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The
One-Hour
Activist
The 15 Most Powerful
Actions You Can Take
to Fight for the Issues and
Candidates You Care About
Christopher Kush
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To aid you in your activism, the worksheets in this book are available
FREE on-line.
If you would like to download electronic versions of the worksheets,
please visit
www.josseybass.com/go/onehouractivist
Thank you,
Christopher Kush
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The
One-Hour
Activist
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The
One-Hour
Activist
The 15 Most Powerful
Actions You Can Take
to Fight for the Issues and
Candidates You Care About
Christopher Kush
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Copyright © 2004 by Christopher Kush. All rights reserved.
Published by Jossey-Bass
A Wiley Imprint
989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741 www.josseybass.com
ISBN: 0-7879-7300-9
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning,
or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States
Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center,
Inc., 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, 978-750-8400, fax 978-646-8700, or on
the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be
addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street,
Hoboken, NJ 07030, 201-748-6011, fax 201-748-6008, e-mail: [email protected].
Jossey-Bass books and products are available through most bookstores. To contact JosseyBass directly call our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 800-956-7739, outside
the U.S. at 317-572-3986 or fax 317-572-4002.
Jossey-Bass also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats. Some content that
appears in print may not be available in electronic books.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kush, Christopher.
The one-hour activist : the 15 most powerful actions you can take to fight for the
issues and candidates you care about / Christopher Kush.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-7879-7300-9 (alk. paper)
1. Political participation—United States. 2. Political activists—United States. I. Title.
JK1764.K84 2004
322.4’0973—dc22
2003023197
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST EDITION
PB Printing
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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CONTENTS
Preface
ix
Acknowledgments
xv
The Author
xvii
Introduction: Democracy in Action
xix
Part One: Gather Information and Strategize
1
ACTION 1
Learn How Grassroots Advocacy Works
ACTION 2
Pick Your Issues and Your Angle
17
ACTION 3
Identify Your Representatives
31
ACTION 4
Join an Interest Group
45
ACTION 5
Create a Legislative Agenda
53
ACTION 6
Analyze a Bill
61
ACTION 7
Conduct Opposition Research
73
Part Two: Contact Your Elected Officials
3
83
ACTION 8
Write an Effective Letter
85
ACTION 9
Send a Powerful E-Mail
97
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ACTION 10
Make a Compelling Phone Call
105
ACTION 11
Persuade Others to Act
113
Part Three: Get Involved with Elections
ACTION 12
Get Out the Vote
121
ACTION 13
Contribute Money to Candidates
Who Support Your Cause
131
Part Four: Work the News Media
143
ACTION 14
Start a Press Clippings File
145
ACTION 15
Write a Letter to the Editor
151
Part Five: Super-Powerful Actions That
Take a Little More Time
159
ACTION 16
Have a Face-to-Face Meeting with
Your Representative
161
ACTION 17
Testify at a Public Hearing
175
ACTION 18
Participate in a Protest
185
ACTION 19
Volunteer for a Political Campaign
193
ACTION 20
Pitch a News Story or Interview
199
It’s Time for Action!
viii
119
211
Contents
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PREFACE
T
his is a tactical guide, not a civics class.
This is a book of action—a book you will put down to write, call, or
meet with your elected officials or to engage in any of the twenty powerful
grassroots actions explained in this book. These actions take you well beyond the voting booth and into the creation of substantive, influential dialogues with the people in power who represent you.
I understand that inspiration can be fleeting, so I have presented the
core information you need to quickly and easily begin to have an impact on
the issues you care about. This is a book with as little political theory and
history as I could get away with. This is also a book you can grow with—
and the deeper you explore The One-Hour Activist, the more sophisticated
your actions will become.
Your first action to take, whatever your previous experience with politics is, should be to review exactly how grassroots advocacy works and
how it does not work. This is the subject of the first chapter, Action 1.
Americans harbor all sorts of misconceptions about the mechanics of
grassroots advocacy, for example, that clicking on a prewritten e-mail is
just as effective as a written letter because the only thing elected officials
do with such communications is count them. In fact, some of the letters do
get read, and the ones that do have a distinct advantage over those that are
merely counted.
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Take time to review the background information in Part One of this
book—even if you just saw your representative saying something unconscionable on C-SPAN and you feel the need to immediately call or write her
office. The initial chapters of this book form the foundation on which all
of the subsequent grassroots actions depend.
The One-Hour Activist will help you understand what it is about a letter,
or e-mail, or face-to-face meeting with a constituent that can influence
the overall decision-making process in the offices of your lawmakers. Each
action has a list of do’s and don’ts. At the same time, I want you, the reader,
to let go of white-knuckle adherence to mechanics in favor of more strategic considerations, like how you can individualize your letter, fax, or phone
call to truly pique the interest of your elected officials. In any case, the primary rule of grassroots organizing is called “staying on message,” which I
define in Action 1.
Each chapter explores an individual grassroots action and contains a
One-Hour Activist Rule that relates an important strategic consideration
for you to keep in mind when engaging in that action. Each chapter also
relates advice from the field, where an assortment of elected officials, journalists, lobbyists, and national organizers share an additional insight as
an insider.
Worksheets are provided in chapters where I felt they would be helpful
guiding your thinking or keeping track of individual information. Internet
tips are provided in most chapters. Use these tips on the condition that you
promise never to sign an on-line petition again without sending a more
substantive message to your lawmakers. Illustrations abound for the visual learners out there. My aim was to make the book as friendly and as accessible as possible.
A few real-life stories and current legislative issues are used to provide
examples of effective letters, telephone calls, and e-mails, but I have kept
the use of current legislative issues to a minimum. The readers of this book
will cut across the full American ideological spectrum, and I have attempted to avoid endorsing any particular party or ideology.
x
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I do poke fun at the political process throughout the book to help demystify the process and to encourage your participation, so let yourself relax
as you read.
Part One of the book contains the conceptual and analytical actions
that you need to be an effective advocate, including how to determine
what your issues really are, who represents you, how to join an organized
interest group that may offer a grassroots network ready to add your voice
in the fights related to your issues, what a legislative agenda is, how to analyze a bill, and how to conduct opposition research without sacrificing
your integrity.
Part Two explains how to communicate with your elected officials in a
persuasive manner. I cover all of the classics: writing a letter that matters,
making an effective telephone call, and even that new classic: sending an email that does not immediately get deleted as spam. I also include tips about
how you can get others to join your cause and augment your efforts by encouraging their participation.
After all that, I get to elections, which may seem a little counterintuitive. It is not that elections are unimportant, but the focus here is to help
you advance the specific issues you care about, which by definition must
take you past Election Day and into the legislative process. I have begun
with the most substantive one-hour actions you can take to have an impact
on the actual laws that might or might not get passed. I assume that if you
care enough about a particular issue, you already are an active voter—but
that, to be honest, is not always a good assumption in our country, even
among activists. I do provide some ideas as to how you can maximize your
vote on Election Day, and it is in that chapter that I will encourage you to
register and vote if you are not doing so already.
I also discuss the best ways to fork over cash to candidates—something
that many Americans find off-putting about politics. That’s a shame, because until Congress passes dramatic campaign finance reform, being a
campaign contributor is a powerful way to get access to your lawmakers. It
remains your choice, and by the end of the chapter, you might very well
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choose to avail yourself of this option for getting yourself and the issues you
care about recognized.
Part Four focuses on how to be an effective consumer of and contributor to the news media. I cover the basics like keeping a file of news clippings and then focus on how you can effectively communicate with the
news media. Action 15 explains how to write a letter to the editor or an
opinion editorial that has a chance of getting published.
Together, the first four parts of the book represent the basic one-hour
actions you can take to fight for the issues you care about. Part Five presents
five additional grassroots actions you can take. To be honest, these are actions that will take more than an hour to accomplish, but it is time well
spent. These actions are more sophisticated and potentially more influential. Action 16, “Have a Face-to-Face Meeting with Your Representative,” is
about the most powerful grassroots action you can take as a concerned citizen, but it is not something that you can do in a single sitting in the privacy of your own home. Other skills that I describe are how to give public
testimony, participate in a protest, volunteer for a local political campaign,
and get on your local news by pitching stories and making yourself available for interviews. These actions provide a place for you to grow as an advocate as you become increasingly savvy about the political process and
increasingly knowledgeable with the substantive details surrounding the issues you care about.
I wish you the best of luck discovering your issues, fighting for them,
and coordinating your efforts with other like-minded individuals to have
an impact on our government at the federal, state, and local levels. Our
democracy is never so strong as when a lot of people, from a lot of different walks of life, with a lot of different viewpoints, all clamor over a single
piece of legislation.
Cacophony signals health, not dysfunction, in a democracy. I encourage you to contribute to this noise but with a sense of perspective. Try not to
characterize every legislative occurrence as any bigger a step toward true
peace, freedom, justice, equality, and prosperity than it inevitably really is—
tentative, piecemeal, stopgap, and fully rooted in sensible hope.
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We live in a dangerous time, where people with deeply held beliefs increasingly sanction violence as a valid form of political expression. If our
democracy depends on your participation, it also relies on your restraint.
