K Street Cafe

After the first House bailout vote went down in flames, I posted a K Street Cafe entry suggesting that it was ideology – not the flood of emails and phone calls to congressional offices – that determined the outcome. I noted that it was not fear of voter backlash that motivated legislators, as 77% of the “no” votes came from House members who had nothing to fear since they won their last election with more than 55% of the vote. In today’s Washington Post Outlook Section, writer Eve Fairbanks offers more data to support this theory by pointing out that none of the freshman House Republicans, who are closely aligned with the conservative Republican Study Committee, voted “yes” on the first bailout vote. She suggests it was conservative ideology that dominated their decision-making process.

So what turned it around the second time? Certainly the tax sweeteners and higher FDIC protection limits motivated some, but there was more evidence in the weekend papers that our K Street Café colleague, Colin Delany, said it perfectly with his blog entry last week: it’s all about relationships. Those people who built a relationship with a member of Congress and communicated their interest in the legislation influenced the outcome. This is a crucial lesson in grassroots advocacy: there is a significant difference in legislators’ minds between those people with an opinion and those with an interest.

Saturday’s New York Times tells the story of Congressman Howard Coble (R-NC), who was swayed from “no” to “yes” in the span of a week, in part because a university president in Elon, NC explained how the credit crunch was hurting the institution. In Saturday’s Washington Post we hear how Congressman Elijah Cummings was influenced by a small business owner who feared he couldn’t make payroll because the bank had cut off his line of credit. Both legislators changed their votes.

There are two types of constituents who interact with lawmakers on policy questions: those who have an opinion, and those that have an interest (meaning, the policy affects them personally). Everyone has an opinion about the Iraq War, but only a small fraction of our population has a family member who is serving overseas. If a woman stands up at a congressional town hall meeting and says, “I think we should get out of Iraq,” the member of Congress will process that information one way. If the woman says, “I think we should get out of Iraq, and my son was just given his orders to ship out to Baghdad,” the legislator will have a completely different reaction.

Before the first vote in the House legislators heard from constituents who said, “I don’t like the idea of bailing out Wall Street.” Before the second vote they heard from constituents who said, “If this bill doesn’t pass I may have to lay off employees.” There is a profound difference in legislator’s hearts and minds between these to types of constituents. The first type might vote against them in the next election – a thought that is disappointing to a politician, but he can live with it. The second group weighs on a public official’s conscience until the end of time.

This is future of advocacy and portends who will win and lose when the 111th Congress convenes in January. Those groups with extensive grasstops networks who are skilled at advocacy and have built relationships with members of Congress will be the winners. One of the more sophisticated Knowlegis customers has built such a network (sorry, can’t reveal who they are). This group has categorized every grasstops member in their database with a score of 1 through 5. I asked the group’s government relations VP, “What classifies someone as a ‘1’?” He said, “That’s someone who can get their phone call returned from a member of Congress in one hour.” “How many of those do you have,” I asked. He replied, “You mean, in each congressional district?” Associations, corporations, and nonprofits who think like that will be on the winning end of every vote in the next congress.