The State Lobbying Compliance Handbook is available fore pre-order here. The 113th Congressional Freshmen Report can be ordered as a full report or with select member profiles here.
THIS BLOG HAS no objection to self-promotion. But even if it did it would strain to suppress the announcement of Lobbyists.info’s two latest publications, The State Lobbying Compliance Handbook and The 113th Congressional Freshmen Report, both of which cast fresh light on areas hitherto very dim.
Take state lobbying. Until now, there have only been feeble attempts to conglomerate the disparate and contradictory elements of state lobby law. Yet the appetite for such a project has grown in recent years. Post-recession stimulus provoked a clamoring for clout in state legislatures and governors’ offices. Washington gridlock has driven many to look elsewhere. State and local government affairs operations have sprung up to compete with their federal counterparts. Natural as these actions were, they each brought headaches – nobody knew what they were doing. There was no authority to declare that principals must register in California whereas across the border in Oregon and Nevada no such requirement exists. There was no treasury of paperwork from which lobbyists and practitioners could access any form requisite to compliance. There simply was no escape from the cumbersome research required to get things moving.
The State Lobbying Compliance Handbook, published by Columbia Books in collaboration with Holtzman Vogel Josefiak PLLC, is a deliverance from these woes. Due in March (and available for pre-order here), the book offers as its main feature concise summaries of each state’s lobbying regulations with up-to-date forms ready for submission. In just a few hundred pages, it slashes the countless opportunity costs that would otherwise be squandered on research, and extinguishes the potential risk of noncompliance.
Though very different, The 113th Congressional Freshmen Report has a similar function. Like the state handbook, it brings understanding where understanding is both anxiously wanted and hopelessly lacking. The freshman class of the 113th Congress is, to a large extent, unknown. Its members have no congressional track record, and many haven’t uttered a breath on policy positions important to lobbyists. Most significantly, this unfamiliar cohort comprises over a sixth of Congress.
Dr. Gary Feld, founder of PowerBase Associates, assigned his research staff the task of discovering more about these newcomers. After combing through thousands of media sources, filtering the results, and fitting them into a readable guide, the report was born. Now being published by Columbia Books, its use will hopefully make the new Congress less of an enigma.
Tags: 113th congress, 113th congressional freshmen report, columbia books, gary feld, gridlock, holtzman vogel josefiak, k st., lobby, lobby law, Lobbying, lobbyist, powerbase associates, state lobbying compliance handbook
