Archive for October, 2011

Contacting Members of Congress? You’re Not the Only One.

Friday, October 14th, 2011 by Vbhotla

A new Congressional Management Foundation report entitled “Communicating with Congress How Citizen Advocacy is Changing Mail Operations on Capitol Hill“ found that constituents are contacting their Congressmen far more frequently than they were 10 years ago: Senate offices reported a 548 percent increase in mail volume since 2002 (including one office that experienced a 1,422 percent jump), and representatives in the House received 158 percent more mail.  Despite receiving overwhelming amounts of constituent mail, 90 percent of congressional staff surveyed still say that constituent communications remains a “high priority.”

Offices that embrace technology find responding to constituent communication much easier than those that don’t, but the report found that in many cases, “‘old school’ habits on Capitol Hill are inhibiting the potential for Congress and citizens to have a more robust, active and meaningful relationship using online technologies.”  In the past, many offices refrained from sending emails, resorting to phone calls and snail mail instead because they were afraid their messages would be altered.  Even still, 86 percent of congressional offices are answering email messages with emails, a rise from 37 percent in 2005.

However, if you’re feeling like an office isn’t getting much done, or is taking forever to respond to your scheduling request, it’s because staff is also spending an increasing amount of time sifting through the influx of constituent mail.  The survey found that on average, staff spend 58 percent of their time on constituent communications, and 46 percent say they have had to shift resources to manage the increased mail volume.  Response time seems not to be dependent on the request: 42 percent of staff surveyed say it takes more than three weeks to draft and approve a response to an issue that previously has not be raised, and 41 percent say they need “more than a week to respond to a constituent email even if a prepared text response has been drafted and approved.”  All of this with the same resources; Congress has not increased office staff sizes since 1979.  In 2009, Congress debate a high number of high profile issues, and as a result, offices also experienced the greatest jump in constituent communications that year.

Senior managers in congressional largely believe that the biggest challenge they face as it pertains to responding to constituent mail is mail volume (35 percent), but 41 percent of “mail staffers” state “the review and approval process” is the mostly responsible for the delay.

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Social Data and the 2012 Election

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 by Vbhotla

A data-driven grassroots strategy driven by Facebook may prove a huge difference-maker in the 2012 election, just as a similar strategy quietly helped generate widespread support for then-candidate Obama in 2008.  With the social intelligence afforded by social media sites like Facebook, a campaign can effectively mobilize volunteers to maximize their canvassing, be it phone calls or door-to-door campaigning.

“On the micro scale, any campaign volunteer or staffer with Facebook on their phone is carrying around a treasure trove of data about their contacts: Almost all of their friends, how often they talk online, what they talk about, even when they go to the same events,” writes Personal Democracy Forum’s Nick Judd on the techPresident blog.  Part of the effectiveness of such a strategy is that potential voters are not contacted by the candidates or unknown campaign staff, but by their own friends who are politically active and speaking on behalf of the candidate.

“It marks the early appearance in the field of a new strategy — merging campaign data with the data each supporter keeps about their contacts, stored away in places like Facebook profiles — that I expect we’ll be seeing more of in the future,” Judd continues.

So far, no candidate has been able to capitalize on this like President Obama.  With this, his second election cycle leveraging the possibilities of data mining as a way to activate voters (and donors), President Obama is miles ahead of his challengers.

“Obama may be struggling in the polls and even losing support among his core boosters, but when it comes to the modern mechanics of identifying, connecting with and mobilizing voters, as well as the challenge of integrating voter information with the complex internal workings of a national campaign, his team is way ahead of the Republican pack,” writes Personal Democracy Co-founder Micah Sifry for CNN.

The Obama campaign is also harnessing the power of private social networks to connect volunteers and campaign staff and allow higher-level managers to monitor progress against goals and get a broad picture of on-the-ground efforts on NationalField (which started with the Obama 2008 campaign).  Volunteers can share what they’re doing — hard data and qualitative observations can be reported for a comprehensive portrayal of what is really going on — and the hierarchical structure of the network allows information to be filtered based on staff seniority.

