Welcome back, Saturday Campaign D.I.Y.ers! For those who tune in, welcome to the Nuts & Bolts of a Democratic campaign. Each week we discuss issues that help drive successful campaigns. If you’ve missed prior diaries, please visit our group or follow Nuts & Bolts Guide.
This year we’ve been focused on activism, how our activists outside of campaign wage their own campaign to help oust politicians opposed to them on the issues. Activism often extends far beyond the ballot box. It is also about exerting pressure into your state house or local government through some sort of lobbying effort.
When we talk about lobbying efforts, most people have a negative connotation. They think of high-profile, highly paid people who wine and dine elected officials to get their way. But every time you write a letter, make a phone call, or contact a representative, you are in effect lobbying.
Because I like to focus on the state level, where more individuals can grow in skill and make immediate impact through their work, this week we are going to talk about lobbying your state house, from organizational efforts to actually hiring someone to be in the state house.
Beginning this year, we focused on our three fictional activists, but this week, we’re going to hone in on one, Nancy Wood, in order to follow the process from beginning to end. Nancy has done a lot of research to build up her lobbying opportunities. She understands the bills in her state house she opposes and can articulate why she opposes them. Her state representative is one of the good guys —she is with Nancy on the issue and will be a “no” on the pieces of legislation Nancy opposes. That’s great. But Nancy knows that in order to beat the legislation, she needs to reach out to legislators on the fence and maybe a couple who could be supportive now and persuade them to vote the other way.
How can she help build the lobby efforts of her small group?
Identify persuadable votes and those who can contact them.
You can waste a lot of time and effort if you are spending all of your resources contacting elected officials you know will never agree with you. You need that level of activity when you later try to oust them from office. But for now, Nancy has to focus on how to persuade elected officials to agree with her position.
Her first call can be to the activists who make sure someone is in the state house frequently, or her legislator that she knows is with her group on the issue. By building up a list of potentially persuadable elected officials, Nancy can start to work on how to effectively use the resources of their newly formed group. Reaching out to people who live in those districts who can directly contact the legislator is the most effective strategy, but individuals from nearby districts or anywhere in the state can also provide some influence.
Keep track of how they vote.
Nancy also knows that some of the individuals she needs to persuade will not be persuaded. Nancy has encouraged her activist group to build a score card. They build together the significant votes in the state house and keep track of how legislators vote. This allows them to provide members of their group with a very quick summary of how well their legislator performed.
Many individuals are not paying a lot of attention to their own state house, so no news is good news for an incumbent. Keeping track of how they vote with a quick summary that identifies bad votes has been used by conservatives and liberals for years, primarily because it works.
This in itself is also part of your lobby effort; by keeping track of the issues you are most focused on, you can empower your group to clearly define elected individuals, and that can also influence votes.
Use how they vote to build expectations.
Many activist groups engage in town hall attendance, letter writing, email campaigns, or in office meetings. To make your lobbying efforts effective can take time and requires a lot of attention. Following elected officials actions can tip you off as to whether or not your lobby efforts are succeeding, when they succeed, and what approaches are effective and ineffective.
At the same time you are keeping a score card on your elected officials, your group should keep a score card as to their efforts. What worked best? What failed miserably? Take outside feedback from advocates inside of the state house and fine tune approaches that work.
Consider a state house registered lobbyist.
Nancy discovered that her group grew quickly in the months following the 2016 election. Many individuals want to get involved, but keeping track of what is going on in the state house can be difficult. Local papers and news rarely report on what happens in state committee meetings or on the state house floor.
Because of the size of her organization, Nancy is considering hiring a state house lobbyist to work for her organization to keep them up to date. In some states, this can be an expensive project. In other states, it can be done very cheaply. Contributing to an individual so that they can take your message into the state house every day can be a major plus for activists. Republican state houses around the country can often surprise activists by quickly pushing through legislation that activists weren’t prepared for and as a result, the opportunity to stand in the way and be active disappears.
Having someone in the state house makes sure those kind of surprises rarely happen. While corporate entities certainly pay lobbyists to avoid being blindsided, in state houses around the country many smaller groups now put some resources into having someone monitor the state house every day. Becoming a lobbyist in many state houses is simple—pay a small fee and be free of felony convictions. Her activist group may not be a fan of corporate lobbying, but in their case, they need a voice in the state house to keep track of elected officials and legislation. This information, when conveyed to their group, can save an immense amount of time and resources, and it takes a practiced observer less than a legislative session to determine many of the things your organization needs to know.
In 2016, the Center for Public Integrity pointed out that more business interests and certainly conservative activists, are putting lobbying efforts into state houses.
Expecting an activist to take off work every day to be in the state house unpaid is unrealistic. But raising money to keep track of your state house can be priceless both in elections as well as to shape the kind of policy you want.
Final Thoughts:
Whether it is writing letters or hiring someone in the state house, activists can’t just throw up their hands between election cycles and say “well, 18 months from now. ...” Individuals who participate in your group will want to see you take action now on causes they care about. Your lobbying efforts can give people a reason to feel invested in the outcome of the next election. A legislator that refuses to listen to you? It motivates people to work against their re-elect. A Democratic legislator who talked about your issues? More reason to support them. A score card that shows average voters what happened in a year? It is a great way to get more people involved and simplify the state house.
Next week on Nuts & Bolts: In State ethics: To PAC or Not To PAC, that is the question.