Dialogue is not possible if we nurture a belief that success can be characterized only by the annihilation of our opposition. Perhaps as you struggle to
find your voice, you will also endeavor to be amused more than angered by
a democracy that changes slowly and imperfectly in response to your efforts.
February 2004
Preface
Christopher Kush
Washington, D.C.
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For my mother, who was not an especially political person but
loved books
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
W
ith thanks and gratitude to all of those people who assisted with
the creation of this book:
For writers, advocacy begins with the agent, and I want to thank Jeffrey
Kleinman at Graybill & English in Washington, D.C., for championing the
cause. From there the struggle moves to the editor who has to fight for the
book at the publishing house before it ever has a chance to compete in a
bookstore. Special thanks to my editor at Jossey-Bass, Johanna Vondeling,
who nurtured this project as a valuable approach to a subject that been
grasped at but never fully captured.
Thanks to Allsion Brunner for editorial assistance and Andrea Reider
for the wonderful book design.
Any errors or omissions are my own, but there are many who assisted
with this book, and I would like to recognize their contributions. Angela
Taylor helped develop material for this book through successive drafts and
workshops. Jean-Michel Brevelle conducted research, interviews, and assistance on the initial draft. Anita Douglas provided technical assistance and
coordinated the input of our contributors. Pat Scully helped copyedit the
manuscript and provided valuable feedback at a critical juncture.
Thanks so very much to the advocates who generously allowed me to
use their personal stories in this book by way of inspiration and example to
the reader: Lisa Bayha, Shelby Wilbourn, and Colleen Stack.
Several elected officials agreed to be interviewed for this book to give
activists a player’s view of the legislative process. I especially thank Repre-
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sentative Jessie Jackson Jr. for patiently answering numerous questions between critical House votes. I also thank Representative Steny Hoyer and
Lawrence Pacheco, press secretary and legislative assistant to Representative Mark Udall.
Several state representatives shared their time and expertise for this
project including Delegate Luis Simmons, Delegate Sandy Rosenberg, and
Delegate Rich Maldonado of the Maryland State Assembly.
I am indebted to the lobbyists who helped provide alternative tips and
insights that give the material more depth than I alone could provide and
to their respective organizations, especially Jane Weirich (American Cancer
Society), Michael Crawford (Human Rights Campaign), Justin Moore
(American Physical Therapy Association), Grayson Fowler (Campaign for
Tobacco-Free Kids), W. Minor Carter (Van Scoyoc Associates), Carlea Bauman (American Diabetes Association), Stephanie Vance (AdVanced Consulting), John Goodwin (Humane Society of the United States), Ryan Clary
(Project Inform), Peter Larson, (Metro Teen AIDS), Bob Ensinger (Paralyzed Veterans of America), Karl Moeller (American Heart Association),
Pete Sepp (National Taxpayers Union), Frank Ryan (American Dental Association), Randy Rutta (Easter Seals), and William C. Miller Jr. (U.S.
Chamber of Commerce).
Finally, thanks to the reporters and newspaper editors who took time
out of their hectic schedules to provide advice: Kevin Schultze (WJLAWashington, D.C.), Nancy Wiener (ABC News, Washington, D.C.), Dana
Kozlov (WBBM-TV, Chicago), Katie Shaver (Washington Post), and Jo-Ann
Armao (Washington Post).
Finally, this being my third book on grassroots organizing, I’d like to
recognize some of my original mentors and colleagues who helped encourage me or struggled by my side in the beginning—in particular, Bill
Skeen, Phill Wilson, Mario Solis Marich, Mark Etzel, Pat Acosta, Matt
Patrick, Grayson Fowler, John Mortimer, Alan LoFaso, Sophia Kwong, Bill
Givens, Howard Jacobs, Troy Fernandez, Paul Daniels, Jean-Michel Brevelle, Connie Norman, and Cornelius Baker. Thank you.
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THE AUTHOR
C
hristopher Kush has trained thousands of citizens from all over the
United States to effectively influence Congress as well as state and
local governments. As president of Soapbox Consulting, he has helped design Lobby Days, grassroots campaigns, and training seminars for many national organizations, including the American Heart Association, American
Cancer Society, Girl Scouts of the USA, American Psychological Association, Easter Seals, and Arthritis Foundation. He lives in Washington, D.C.
He can be contacted through www.soapboxconsulting.com.
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Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens
can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.
—MARGARET MEAD
Each snowflake in an avalanche pleads not guilty.
—STANISLAW J. LEC
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Introduction
Democracy in Action
W
hy is it that any discussion about our system of government requires reverent and grave tones somewhere between a graduate
dissertation and remembering the dead? Discussing American democracy
always seems so, I don’t know, serious. In this regard, it has a lot in common with sex education: if you sat in on a high school class dealing with
the subject, you’d be convinced it wasn’t any fun.
I recently watched a documentary on the U.S. Capitol where otherwise
serious historians and battle-hardened journalists felt inclined to treacly
veneration and, worse, childlike amusement as if the Capitol was wonderfully fun, and impishly surprising, and well . . . harmless—as if these experts
were not aware that our Congress met there.
You sometimes hear the Capitol referred to majestically as “The People’s House,” with suggestions that inside the Capitol, the work of “The
People” gets done—perhaps not as efficiently as might be hoped, but in the
long run in our best interests and occasionally with some fantastic oratory
ringing off the walls. Let’s face it, for any given action in the Capitol while
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some of “The People” may feel that their work is being done, others will feel
that they are getting done in.
Architecturally, the Capitol is a grand structure in a lots-of-white-marble sort of way. The ceilings are far more colorful than you might expect.
There are statues to look at. A beautiful rotunda. And the mazelike hallways
and staircases perhaps beckon every American child to come in, explore,
get lost in their Capitol—The People’s House.
I guess this is all innocent enough—except for one thing. As anyone
who has been to the U.S. Capitol can tell you, particularly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks: the Capitol doesn’t really feel like your
house. Even the most casual stroll through the interior, which is now strictly limited to citizens on official tours or with official passes, raises some obvious questions.
For one thing, who are all of the people with guns? Did someone invite
them over? Ah, security, we are told; it’s now necessary. Okay, but what about
exploring the mazelike hallways? It is immediately clear that the Capitol, that
most central site in our most open and representative government, is characterized as much by places you, as a citizen, are not allowed to explore, as
by the beautiful frescoes that illuminate the ceilings. No unescorted visitors
beyond this point signs abound, as well as frequent admonishments against
taking photographs or video.
And should you miss a sign, perhaps because you innocently begin to
wander through “The People’s House,” there is an abundance of those guests
with guns posted to keep you on the official tour or point you toward the exits.
We, The People, are not allowed on the Floor of the House or Senate
chambers where representatives and senators debate, vote, and otherwise
officially conduct the day’s business. You can, however, if you have a special
pass, climb to the top of the Capitol chambers and watch the proceedings
of the House and Senate from the galleries, after first surrendering all of
your electronic equipment and passing through yet another metal detector.
You are not allowed to read or take notes while you are there.
Welcome home, America.
The inescapable reality to even the most disinterested tourist is that the
U.S. Capitol is a high-security, formal, byzantine game board where the dis-
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tribution and exercise of political power take place in our country. This is
real power—the power to commandeer your wages in the form of taxes, the
power to declare war against another country, the power to attract the attention of the news media, the power to oppose or even impeach the president, the power to guide our freedoms in the form of laws. And the exercise
of this power involves conflicts—major conflicts between ideologies, political parties, egos, and money. How this power is disbursed and how it is
controlled is the genius of our remarkable system of government, but this
is not necessarily an inviting place.
You are allowed—not compelled but allowed—to participate in this
contentious mess if you want to. Why should you want to get involved? Because, honestly, once you get going, it’s a lot more fun than the official tour.
Because the U.S. Senate recently designated April 21 through 27, 2003, as
National Cowboy Poetry Week, “to recognize the importance of cowboy poetry for future generations.” And, most important, because if you don’t become involved, you may not be considered one of “The People” that “The
People’s House” represents.
ISN’T MONEY THE ONLY THING THAT MATTERS?
To understand how an everyday citizen can have an impact on our government takes some effort in a world where few of us have the energy or time
to indulge in new pursuits. We have a complicated system of government
that represents a complicated country. Sensing that, there are those among
us who believe that the easiest way to deal with our government is to dismiss it out of hand by displaying all of the negative emotions, declaring,
“Everyone else can be led around like sheep, but I know what is really going
on, and I’m not going to waste one second on it.” The reality is usually that
the average disgruntled citizen has no idea who his or her federal, state, and
local representatives are, much less what they are really up to.
There are others who suspect that money—big money, more money
than they have anyway—is what really determines the course of government and that most of us are left out of the process. This is a serious concern, and not entirely without basis. It is a well-documented fact that some
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very big business interests invest lots of money during elections on candidates for public office, and after elections, they spend millions more on lobbyists and communications consultants because these interests have
business before our federal and state legislatures.