“While the Republican field (and bloggers and the press) has been focused on how their candidates are doing with social networking, Obama’s campaign operatives are devising a new kind of social intelligence that will help drive campaign resources where they are most needed,” Sifry writes.

Regardless of what social media platforms campaigns employ (or don’t), data harmonization and the ability to leverage personal relationships are among the most basic — but most often overlooked — principles of any campaign, and will be crucial to a candidate’s success.  Efficient data management ensures that all operations of a campaign are interacting and aware of the others’ efforts.

“If the 2012 election comes down to a battle of inches, where a few percentage points change in turnout in a few key states making all the difference, we may come to see Obama’s investment in predictive modelers and data scientists as the key to victory,” Sifry concludes.

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Dont Let Your Advocates be Scared Motivate Them!

Wednesday, October 12th, 2011 by Brittany

Depending upon the issue and the nature of the network, advocate leaders may occasionally find themselves needing to either encourage more people to actively participate in advocacy efforts or encourage more quality communications with the target audience.  Outlined below are a few of the key barriers to participation, options for overcoming those barriers and ideas for recognizing advocates’ efforts.

Barriers to Participation

Advocates often cite one of the following reasons to explain why they might be unwilling or unable to participate in efforts to make policy change:

  • Lack of time
  • A feeling that their participation doesn’t matter
  • A feeling that the organization should do the lobbying, not them
  • Unsure what to do / intimidated
  • Advocate fatigue / over-activation
  • Lack of progress
  • Disagreement over policy direction

Overcoming Barriers

  • Quick and Easy Activities: Advocate leaders should look for ways to draw potential advocates in to the network through some quick and easy activities.  These might include sending an e-mail to a legislator through an action alert site, signing a petition, responding to a poll or survey or sending a postcard.  This might be viewed as the “crawl before walking” approach.  Once advocates become familiar with and comfortable with these simple activities, advocate leaders can work to encourage these individuals to engage in more substantive and effective communication strategies.
  • Cultivating the Active:  It’s not the number of communications that have an impact on policy outcomes, it’s the quality. Hence, it may make sense for advocate leaders to focus more attention on the powerful 5 to 20 percent of the network willing and eager to take substantive action, without, of course, ignoring the rest of the network.
  • Training:  The following components of a training program will help address some of the more common barriers to participation: why their voice matters, role in the GR campaign, long-term focus, and how to advocate. 
  • Engaging Champions:  Legislative or regulatory champions of an organization’s issues can help deliver the message to advocates that their voice matters.  In some cases, advocates may be more apt to believe a legislator than an organization’s government relations staff.  Advocate leaders should consider asking policy champions to speak at events or make public statements about the importance of citizen advocates to the policymaking process.
  • Strategic Activation:  Advocate fatigue can be managed, in part, by being as strategic and focused as possible when activating the network.  Organizations that frequently issue high-priority action alerts, particularly when those alerts aren’t warranted, may find their advocates becoming immune to their requests – and unwilling to take action when truly needed.
  • Change the Definition of Victory:  In developing advocacy plans, advocate leaders should identify internal goals that can be achieved regardless of external events.  These might include targets for numbers of advocates in the network or developing a pilot program for coordinating a few site visits during a recess.  These aspects of the campaign may be more within the control of the organization than, for example, whether a bill moves forward to the hearing stage or not.
  • Managing Set-backs:  How an organization manages the inevitable set-backs associated with any advocacy effort can make or break their future success.  Advocate leaders should look to be as up-front as possible about set-backs, while identifying future plans of action.
  • Setting the Policy Agenda:   Organizations that set their policy agenda in concert with the advocacy network will likely have fewer disagreements with members about policy direction than those that adopt a more hierarchical approach.  Before asking advocates to communicate with policymakers on a critical issue, it is imperative to ascertain that most members of the network are in agreement on the overall message.
  • Agreeing to Disagree:  In some cases, organizations may need to take controversial positions that may be unpopular with some percentage of their members.  Advocate leaders should identify these potential disagreements as soon as possible and be prepared to address questions about the decisions made by the organization.

