Tag: Politics

  • Why lobby at all?*

    Following the enactment of the Big Ugly Bill, I read a couple of pieces that wrestle with what’s the point of lobbying (or advocating, if the L-word makes you nervous) given that hundreds of organizations and thousands or even millions of people fought back against this monstrosity and it didn’t change the results.

    I’ve been doing this work for nearly 30 years, through some years where we had some big wins and some years where we had some awful losses, and I thought some folks might be interested in my perspective.

    Short version (tl/dr): It was always a long shot to stop this bill, but that doesn’t mean lobbying is pointless.  Stay angry, keep fighting, don’t despair.

    Long version:

    The first thing to realize is that changing votes on these big high profile deeply partisan bills is the single hardest thing to do in politics.  By the time a bill gets to the floor, 99 percent of members are locked into their positions, and nothing is going to move them, not data, not stories of voters, not polls, not money. Moreover,  a competent speaker or majority leader knows if they have the votes, and won’t bring a bill to the floor if they don’t.  John McCain’s thumbs down on the Affordable Care Act repeal was a historic exception, but I literally can’t think of another example like it.

    Does that mean that there’s no point in lobbying on these big bills?  No, of course not.  One reason to keep lobbying is that it does shape the final bill.  As terrible as this bill is – and it’s awful – there were Republicans pushing to make it even worse. That didn’t happen (much) largely because some of the more moderate vulnerable Republicans pushed back.

    Lobbying is also important for accountability purposes. Almost always, the most reliable way to change a vote is to change the person casting it. When someone who voted for this bill is running for re-election, you want to be able to say that they were confronted with the facts of what the bill would do, and the faces of the people who would be harmed, and they voted for it anyway.  And of course sometimes, under pressure, people say really stupid and awful things like “they’ll get over it,” and “well, we’re all going to die.”  

    But there’s also a lot more opportunities to lobby where you can have a bigger impact.  One is at the state or local level, where legislation and policies often get much less attention, and a small number of committed advocates can make a bigger splash.  And the state level is where many decisions are made – including what happens next to food assistance under SNAP, and health care under Medicaid.

    You can also often have much more of an effect by lobbying earlier in the process. While it’s rare to change a vote on the floor, I’ve frequently seen lobbyists (including citizen lobbyists) persuade a lawmaker that an issue that they had never heard of was worth paying attention to. Early engagement is critical to drawing attention to an issue, to building champions, to shaping “message bills” that are probably not going to be enacted, but that plant the seeds for future legislation.  Rosa DeLauro has been pushing for an expanded child tax credit since at least 2016.

    Stay angry, keep fighting, don’t despair.

    *With apologies to Marge Piercy