How awful for the average American who does not, say, have controlling interest in a Fortune 500 company, and who does not receive dividends
every quarter in part influenced by what lobbyists can secure, to be left out
of a supposedly fair and open system of government in the United States.
And yet. And yet. If you pay close attention in the state legislatures and
in Congress, you will occasionally hear grousing from those very industries:
they do not always get everything they want despite all of those campaign
donations and all of those retainers. Now how does that happen?
Here’s one recent example. Maryland is bordered by other states that in
recent years have relaxed their gambling laws to allow slot machines—and
Maryland, like any other state, finds that it sometimes could use a little more
revenue (or a lot more, depending on the year). Meanwhile, Maryland has
had to endure the crowing of nearby New Jersey, West Virginia, and
Delaware, all generating millions of extra dollars in tax revenue from slot
machines. Maryland’s historic concession to gaming, the horse racing industry, claims it is on the verge of collapse, in part because those in charge
of Maryland’s racetracks say they are no longer able to compete with the
gambling options available within easy driving distance.
Indeed, there are a number of Marylanders who sympathize with the
plight of the racetracks or are enticed by promises that public schools would
be the primary beneficiaries of increased state revenues if slot machines
were made legal in the state. Other Marylanders are resolutely opposed—
including the former Democratic governor who was term-limited out of
office in 2002 and replaced by a Republican who campaigned on a pro-slots
platform and won.
Maryland experienced a change in leadership at the state level, public
opinion was divided, the racetracks were crying for relief, the schools needed money, and the gambling industry was aware that slot machines could
generate millions of dollars in revenue, even after the state took its cut. In
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politics, this is what we call low-hanging fruit, and accordingly, in 2003, the
gambling industry spent at least $1.5 million to help pass a bill through the
Maryland state legislature for the new governor to sign that would legalize
slot machines in the state.
There was, of course, opposition. There is always opposition in America. Corporate America is not generally surprised that there is opposition.
It just outspends them. In this case, the gambling industry outspent their
opposition at least fifty to one, because when you looked at a business plan,
$1.5 million was a drop in the bucket compared with what the industry
stood to gain.
Now we get to the part that is a little hard to believe. It may even seem
a bit outrageous believing what we do about how money systemically corrupts our system of government.
The gambling industry lost, despite terrific odds and a whole lot of
money.
It did not lose because one angry citizen wrote one angry letter. It lost for
a number of reasons, in part related to the political infighting between the
new governor and the state legislature. But there was also a nascent grassroots
effort to be reckoned with. It was not well funded, but it was visible and able
to effectively and compellingly demonstrate that a significant number of
Maryland voters were truly and thoughtfully opposed to slot machines.
Several things are instructive from this example. The opposition was active. The opposition did not abandon their elected officials to weigh the pros
and cons without their input. The opposition did not need millions of dollars
to access their elected officials or get the attention of the news media. In some
cases their elected officials came to them. The gambling industry’s money
may have guaranteed a hearing in the state legislature, but it did not in any
way silence the voice of those who chose to speak up against slot machines.
It is not over yet. Issues like these tend not to be resolved—ever. The gambling industry will probably try to legalize slots during the next legislative
session and again the session after that. By that time, perhaps the grassroots
opposition will have time to professionalize, do some fundraising of its own,
and establish an ongoing effort to fight gambling interests in the state. On
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the other hand, maybe it will not. If the opposition retires after its recent
victory, it will lose the long-term war despite winning the opening battle.
THE ONE-HOUR ACTIVIST
People can and do regularly have an impact on our system of government,
even against well-funded interests. Many people are surprised to discover
the attention that lawmakers will give to a thoughtful letter or conversation
that provides insight into the district or the voters who live there. There is
a tremendous amount of influence we can choose to exert in our democracy beyond our vote on Election Day.
So where do you come in? How can you use your voice to make government respond to the issues that are personally important to you? How
do you get your legislators to consider your opinion and include your stories in the ongoing debate?
Americans who are not professional lobbyists generally spend eight (or
more) hours a day being exhausted and irritated by their jobs with all of the
concomitant crises they entail. After work, there are families to attend to,
personal lives, even hobbies other than politics.
And why shouldn’t there be? One of the unsung advantages of American democracy is that our elected officials are given the responsibility of attending to all public matters—with or without our attention, with or
without our participation, with or without our input. A government that
needed to be constantly and extravagantly attended to by its citizens would
be a different sort of tyranny than subjugation to a dictator but tyranny
nonetheless.
Meanwhile, the Internet, computers, automated phone banks, and all
of the other new communications technology promise a return to civic engagement by presenting grassroots advocacy as unimaginably simple and
quick—your entire contribution to environmental battles in the time it
takes to click a mouse button. It is a promise that has begun to falter. Unfortunately, on-line petitions and prewritten e-mail messages, while relatively easy to send, reek of being impersonal, and personal stories have
always been, and remain, the foundation of grassroots influence.
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Still, millions of Americans every year are prodded by political groups
asking them to engage in instant grassroots tasks on-line. The problem with
this approach to the average well-meaning but stressed-out American is that
being asked to perform a rote exercise, like copying a sample letter, can seem
a little silly. The question arises: If my letter is not individual in any way,
why do I have to be the one who writes it? I’m busy here! Legislative offices
are likely to express a similar sort of frustration when they receive these
cookie-cutter communications that contain no unique information from
the sender.
Grassroots organizers often say that advocates must perform these little grassroots actions so that they can be counted. “Being counted” is often
assumed to be the most important aspect of grassroots advocacy. Well,
maybe on Election Day.
Asking Americans to do less is not necessarily an effective way to overcome the time constraints we face. Jumping through silly hoops does not
make us feel energized or involved so much as aware that we do not have a
lot of time to be jumping through silly hoops—especially when our lawmakers, on receipt of a bunch of instant, identical communications, are less
and less convinced that the constituents clicking that mouse really understand the issue, are following it closely, have anything important to add to
the discussion, or will be aware come election time how the member actually voted on it.
The One-Hour Activist presents an approach to grassroots advocacy that
brings you into the corridors of power in a meaningful way—to be a player, not a glorified copying machine. This approach ensures that if you spend
an hour commenting on a particular piece of legislation, you are actually
communicating with elected officials rather than making copies of sample
letters. To do this, you need to put the idea of instant communication with
your elected officials out of your mind. You’ve got to dedicate more than a
few seconds on-line to fighting for the issues you care about.
The good news is that a more substantive and more powerful dialogue
with your elected officials does not require that you devote your entire existence and every free minute you have to politics. Advocacy can be a reasonable pursuit.
Introduction
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Advocates and grassroots organizers alike can rethink how we as citizens interact with our government. We should change from nameless, faceless drones who sign postcards or e-mail petitions in monolithic fashion to
informed individuals who establish professional relationships with our
elected officials that foster a deeper understanding of how the issues we care
about affect our lives: real people living in real places. You deserve that much
for your participation.
“THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE” REVISITED?
Every action detailed in this book was chosen with an abiding respect for
the intelligence and experiences that Americans have accrued through their
personal and professional lives. The skills that follow are truly powerful.
They present an opportunity for you to meaningfully enter the playing field
of American politics. The One-Hour Activist also represents a challenge to
every elected official in this country: the challenge that “The People’s
House” and every other legislative body in this country should have its
openness, its efficiency, and its promise judged not by how freely Americans are allowed to physically roam the marble-lined corridors of power
but by how broad and inclusive a cross-section of the country is reflected
in the dialogue at every level of government in the United States.
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PART 1
Gather Information
and Strategize
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ACTION 1
Learn How Grassroots
Advocacy Works
In this chapter, you will learn:
•
•
•
•
•
How grassroots advocacy works
Why voting is not enough to win on your issues
Why where you live determines your political strategy
Eight important grassroots concepts
What “staying on message” means and why it is imperative
O
ur government is extraordinarily fragmented for reasons that you
probably cherish. Putting lots of people from lots of different districts in charge of our government seems to have been an effective way
to guard against too much power being concentrated in the hands of any
one individual.
Our government has ingeniously avoided this problem for a couple of
hundred years by fracturing power into an almost indefensible number
of little pieces. We may have a president of the United States, but the president must rely on Congress to pass laws. And what does the Congress consist
of? A couple of close confidants? No. A committee of ten expert advisers?
No. A couple dozen of the richest or smartest people in the land? No. The
Congress currently consists of 535 publicly elected officials who, more or
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less like the president, feel that they are to some extent in charge of the governance of our country. The Congress is divided into two chambers: the
House of Representatives (435) and the Senate (100). The executive and legislative branches of our federal government are in turn kept in check by the
Supreme Court, yet another body with an assortment of powers.
And that’s just the federal government. You probably have a state government that is organized in a similar, highly fragmented fashion. Then
there’s a local or city government that also governs you. If it sounds hopelessly convoluted, you are beginning to get the idea.
Our country has the sort of organizational chart that would mar any
CEO’s sleep with fitful starts, yet your freedoms depend on this arrangement. The inherent confusion of the American system of government helps
deter our elected officials from the evil expressions of power that a more
efficient system of government would facilitate.