 

For more information or to purchase the Advocacy Handbook click here.

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OMB Releases Final Guidelines on Lobbyist Ban

Friday, October 7th, 2011 by Vbhotla

The Office of Management and Budget has issued final guidance on the June 2010 White House directive which banned lobbyists from serving on executive branch advisory boards and commissions.  The guidance, which will go into effect Nov. 4, impacts only active federally-registered lobbyists, not those who have terminated their registrations or lobby only at the state and local levels.  Also excluded from the ban: individuals employed by organizations that lobby but who are not actually registered themselves.

Lobbyists appointed prior to June 18, 2010 will be permitted to serve out the remainder of their terms on commissions and advisory boards, but agencies will have to request resignation from any individual who registered as a lobbyist June 19, 2010 or after.  No waivers will be granted.

“Special interests exert this disproportionate influence, in part, by relying on lobbyists who have special access that is not available to all citizens,” President Obama said in the memorandum.

American League of Lobbyists President Howard Marlowe calls the move “shameful,” saying “It’s clear that the president has begun his reelection campaign by resurrecting Pokies professional lobbyists as his punching bag.”

“Although lobbyists can sometimes play a constructive role by communicating information to the government, their service in privileged positions within the executive branch can perpetuate the culture of special interest access that I am committed to changing,” Obama said in the statement.

Marlowe contends, “[The president’s] actions reflect a disdain for open government based on transparency and the free flow of information.  It is political hypocrisy to say that those lobbyists who are not registered are welcome within the inner circle, while anyone who for whatever reason has registered as a lobbyist is shut out.”

OMB spokeswoman Meg Reilly told Politico Influence “The president has taken steps from the start to close the revolving door between the federal government and special interests, to end the culture of powerful lobbying influence, and to dramatically expand the level of transparency in government. This guidance is an important step in those efforts, but we will continue to identify new ways to expand transparency and accountability and look forward to working with the public on this.”

 

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Ghosts of Lobbyists Past Prior Government Experience

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011 by Brittany

Effective January 1, 2008, the LD-1 lobbying registrations for new clients of lobbying firms must disclose the prior government service of each individual lobbyist for 20 years preceding the filing of the registration. New individual lobbyists employed by an existing registrant will also need to disclose this information on the entity’s next quarterly LD-2 report. Employees of the organization registered as lobbyists prior to January 1, 2008 are governed by the two-year look-back only.

New employee lobbyists – or existing employees who trigger lobbying registration after January 1, 2008 – must report their prior government service for the twenty years preceding the reporting period in which they are newly registered as lobbyists.

Prior government service is defined as a “covered executive or legislative branch official.” For purposes of disclosing prior government employment, all registrants and filers must use the LDA definition of “covered executive or legislative branch official.”

Covered executive branch officials under the LDA are:

  1. The President
  2. The Vice President
  3. Officers and employees of the Executive Office of the President
  4. Any official serving in an Executive Level I-V position
  5. Any member of the uniformed services serving at grade 0-7 or above
  6. “Schedule C” Employees

Covered legislative branch officials are:

  1. a Member of Congress
  2. an elected officer of either the House or the Senate
  3. an employee, or any other individual functioning in the capacity of an employee who works for a Member, committee, leadership staff of either the Senate or House, a joint committee of Congress, a working group or caucus organized to provide services to Members, and
  4. any other legislative branch employee who, for at least 60 days, occupies a position for which the rate of basic pay is equal to or greater than 120 percent of the minimum rate of basic pay payable for GS-15 of the General Schedule

For more information or to purchase the Lobbying Compliance Handbook click here.

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