EFECTIVE LOBBYING IS GETTING VOTES
Submitted by christian on Fri, 03/06/2015 - 15:17
- Your threshold question of each lawmaker is 'Why would this lawmaker give me his or her vote'. Until you can ask this question, you are not likely to get the vote.
- Your answer is 'Because I have what this lawmaker wants'. If you don't go home.
- Lawmakers are your customers. Customers buy to meet their needs, not yours.
- Winning a lawmaker's vote is 10% access and 90% heat. Access is easy. Political heat is a few active higher level constituents both those in and out of district.
- Get past 'nice' to get lawmakers' vote. A lawmaker's being nice isn't a vote.
- Lobbying is a dance of seduction. Find and use each lawmaker's susceptibilities.
- Facts don't vote. A lawmaker votes his or her own peculiar calculus. Seldom are material facts alone sufficient to get votes, political facts may be.
- 70% of winning a lawmaker's vote occurs before talking to the lawmaker.
- Lawmakers are almost wholly motivated by special interests. Lobby the special interests that keep a lawmaker in power before you lobby that lawmaker.
- The lower you shoot, the higher you hit. Lobby staff, then members of the relevant committee (Chair, Rapporteur)
- 80% to 90% of lawmakers are irrelevant to your winning or losing. The relevant ones are on the key committees and the few if any who actually care.
- Lobby first to get those few relevant lawmakers to partner with you. You must show each why partnering with you is good for him or her politically.
- Most lawmakers' votes are won or lost outside committee meetings (coffee shop, bar, restaurant,)
- Most committee meetings are theater since the votes were committed outside.
- There is no unimportant staff. You may not need a staff person's support but you can't afford his or her opposition. Build warm relationships with staff.
- The more work you do for lawmakers and especially staff, the more likely your ideas will become law. Materials that don't help them do their jobs end-up in the trash.
- Legislatures operate on 3 types of rules 1) written, 2) unwritten, and 3) unwritten and unspoken. Violate any of the 3 and your influence with lawmakers will falter.
- Unwritten rule 1- you have to talk to groups you don't like and who don't like you.
- Coalitions are indispensable. They exist for advantage not for love, loyalty or debt. Don't pre-qualify or disqualify a potential partner. Politics makes strange bed fellows.
- Most contract lobbyists have little personal political power. Don't confuse a lobbiyst's ability to say 'hello' to the lawmaker with the ability to get that lawmaker's vote.
- The best time to lobbying is when you don't need anything.
- Nobody cares about your issue as much as you do. Nobody can win your battles for you. If you don't make it happen, then it won't.
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