All of these little pieces of power are divided up into legislative districts
according to geography, and the registered voters who live in each district generally get to elect their representatives. This seems a fair way to divide influence, but it has another benefit. So many people from so many different places
get elected to run our country that a broad number of stakeholders—not
just people from different political parties—but people from far-flung places
with different economies, different experiences, different lives—are potentially involved in the governance of our country. In addition to their own
differences being brought to bear on the questions of the day, our representatives risk losing their power on Election Day if they do not satisfactorily reflect the needs, goals, and ideas of the different groups that live within
the different districts they represent.
In practice, the structure of our government results in a number of
frustrations. First, the need for compromise is beyond question in U.S. politics because there are too many stakeholders affected by any proposed law
to keep it pure. Another drawback is that resolving the various conflicts created by a multitude of interested parties can make the actual process of
crafting legislation convoluted and time-consuming. You probably already
knew that. Some lament this, but a government characterized by the unan-
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Illustration 1.1. The Federal Legislative Process and the
Role of Constituents
Constituents play a critical role in the legislative process by acting as a
conduit of information between elected officials and their home districts.
Things That Influence Lawmakers:
• Campaign Contributions
• Political Parties
• The News Media
• Their Life Experiences
• Other Lawmakers
• Scholars and Researchers
• Institutional Support (e.g., the Congressional Budget
Office and the General Accounting Office)
• Personal Staff
• Community-based Advocates
• Re-election Campaign Strategy
• Statistics from the district
• Real-life examples
• Issue expertise
• Access to district voters
• News media opportunities
imous embrace of extraordinarily simple solutions to public problems is
called a dictatorship, and you do not want that.
If passing legislation in this country were quick and straightforward,
ice cream would have been outlawed long ago—and there would be even
more serious curbing of our freedoms. I can’t think of any just now, but that
ice cream report was pretty scary.
In the end, the structure protects us, but it does not guarantee that the
actual governance will be high quality. Our government merely offers promise. Actual governance is left up to those in power and those who choose to
participate in the process (see Illustration 1.1).
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THE GRASSROOTS STAR OF INFLUENCE
There are five main reasons that an elected official would want to do your bidding: voting, contributing, volunteering, visibility, and communication. These
five characteristics form the grassroots star of influence (see Illustration 1.2).
• Voting. This is the most important and most basic of the reasons that
an elected official would want to pay attention to you. In most cases, being
a constituent obviates the need for a lengthy or technical discussion or
debate related to your issues. It is not that your legislators are not interested
in the substantive provisions in any piece of legislation, but they usually
have staff who can help them understand what a bill might do. What your
legislator does not know is if any particular piece of legislation is a priority
to her voters—a priority for passage and a priority for the limited amount
of funding that the government can provide. If you say a bill is a priority
and you are a voter, then it becomes a priority. No amount of campaign
funding can supplant the power you have as a voter to help determine the
legislative priorities for your district. (See Part Three.)
• Contributing. In addition to votes, it takes a lot of money for elected
officials to run for office and then to run for reelection, and there is no indi-
Illustration 1.2. The Grassroots Star of Influence
Vote
Contribute
Volunteer
Communicate
6
Be visible
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cation that things are going to change anytime soon. This means that
elected officials must constantly be chasing campaign contributions—and
the easiest way for them to do that is by keeping the people who have
already given them money happy. If you are a campaign contributor, you
are important to your elected officials. (See Part Three.)
• Volunteering. A third way to get the ear of a current or potential legislator is to volunteer for a candidate’s campaign. Labor is very expensive,
and most electoral campaigns are starved for cash. That means that people
who volunteer often become part of a close, extremely valued circle of supporters who do the heavy day-to-day lifting of putting (or keeping) a candidate in office. Volunteers are seldom forgotten. (See Part Five.)
• Visibility. Elected officials are sometimes attracted to people with high
visibility. People who are highly visible often represent or influence their
own constituency of voters and contributors as opinion leaders in their communities. If the president of the local
university, for example, is vocal in
her support of the governor, that support might generate a large number
of votes for the governor. The goverOne-Hour Rule
nor would do well to learn the issues
Grassroots success relies
and positions that are important to
on three things: where
the president of the university. (See
Part Four.)
you live, how you
• Communication. If you are
communicate, and if people
a voter, a campaign contributor, a
in other districts are asking
volunteer, or a community leader,
then your elected officials want to
for the same thing.
make you happy, but they cannot
read your mind. They depend on you
to communicate your general areas of
interest on the campaign trail and to substantively inform them about specific legislation when they are in office. Many people assume that legislators are interested in counting letters or phone calls related to an issue and
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do not really care to delve into individual stories or arguments. This is not
true. Elected officials need anecdotal, local stories to make the statistics
related to a particular initiative come alive. Local arguments and stories are
both welcome, even sought after, by elected officials. Such communications
form the backbone of high-quality grassroots actions as opposed to lowquality actions (like preprinted postcards and petitions) that focus being
counted in a legislative office without attempting to establish a substantive
exchange with your lawmakers.
WELCOME TO THE GRASSROOTS DRIVE-IN
Cultivating an ongoing relationship with your elected officials is the best
way to serve the issues you care about over the long term, but your efforts
alone do not determine grassroots success. Ultimately, your efforts must be
mirrored by advocates across a large number of districts in order to have a
federal, state, or local government pass the bills you care about.
This is how it works. Picture your larger struggle for success as a trip to
the Grassroots Drive-In, where the feature film is The Grassroots Success Story.
You want as many elected officials as possible to see this movie, and you
have a little two-seater convertible. But you’ve got only one extra seat in
your convertible, so you can invite one and only one lawmaker to come to
the drive-in with you. No matter how hard you try (and don’t even think
about the trunk), you can bring one and only one representative in with
you. Once inside the drive-in, your lovely convertible will take up one and
only one parking space. (This scenario is sketched out in Illustration 1.3.)
The problem is that The Grassroots Success Story will not be shown until
at least half of the parking spots are filled. You take up only one spot in the
parking lot. How do you get the other available parking spots filled with
legislators? Other people with other two-seater convertibles have to convince their legislators to come to the drive-in in their cars until enough of
the parking spots are filled.
The reason you have a two-seater convertible is that for almost every legislative battle, you will have one and only one elected official who represents
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Illustration 1.3. Welcome to the Grassroots Drive-In
You have a two-seater
convertible and a ticket to
the Grassroots Drive-in.
You must convince your own
representative to see the show
with you.
The movie will not start until at least half
of the parking spots are full. You must work
in concert with constituents from other
districts to get lawmakers to the drive-in
(and move your issue forward).
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your interests. (You have two legislators in the U.S. Senate, but let’s keep it
simple for now.) No matter how hard you try, it is almost impossible to
make any elected official other than the one who officially represents you
care about your requests. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The
advantage is that you are the key to bringing your elected official to
the Grassroots Drive-In. No one who lives outside the district will be more
persuasive than you. The disadvantage is that you must rely on advocates
from other districts to convince their own legislators to vote your way.
Each parking space at the drive-in stands for a single district represented by an individual legislator. More than half of the spaces need to be
filled for the movie to begin because a majority vote at any level of government is generally required to advance legislation. Efforts must be coordinated for the grassroots to have a real impact on the fate of a particular
piece of legislation.
It is important to understand that each convertible does not represent a
single letter, or phone call, or e-mail. What if you are fighting for an issue that
generates 100,000 letters? If those 100,000 are all from people living in the
same district, then they are all sharing one little convertible. Their 100,000
letters might very well bring only one representative to the drive-in—and
the movie will not be screened. If, however, those 100,000 letters are from
250 different districts, and if those letters are sufficiently compelling, then
you might get 250 legislators to the movie; the trailers will roll and you can
treat your lawmakers to popcorn.
Note that it does not necessarily take more than one person to cultivate
a representative’s vote on a given issue. It is the rare issue that generates bags
of mail in a legislative office, and one compelling local story can secure the
support of your federal or state lawmakers, but you must engage in highquality grassroots actions to have this sort of impact. You must provide local,
individual information when you communicate for your elected officials. If
you send cookie-cutter letters and e-mail to a legislative office that are not
personalized in any way, they will simply be counted. Such low-quality grassroots actions require many more advocates to secure a lawmaker’s support.
A high-quality grassroots advocate can influence her legislators, but that
is not enough to secure a victory in Congress or the state legislature. The
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only way we can exert some influence on the entire system is by coordinating our efforts with others from other districts. Advocates for any issue must
be heard from the broadest possible geographical region, but each advocate
needs to concentrate on his or her own representatives, preferably with the
high-quality grassroots actions outlined in this book.
EIGHT IMPORTANT GRASSROOTS CONCEPTS
Here are some additional concepts for you to keep in mind when you get
started as an advocate.
1: Voting Is Not Enough
The devil is in the details, and once you have elected a candidate to office, that
person will have to deal with those details as they relate to the issues you care
about. When candidates are campaigning, they tend to advertise their issue
Advice from the Field
The Honorable Jesse Jackson Jr.
