you do, it’s rewarding.”
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Even though people think lobbying is all about making friends, that’s not enough. “You could get along well with the people, but if you have a thin argument, that doesn’t change anything.”
“People like to beat up on big business,” he says, “but that money all goes to something, including paying for employees, research and development, future job growth and–lest we forget–government programs, through tax dollars.”
I LOVE those two statements. People always beat up on lobbyists, and it’s always really frustrating to me, since lobbyists often represent self-interests of huge chunks of the populace through their corporations’ reach. I’m glad you did a section on this, because I think it’s important for people to hear positive press and “the real story” about the ethics of being a lobbyist. Good lobbyists help politicians keep in touch with their constituencies.
Exactly. I’m glad you liked it. As professional communicators, we can appreciate the role that others–like lobbyists–have to play. Of course there are those that are slimy and unethical, and Richard mentioned them. But, like our conversation on my first ethics post, just because you take an advocacy position doesn’t make you unethical.
I appreciate how you put it: “lobbyists often represent the self-interests of huge chunks of the populace through their corporations’ reach” & “good lobbyists help politicians keep in touch with their constituencies.”