Member
U.S. House of Representatives (Illinois, Second District)
“Advocates need to commit to a system of belief. You want to set
a fixed star that is nearly unobtainable. This will steer you
through any particular bill in Congress, through any setbacks;
you won’t burn out; you won’t be tempted to turn on others who
are fighting for the same cause. Your advocacy will be sustainable
over the long run.”
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positions in broad strokes. They are for the right to abortion or against it.
They are for gun control or against it. They are for gay and lesbian rights or
against them. Legislation, however, is specific, and the legislation that is introduced in any given legislative session will address your issues in a specific way.
Along the way there will be trade-offs, amendments, deals—that is, politics.
If you abandon your issue after Election Day, anything might happen.
2: Geography Is the Single Most Important Thing About
You and Your Issues
It does not matter if you have figured out how to send an e-mail to every
member of Congress. It does not matter if you have honed a razor-sharp set
of arguments that you believe will compel even the most intractable of elected
officials to come around to your way to thinking. The single most important
thing about you when you initiate communication with an elected official is
not who you are, or what your job title is, or how well you can argue. It is
where you live. Period. If you live in the district, your elected officials want to
make you happy. If you don’t live in the district but you’ve got a great argument, they probably do not care. In the political arena, a district mailing
address trumps a strong argument from a nonconstituent every time.
In my job, I set up a lot of meetings between elected officials and constituents. It is not uncommon for someone to come to Washington, D.C.,
believing that he should be able to see anyone he wants—as if everyone represents him. Usually he also believes that what elected officials crave are
thick folders brimming with lots of good information. Neither of these
beliefs is true. The only information an elected official is generally looking
for is that an actual voter supports a specific bill. There is no need for extensive argument or debate. Officials crave votes, and if you cannot deliver a
vote, any fantastic arguments you may have suddenly pale. A debate with
a constituent from a different district usually annoys rather than enlightens.
3: One Angry Letter Does Not Change the World
There is an assumption among some advocates that their elected officials
are slightly dim, morally compromised, and in need of scolding into doing
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the right thing. Whether on paper or in person, these advocates generally
start out loud and angry, and they end with an abrupt list of demands. This
is not the way to win friends and influence people.
Equally unfortunate is an expectation that one indignant e-mail should
bring the whole of the U.S. Congress to a grinding halt. As a rule, U.S. senators are harder to scare than that.
Yes, I hope you find your voice, and I hope you use it. But remember
that you are one of hundreds of thousands of citizens in any legislative district with a lot of occupations, outlooks, and concerns. There are a lot of
people with legitimate viewpoints that are different from yours. In this
book, I will do my best to give you the tools and the confidence you need
to interact with your elected officials in a powerful and persuasive way—
but a little humility is appropriate.
At the same time, you should not feel that if your letter does not convince everyone in Congress to vote your way that you are a failure. You may
convince your particular representative to appreciate your views on a specific issue, but he or she is but one of many. Remember the Grassroots
Drive-In: for the grassroots to win, many people who care about the same
things you do but live in different legislative districts must communicate
with their representatives. You play an important role in that process
because you have the opportunity to compel your representative’s vote with
compelling local stories and arguments.
Your job, however, is necessarily limited to your specific representatives—
not your entire state legislature, the entire Congress, or the world.
4: Instant Grassroots (Like Signing On-Line Petitions)
Is Not Especially Effective
Elected officials are perfectly aware that the postcard you signed at the grocery store took all of about ten seconds of your time. They know that you
don’t really understand the issue. They might suspect that even though
you signed the postcard, you don’t really care. Elected officials try their
hardest to insist that they respond to every piece of communication in their
office the same way, but the fact is that most are aware of just how much
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effort each piece of communication takes the sender. Ridiculously simple
grassroots methods are discounted accordingly. But letters that are personalized with stories and statistics from the district generally have more of an
impact than constituents assume.
5: Money Is Part of the Game
The one exception to geography that elected officials are likely to grant
is to campaign contributors—those people who donate money to their
political campaigns. You may not like the fact that money plays a role in
American politics, but it is part of the game. If you refuse to take out
your checkbook the same way you write letters or vote, you should know
that you are taking an effective weapon out of your arsenal, especially
because modest donations can and do get the attention of elected officials. You can, of course, choose to wage your battle on other fronts—
that is your choice—but that choice just might abandon a powerful tool
to your opposition.
Sometimes advocates feel that they cannot possibly compete with the
amounts of money thrown around by big business interests and so decide
not to contribute to political campaigns. This is a shame because even a
modest campaign contribution is likely to get the attention of your elected
officials. (See Action 13.)
6: Elected Officials Are Real People—With All of the
Complexity and Imperfection That Implies
Because so many people are involved in the job of governance in our country, Americans are always guaranteed that there is a wide range of personality types in office. The only way you can discover if you are represented
ably is to write, call, or meet with your elected officials once in a while. It’s
the political equivalent of looking under the bed.
When you begin fighting for your issues, make sure you focus on the
actual individuals who are elected to represent you—and really try to
understand them. Your understanding of the legislative process, parliamentary procedure, and legislative maneuvers is of secondary importance
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to your understanding of the individual personalities that belong to your
actual representatives.
7: One Successful Grassroots Campaign Will Not Settle
Your Issues Once and for All
The second you were able to secure an equal high-quality education for
every American child, some group would explode in angry opposition based
on the most tenuous research that chalk dust in public schools was dangerous to children and that the entire system had to be dismantled.
But before the system could be dismantled, another group of people
would want to divert the funding because the quality education would seem
to be costing too much, meaning that it was costing something. Let’s face it:
the chalk alone to supply every classroom, to educate every kid in the country, would look like a shocking figure when it was all added up.
And other groups would spring up, with other complaints, other ambitions, other agendas, other uses for the funding. So settle in and get comfortable. The fights over the issues that you care about are going to be
ongoing, long-term battles that precede your involvement and continue
long after you have burned out emotionally, intellectually, or physically.
Health care will always be an issue. Education will always be an issue. Civil
rights will always be an issue. Terrorism and “homeland security” will now
always be an issue.
8:“Staying on Message” Is the Ultimate Law of
Grassroots Activism
Staying on message is serious business to grassroots organizers. Although
every advocate has his or her own story, own experiences, own personal voice
on the issues of the day, the grassroots will only be as effective as it is able to
have everyone who cares about a given issue make the same exact request—
no matter how individualized their justification for that request is.
You can work alone, identify your own issues, write your own letters.
Your issues will benefit in some small way from your participation. But if
you want your government to respond, you should consider working in
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conjunction with others who care about the same issues that you do. In
most cases, this coordination is achieved through a grassroots network run
by an interest group. (See Action 4 to find out how to join an existing grassroots network that fights for the issues you care about.)
In either case, it takes a lot of people, from a lot of different places, making the same request, to seize the attention of our elected officials on a single, specific issue. For real change, this process of coordinating a broad
coalition of advocates to share their personal stories and local arguments
while making the same request must be repeated over and over again at
every level of government. Only then will a sufficient amount of legislation
be enacted to effectively address a given issue.
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ACTION 2
Pick Your Issues and
Your Angle
In this chapter, you will learn:
•
•
Experiences that might help transform you into an advocate
•
•
Five conversations that your elected officials want to have with you
Your choice between using formal arguments or personal stories
when communicating with lawmakers
Elements of a powerful personal story
M
ost Americans do not become politically active because they value
civic participation. Perhaps some Americans vote because they
feel they should, but advocacy usually requires a more urgent impulse.
Americans tend to become activists when they are (often unexpectedly)
affected by an issue. That means most of us are single-issue advocates.
You wake up one morning and discover you care, for maybe the first
time in your life, about what the government is doing, is not doing, or
might be doing. You might join an organization because you have a casual
interest in some issue area and they ask you to become part of something
they call an action network. Maybe a friend sends you an e-mail asking you
to sign a petition.
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Before you realize what you have
gotten yourself into, you get your first
Action Alert in the mail telling you to
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write a letter to your representative
(Chapter Four explains Action Alerts).
Your life, your professional
This is perhaps the first time you
expertise, and your local
have ever considered communicating
experiences provide you
with an elected official. Determined to
contribute to the struggle, you sit down
with almost everything you
to write. For overall tone, you opt to
need to know to fight for
sound like a combination lawyer, debate
the issues you care about—
team captain, statistician, and lobbyist.
You will be indignant, condescending,
no matter what specific
suspicious, and positively dazzling
request you make.
with the force of your reason. This is
a common impulse but not a very
auspicious beginning.
Your most fundamental challenge when you wake up transformed into
an advocate is to remain human—not just because it is easier than pretending to be something you are not, but because it is the most compelling
contribution you can make to support the issues you care about. If done
right, you can sometimes dwarf the influence of the lobbyists, lawyers, and
statisticians with the pure unadulterated force of . . . you.
TO ARGUE OR TO SHARE, THAT IS THE QUESTION
You have to make a choice when you personally lobby your elected officials:
you can either formally argue your point, or you can share your individual
story—and by that I mean, explain why the issue matters to you as a voter
from the district. When most of us think of advocacy, we think of engaging
in a formal, statistics-laden debate with an elected official. Indeed, organized interest groups are known for providing their grassroots advocates with
bulleted lists of “talking points” on specific issues that seem to encourage
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this approach. Sometimes advocates take this approach because it just
sounds like lobbying. At the same time, lobbyists do not generally have
access to local stories and experiences related to the specific district of any
particular lawmaker. Advocates do. If you use your personal knowledge correctly, you can make your elected officials connect through the heart rather
than the head, and that commitment tends to be more lasting.
Our governments are absolutely drowning in statistics. One million,
one billion, one trillion. On Capitol Hill these are very prevalent numbers.
Elected officials quickly become inoculated against such numbers, but advocates seem to remain enchanted. Nothing makes us more comfortable when
supporting a particular bill than being able to brandish some impressive
statistic, preferably in the millions. The only problem is that large numbers
alone usually fail to impress.
Lawmakers usually have all of the impressive statistics that they need at
their fingertips. What they don’t have, and what only constituents can provide, is a way to make the statistics come alive. You can make these statistics dance, but only if you put the large statistics out of your mind and get
down to the number one. There is no shortage of lobbyists who will identify, analyze, and track legislation, but the arguments that lobbyists make
are usually far more sweeping than the viewpoint that an individual constituent can provide. Without real-life examples, there is no way for lawmakers, their staff, or the news media to make sense of the impressive
numbers that flood our capitals.
There are five conversations that legislators really want to have with
their constituents. They are set out in Illustration 2.1.
A lawmaker will fight determinedly to fund research for a rare disease
that afflicts one child in the district without championing more common
health concerns that do not have a face.
Such was the case for Steny Hoyer, a twelve-term Democrat from
Mechanicsville, Maryland, who, as minority whip in the U.S. House of Representatives, is one of the most powerful members of Congress. To the
Smith family who attend Representative Hoyer’s church, that meant they
got to share their story with a member of Congress. The Smiths’ daughter,
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Illustration 2.1. Five Conversations Your
Legislators Want to Have
1. What the Local Statistics Are
Lawmakers have access to an
extraordinary amount of
information, but much of it is
aggregate state or national data.
Constituents can present insights
directly from the district, a welcome
and essential component of sound
legislative decision-making.
3. Real-life Life Stories That
Illuminate the Statistics
U.S. Capitols seem to be run by
statistics, but these numbers remain
meaningless until they can be
understood in a real-life context.
Personal stories help legislators
understand your issues and make
your position compelling. Stories are
also easily used in floor speeches
and news media sound bites.
5. The Specific Legislative Action
That Would Make You Happy
Legislators never like to say no to
constituents, but they must often
choose between a multitude of
actions that address any particular
issue. Make your request specific.
20
2. How State or Federal Money is
Being Spent in the District
State and federal legislators are
interested in how government-run
programs actually benefit their
constituents, especially if it can be
demonstrated that the funding
provides tangible benefits and is
responsibly managed.
4. Your Visibility and Connections
Within the District
Local organizers, doctors, clergy,
teachers, and business owners may
all be “opinion leaders” in their
respective communities. Legislators
are aware that other voters may
follow their lead.
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Kristi, suffers from Rett’s syndrome, a rare neurological disorder seen almost
exclusively in girls. Kristi had lost communication skills and purposeful use
of her hands. Through Kristi’s father, Representative Hoyer learned about
the illness and became passionately inspired by Kristi’s story. He committed himself to educating Congress about the need to fund medical research
related to Rett’s syndrome and helped to amass $35 million in federal
appropriations to study the disorder. Representative Hoyer was even able
to get Hollywood on board when actress Julia Roberts agreed to testify on
Rett’s syndrome before the House Labor, Health and Human Services, and
Education Appropriations Subcommittee about the disease. As a result of
federally funded research, Dr. Huda Zoghbi discovered the gene related to
Rett’s syndrome. Treatment prospects now look hopeful. All this was in
response to the plight of one little girl from Hoyer’s district in Maryland.
Here’s an example on the state level. In Maryland, because the news
media were heavily focused on a legislative battle to allow slot machines in
the state, public sentiment was well accounted for in the newspapers and
on the television news. What Maryland Delegate Stanley Rosenberg sought
as a central part of his individual decision-making process on the issue were
the individual concerns related to slot machines that applied to the neighborhoods in the district he represents. Since these communities are in close
proximity to a proposed slots location, he scheduled meetings in the district to solicit community viewpoints. He then asked his constituents to put
their concerns down in writing to help him collect and manage the array of
different viewpoints. Delegate Rosenberg did not seek letters that only said
whether a constituent supported or opposed slot machines. He sought substantive insights as to what aspects of the proposed bill were most important to his voters. In other words, Delegate Rosenberg was very interested
in listening to his constituents, especially if they provided thoughtful local
information on the issue.
Do not worry if you do not have a professor’s command of statistics or
the lobbyist’s range of arguments. You don’t need them. You are a voter, a
member of a family, someone who works in the district (or nearby), maybe
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even a community activist. This provides you with everything you need to
lobby your elected officials effectively.
A brief letter illustrated with an interesting local story can wield
tremendous power in a legislative office. It can neutralize a whole mailbag
of preprinted postcards that your opposition has had its supporters merely
sign and mail. Example 2.1 shows the differences between a formal argument and a personal story.
Example 2.1. Examples of the Difference Between
Formal Argument and Personal Story
Example
Argument versus Personal Story
Survivor: Lisa Bayha, Warwick, Rhode Island
Issue: Stroke Research Funding
Formal Argument
Personal Story
Heart disease is America’s no. 1 killer.
Stroke is the nation’s no. 3 cause
of death. Despite the fact that
heart disease, stroke, and other
cardiovascular diseases are
America’s deadliest and
costliest diseases, research to
prevent, treat, and cure them
is disproportionately underfunded.
I had my first stroke when I was
twenty-one years old in May 1997,
just one week before college
graduation. You may be surprised to
discover that someone so young
could have a stroke. I was too. One
moment I was a young woman
reaching for a bright future, and the
next I was a stroke patient.
Luckily, I’ve regained almost all of
my ability to move and talk, but I’m
checked frequently by my physician.
I’m still on many medications, some
of which are old, some that are new,
that I take regularly to prevent
another stroke. I may be on these or
other medications for the rest of my
life. But I am in remission of the
disease, so I’m on the way up.
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My hope is that research will continue
to improve the chances for survival
for those who have strokes and
improve the quality of life for those of
us who make it, like me.
Example
Argument versus Personal Story:
Professional/Business Owner: Shelby Wilbourn, M.D.,
Belfast, Maine
Issue: Tort Reform
Formal Argument
Personal Story
Medical liability reform protects
women’s access to health care and
provides ob-gyns with affordable
and available medical liability
insurance.
Last March I received a letter from
my malpractice insurance carrier
that my premiums were going to be
increasing from $33,000 a year to
approximately $108,000.
This type of dramatic increase was
impossible to deal with, so after
twelve years, I closed my ob-gyn
practice, leaving behind eight
thousand patients and six loyal staff,
some of whom had been with me
since the very beginning. I relocated
to another state where liability
insurance premiums are a little more
affordable and started all over again.
I did not want to say goodbye
to my staff, and I especially hated to
see my patients go, but I just could
not find a way to continue practicing
medicine in our state with the ways
things are now. The really sad part is
that I am not the only doctor who
has left. I am one of many doctors
who have left.
(Continued)
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Example 2.1. Continued
Example
Argument versus Personal Story
Concerned Individual: Colleen Stack, Kansas City, Missouri
Issue: Epilepsy Research Funding
Formal Argument
Personal Story
The Epilepsy Foundation urges
Congress to support a major
expansion of epilepsy research
within the National Institutes of
Health. These investments in our
nation’s health are paying dividends.
In the past decade, considerable
progress has been made in
identifying genes associated with
epilepsy and in developing
medications, devices, and
surgical treatments.
The reason for my involvement in
advocacy for persons with epilepsy
is my daughter who began having
seizures at age ten.
Increased funding is essential
to finding a cure for epilepsy.
Implantable devices may one day
be able to abort pending seizures,
gene research may lead to gene
therapy, and new medications are
being developed that provide new
hope in a previously hopeless
situation.
The most important thing is
that investment in research will
improve the quality of life for your
constituents like my daughter and
their families. With your help, we can
reach the goal of: no seizures, no side
effects, and no stigma.
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WHAT IF I DON’T HAVE AN EMOTIONALLY
CHARGED PERSONAL STORY?
Ah, but you do. Remember that the fact that you are a voter, living in a legislator’s district, means you cannot fail to be interesting and important to
that elected official. If you do not have direct, personal experience with a
given issue, don’t let that dissuade you. Just remember to stress that you are
sincerely concerned about an issue, though perhaps not personally affected
by it. You are still a voter, or a contributor, or a volunteer, or a community
leader, and the issues that matter to you will matter to your elected officials.
It should go without saying that you never want to lie—ever—in your
communications with elected officials. In order to listen to you, your elected
Advice from the Field
Jane Weirich
Deputy Director of Nationwide Field Advocacy
American Cancer Society
“When we organized our national advocacy event called
Celebration on the Hill, our strategy was to bring cancer
survivors from every congressional district in the country, and
we achieved that goal. Getting a constituent is a crucial part of
getting a Congress member to pay attention, and we believed
that there were great stories of cancer survival in every single
congressional district in this country. We made it our challenge
to find those stories and then scheduled our meetings on the Hill.”
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officials have to trust you. In terms of your personal story, never embellish
or employ any literary license to make your story more dramatic or more
“perfect.” An elected official can usually smell a lie at ten paces.
REASONS TO BECOME POLITICALLY
INVOLVED IN AN ISSUE
So what are your issues? Here are some of the reasons everyday citizens
become drawn to advocacy:
• You or someone you love has experienced a life-changing event. Perhaps a loved one is diagnosed with a rare form of cancer and you want
to do everything possible to support research.
• Someone personally asks you to join. Perhaps one of your friends is
sent overseas as a member of the U.S. military, and for the first time,
you ask for information about what you can do to help support the
effort. Maybe you end up joining a grassroots network.
• You have been angered by something that the government has done.
Perhaps one of those new traffic cameras photographs you going
through a red light, and you are sent a ticket despite the fact that you
were in a funeral procession. You decide that you will become involved
in fighting this new technology.
• It occurs to you that the government should be doing more on a given
issue. Perhaps you have discovered that builders want to put a development in a wooded area that you had believed was conservation land.
When you discover that it is not protected, you decide to lead the
charge to limit development.
• Through your work, studies, or other experience, you have become
an expert on some issue that the government is grappling with. Perhaps you are a professor at a nearby university who has done research
into the psychological aspects related to the recruitment of terrorists, and you have professional insights that you feel the need to share
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with your elected officials, even if they have not previously solicited
your opinion.
• The work you do is affected by government regulation or reimbursement issues. Perhaps you are a doctor who sees patients who rely on
Medicare. Treatment funding for these patients is provided in part by
the federal government, and you realize that your ability to provide
quality health care depends on what the government considers appropriate treatment and how much it pays for specific procedures.
• You discover that the opposition to an issue you care about, but
have never taken action on, is well organized and vehement. Sometimes you have to learn the hard way that if you remain silent, the
otherwise good intentions of our representatives will be swayed by
the vocal.
• And a reason not to become politically active: Perhaps you are just
plain mean and hopelessly inconsolable. Politics seems to attract people who are less interested in fighting for an issue than just having a
place where they can vent.
YOUR PERSONAL
ADVOCACY INVENTORY
Take a few moments to consider the questions in Worksheet 2.1 before you
begin to communicate with your lawmakers on an issue. These questions
should help steer you toward the kinds of district-based, individual information you already possess that can help support the issues you care about
when you communicate with your elected officials.
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WORKSHEET 2.1
Your Personal Advocacy Inventory
For each of the following questions, brevity is key. Allow yourself no more
than one minute to verbally answer any one of these questions:
• What is your name? Where do you live? Where do you work? Describe your
family.
• What originally sparked your interest in the issue you want to fight for?
• How has your life been changed, altered, or enriched by the issue?
• What is (or was) your occupation? (If you are in school, what do you hope
your occupation will be?) Does your occupation give you any special insight
into the issue?
• Do you know which level of government (federal, state, or local) would be
most appropriate to address the issue?
• Do you have a specific request of your representative that is related to this issue?
• If your request were supported and made law, how do you think it would help
address the issue—specifically in your life or the lives of your neighbors?
The One-Hour Activist by Christopher Kush. Copyright © 2004 Christopher Kush.
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• Can you explain how any government funding currently related to the issue
tangibly helps you or someone you know?
• In what ways are you active or visible in your community (in church, clubs,
or civic organizations, for example)?
• Do you feel news media coverage of the issue has been accurate and informative? If not, what neglected aspects should your neighbors be made aware of?
• Are you a registered voter?
• Did you make any campaign contributions and did you volunteer for any
local campaigns during the last election?
The One-Hour Activist by Christopher Kush. Copyright © 2004 Christopher Kush.
To purchase this or other nonprofit titles from Jossey-Bass, please visit
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ACTION 3
Identify Your
Representatives
In this chapter, you will learn:
•
•
•
Basic differences between your federal, state, and local governments
•
•
The importance of legislative staff to your advocacy efforts
Easy ways to identify your representatives at every level of government
Basic contact, party, voting, and other information you want to
record about each of your elected officials
Why to take note of committee assignments related to your elected
officials
D
on’t feel too bad if you have absolutely no idea who your elected
representatives are. As much as political science professors like to
decry our waning lack of political involvement, the fact is that blissful ignorance of the government, while perhaps not advisable, is nonetheless our
birthright as Americans. In a totalitarian dictatorship, you need to know
who is in charge because you need to watch your back (and besides, there
are usually a lot of statues and pictures to constantly remind you that you
are subjugated). In the United States, you can fail your civics class in high
school and not be put in jail or asked to leave the country. You don’t even
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have to vote in our country if you do not want to. There is a drawback, of
course: the fewer Americans who feel any connection to, responsibility for,
or interest in our government, the more our government, and all of its considerable power, gets abandoned to the relative few who do care, but perhaps not in the same way you do.
HOW IS OUR GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED?
Generally, most Americans have to deal with three levels of government:
federal, state, and local (Illustration 3.1). It would be nice to say that each
of these three levels of government is in charge of discrete issue areas and
that if you were interested in education, for example, you simply needed to
write to your state representatives. Homeland security? Your federal representative. Unfortunately, things are more complicated than that.
Let’s start with the federal government. The federal government consists of three branches: executive, legislative, and judiciary. The federal government is usually characterized by the president of the United States. From
a grassroots standpoint, it’s good if the president feels passionately in favor
of the issues you care about—but communicating your opinions directly
to the president can be difficult, and with grassroots it’s all about access.
The president is necessarily surrounded by many protective security rings—
but there are other rings around him besides, because the president of the
United States has major staff. To get to him, you generally have to get by one
of his formidable underlings, advisers, communications gatekeepers, cabinet members. It’s usually hard to get him on the phone.
Sure, you can call or write the White House. The White House always
attempts to seem open and accessible to the thoughts and feelings of all
concerned Americans, but the sheer volume of correspondence takes a
number of impersonal systems to manage. There is a staff of correspondents who handle the mail. Phone calls to the White House are put through
a comments line, a sophisticated computer system that attempts to document your call without interrupting the latest peace summit to ask the president to pick up the phone.
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Illustration 3.1. Levels of Government in the United States
State Government:
Issue areas: Some aspects of health care, education, driver
licenses, voting and elections, state taxes, etc. Often
bi-cameral, meaning there are two houses and you have
elected representation in each.
Local Government:
Issue areas: Police, water, power,
parking, etc.
Your city council district
(local).
Your state senate district
and your state house or
assembly district (usually
a smaller portion than
state senate district) (state).
Your congressional (U.S. House)
district (federal).
Federal Government:
Issue areas: Some aspects of health care, defense,
monetary regulation, interstate commerce, federal
taxes, etc. Each state has two senators in the U.S.
Senate (both represent you) and one member in
the U.S. House of Representatives.
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Other realities impose themselves between you and access to the president. The president represents the entire country—every single one of us.
When you write or call the president, you are but one of several hundred
million people. And it doesn’t end there. The president is the current title
holder in the ongoing, always entertaining championship fight between the
political parties, and often feels responsible, to some degree, to the current
health and future prospects of his political party. And let’s not forget that
the president of the United States is arguably the most powerful leader
in the world and is ultimately responsible for representing the United States in
negotiations with every other country in the world.
There are other options for interacting with the federal government.
That brings us to the legislative branch and Congress, where you have three
elected officials who are far more accessible than the president and far more
likely to respond to you.
Every state has two senators who represent its citizens in the U.S. Senate. Both senators represent the entire state (it is not divided between them).
Then there is the House of Representatives. Every American (who does not
live in the District of Columbia or another territory) has a representative
in the U.S. House of Representatives. This lawmaker is responsible to and
elected from a single congressional district and generally represents fewer
than a million people.
In terms of grassroots communications, your U.S. senators and your representative in the House are far more accessible than the president. And here
is the best part: they are more interested in what you have to say. Your senators and your House member know that no matter how many interest groups
come into their offices to plead their case, no matter how many political
action committees contribute to their reelection campaigns, you are one of
those special people who can vote to keep them in office, and that right puts
you in a powerful position. In general, your elected federal representatives
want to make you happy if they can and avoid making you angry.
In addition to the federal government, you are also subject to state and
local governments.
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Your state government has as its executive a governor, who, like the president, manages a sizable portion of the state government, is the official voice of
the state, and represents the spoils of the winning political party on the state
level. Like the president, your governor may be difficult to contact directly, but
nearly every state has a legislative branch very similar in organizational structure to the federal government. You might have to do a bit of research to
uncover just how your state government is organized, but in general, most states
have something similar to the federal Senate and House of Representatives. In
California, for example, every resident has one state senator (as opposed to the
two senators we each enjoy on the federal level) and one state assembly member (much like the representative in the U.S. House of Representatives). The
state assembly member may be called a “delegate” or a state “representative,”
depending on the state. On the state level, the districts tend to be geographically smaller than on the federal level, but your state elected officials
remain as accessible and genuinely interested in your communications.
The geographical boundaries of your congressional district (the area
your representative in the U.S. House is responsible for) and your state legislative districts are often completely different. What remains the same is
that the place where you sleep, eat, and pay bills is used to determine who
represents you at every level of government.
There are other differences between the federal and state governments.
Your state government may have term limits, meaning that any of your state
representatives can hold office for only a predetermined period of time
before he cannot run again for the same office. Your state legislature might
convene only once a year for a brief period of time, in contrast to the U.S.
Congress, which tends to be in session throughout the year.
Your local government might be organized like the federal government,
with an executive and a legislative body, or it might be organized in a different way altogether. A typical way that local governments are organized
includes a mayor in the executive function and a city council to perform
the legislative function. On the local level, it is common to have a unicameral government, meaning one such body—a city council, for example. An
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elected mayor generally gets the media attention and gets to manage the
majority of local government, but some local jurisdictions hire a city manager to fill this role and report to the city council.
The general principle employed by every level of government is that even
if someone like a president, governor, or mayor is elected to be in charge, that
person must work with and answer to a legislative body. Officially, this is
called the sharing of powers and includes our judicial system, which, with its
own set of unique powers, balances the actions of the executive and legislative branches. For instance, the judicial branch has the power to declare a law
unconstitutional, even if the executive and legislative branches have achieved
the extraordinarily difficult task of cooperating enough to pass a law.
As a grassroots advocate, you will focus on the legislative branch at every
level of government for two reasons. The first has been explained: your legislative representatives are the best place for you to interact with your government. The second is that your federal, state, and local legislatures are
where laws are introduced, amended, and sent to the executive to be signed
into law. This is where the real action is on the issues you care about. More
money for medical research? You have to convince the U.S. Congress to pass
an appropriations bill. Implement a new program in your child’s school? You
might have to request a state representative to sponsor that bill in the state
legislature. Tired of how long it takes your local utilities to repair downed
power lines? Your city council must engage in oversight of their contracts.
There might also be an assortment of other government bodies whose
actions affect you—things like school districts, water districts, and cemetery districts, with elected or appointed officials, all waiting for your input
should you wish to become involved.
You do not need to master the various processes and organizational
charts of every level of government where you live. Sometimes it is helpful,
but that knowledge will come in time as you become more active as a constituent. What is required is that you know why you care about a specific
issue—how it affects your family, loved ones, neighborhood, schools, work,
or something else. Beyond that, you only need to get the mailing addresses
of your elected officials to get started.
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SO WHO REPRESENTS ME?
The Internet has greatly simplified the once laborious task of identifying
federal, state, and local officials. There are a number of Web sites that can
take your zip code (in some cases, your zip +4 is required—this information is also easily available on the Internet) and tell you the number of the
federal, state, and local districts you live in and who currently represents
those districts—and by extension, who represents you. The Internet Tips at
the end of this chapter list Web sites that can help you with districting yourself at every level of government.
If you do not have Internet access, you can call your state registrar of
voters and ask for your federal, state, and local district numbers and representatives. Alternatively, state political parties are usually happy to indulge
questions about legislative districts. For ease of use, however, nothing beats
the Internet, where you can easily discover who represents you and immediately get their contact information: office addresses, phone numbers, e-mail
addresses, pictures, committee assignments, and more.
WHICH LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT HANDLES MY ISSUES?
Once you have accepted the fact that you are subject to federal, state, and
local government, each with its own executive, legislative, and judicial components, you’d think it would be easy to determine which level of government handles which issue.
Sorry.
Let’s start again at the top. There are some things that only the federal
government can do. Declaring war, negotiating treaties, regulating foreign
trade, printing money, and providing for the national defense are all policy
areas reserved for the federal government.
Your state government has a few distinct issue areas as well. It regulates
your elections, driver’s licenses, and property taxes. Beyond that, assigning
issue areas to specific levels of government quickly gets murky.
Your state government might traditionally be thought of as the arbiter
of all education issues. However, the federal government might provide
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funding for specific programs that your state is ever so desperate to get its
hands on—and that funding might come with some strings attached. So
who is in charge of education: the federal government, state government,
or local government? The answer is yes.
One of the pressures that muddies the playing field of issues between
multiple levels of government is that elected officials have to run for office
every so often. When they run for
office, it helps if they can discuss the
issues that voters care about, even if
that level of government doesn’t traditionally have jurisdiction over those
One-Hour Rule
issues. Your Congress members have
Keep an up-to-date list of
no traditional authority over local
your representatives at
police issues, but if they put their
minds to it, they can find something
every level of government
that the federal government can do
and how to contact them.
related to local public safety if that
In that way, you are always
will get voters to the polls. Education,
health care, and jobs are all huge
ready to communicate with
issues that candidates at every level of
the people who have the
government like to address on the
authority and the incentive
campaign trail. Once in office, they
might be limited in what they can
to act on your behalf.
deliver, but even small pieces of funding can have the effect of increasing
the authority of one level of government in an issue area traditionally reserved for another level.
The second pressure is money. The federal government has huge financial resources that state and local governments like to take advantage of, and
money from the federal government always comes with strings attached.
Say the federal government wanted to raise the legal smoking age across the
country to twenty-one. States might balk at the federal government telling
their citizens at what age they can smoke. However, the federal government
could provide completely voluntary highway funding for states that have a
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smoking age of twenty-one. Suddenly, the states are listening and might be
quite accommodating. Your federal representatives can then use the issue
to run for reelection instead of relying on more abstract federal issues like
interstate commerce.
THINGS YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT
YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS
There is some basic information that you need to know about your
elected officials. When you fill out Worksheet 3.1, that information will be
in one place.
You will notice that the worksheet asks you to record not only the
name of your representatives, but the names and titles of any staff who
work for them. Any sales executive will tell you that if you want to get
through to important people, you need to befriend their staff. The same is
true for advocates. It is helpful to jot down the names of receptionists and
Advice from the Field
John L. Jackley
Former Hill staffer and author of Hill Rat (1992)
“We frequently receive letters from all parts of the country on
major issues. We throw these away. If you send these letters, I am
sorry; the congressman gets reelected by 500,000 people. And you
are not one of them.”
From the book Hill Rat: Blowing the Lid Off Congress by John L. Jackley. Copyright © 1992
by Henry Regnery Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by special permission of
Regnery Publishing Inc., Washington, D. C.
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WORKSHEET 3.1
Critical Pieces of Information About Your Elected Officials
Keep one worksheet on each one of your elected officials.
1. Level of government (circle one):
Federal
State
Local
2. Your district number:
3. Correct spelling of representative’s full name:
4. Political party of representative:
5. Contact information
Capitol office
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
Local office
Address:
Phone:
Fax:
E-mail:
6. Committee assignments (do any of these committees handle the issues
you care about?):
The One-Hour Activist by Christopher Kush. Copyright © 2004 Christopher Kush.
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7. Staff names and titles:
Receptionist:
Phone:
E-mail:
Legislative assistant (who handles your issues):
Phone:
E-mail:
Scheduler (for scheduling in-person meetings):
Phone:
E-mail:
Legislative director:
Phone:
E-mail:
8. Known campaign contributors:
9. Voting record on your issues:
10. Characterize this legislator on your issues:
Helpful
Indifferent
Unhelpful
11. What issues is this legislator primarily concerned with? Consider his or
her voting record, press releases, and the legislator’s background. Is there
any overlap with the issues you are concerned about?
12. Keep a record of the dates of your contacts with this office (including
letters, phone calls, and in-person meetings, and the specific actions
you requested).
The One-Hour Activist by Christopher Kush. Copyright © 2004 Christopher Kush.
To purchase this or other nonprofit titles from Jossey-Bass, please visit
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legislative assistants as you speak with them, and it is critical that you treat
them professionally and with respect.
Keep this information up to date. Your elected officials do change, especially if your state has term limits, and a politician can stay in office only for
a specific amount of time. Even if the incumbents stay, their staff changes.
Office locations change, as do e-mail addresses, fax numbers, and phone
numbers. Try to update your lists at least once every year.
WHY ARE COMMITTEE MEMBERSHIPS SO IMPORTANT?
The U.S. Congress considers some ten thousand bills every session (a session is two years). Any elected member of the U.S. House or Senate can
introduce or sponsor legislation, and they do. The committee structure that
our federal government and most state and local governments employ is,
first and foremost, a way to divide up the work to get it done. Committees
are generally divided up by issue area: health, armed services, education,
and so forth. In Congress, there are not only full committees, but subcommittees established to be able to handle the avalanche of legislation that
Congress members introduce every session.
The members of these committees can be extraordinarily powerful for a
variety of reasons, and you always want to be aware if one of your representatives sits on a key committee that oversee…
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