K Street Cafe

New Rules for Online Politics Could Be On the Horizon (TechPresident)
Google, Facebook, and Twitter are gearing up to capitalize on ad revenues from political campaigns in 2012; however, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) may put some rules in place to regulate political ads on the internet.

Single Voice Sinks Coast Guard’s Rule (Roll Call)
The Coast Guard recently reversed a rule on life jacket use solely because of a letter it received from a concerned citizen (who, incidentally, is not a lobbyist.)

Cross-posted from the Public Affairs Council blog

Average citizens can have more influence on congressional policy than they think, says a new study from the Congressional Management Foundation (CMF). In fact, in many cases they have more influence than lobbyists or editorial page editors.

The report, Communicating with Congress: Perceptions of Citizen Advocacy on Capitol Hill, was released this week at the Public Affairs Council’s National Grassroots Conference. It is based on a survey conducted late last year of 260 Senate and House staffers.

“The most influential advocacy strategies for swaying an undecided Member of Congress depend on personal communications from constituents,” says the study. “Whether individuals make contact face-to-face, by phone, or through personalized email or postal mail, Senators and Representatives are influenced by their constituents’ own views about the public policy issues before them.”

The key word here is “personal.” In an age when technology allows an issue group to shut down Capitol Hill servers with thousands of identical emails, it’s refreshing to hear that taking the time to visit a congressional office in person is worth the effort.

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Lobbying War Over Net Heats Up (Wall Street Journal)
Big phone and cable companies are doing last-minute lobbying to shape a pending FCC proposal to prevent Internet providers from interfering with web traffic.

Zuckerberg and Icahn Join Buffett and Gates on Giving Pledge List (The New York Times)
Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook, is pledging to give away most of his wealth.

Cross-published on Adfero.com

In a 2007 poll, 44% of Americans responded that they had contacted a U.S. Senator or U.S. Representative within the previous five years.

According to the Congressional Management Foundation’s Communicating with Congress report, this percentage was significantly higher than a 2004 poll, largely due to the increased availability of online tools to contact Congress.

CMF’s data suggests a more engaged electorate – something that should be viewed as a positive. After all, an ideal representative democracy functions best when more citizens voice their opinions.

Yet in a recent piece for The Huffington Post titled “The Tragedy of Political Advocacy,” Jake Brewer takes issue with this very trend. Jake’s main point is that modern advocacy campaigns create lots of noise, but produce few tangible results. The result? Lobbyists play an even more important role in the lawmaking process. Hill staffers don’t know what or who to pay attention to, so they turn to hired guns to make sense of their overflowing inboxes.

In many ways, Jake is right. Frustration with email-focused grassroots campaigns — and the organizations that create them — is understandable. No one can argue (at least not with a straight face) that inundating Capitol Hill offices with email messages is the most effective way to achieve a policy goal. Campaigns built around phone calls and snail mail letters don’t fare any better.

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The American League of Lobbyists (ALL) unveiled a new video about the truth about the lobbying profession as part of our ongoing education campaign about the role lobbyists play in shaping good public policy.

“Lobbying: Your Constitutional Right,” explains what constitutes lobbying and why it is essential to the democratic process. There are two-minute and six-minute versions of the video.

A lobbyist’s role is to communicate about issues vital to all Americans. The American League of Lobbyists promotes good government through transparency, accountability and integrity. This is kind of the School House Rock version of the lobbying process and we hope that it will be used as a good introduction to ethical and accountable lobbying.

Four ALL members outline why lobbying is essential — Dave Wenhold, former Rep. James Walsh (R-NY), Patricia Adkins (non-profit) and Pamela Whitted (association).

The videos will be used on the ALL website (www.alldc.org), social media outlets, in classrooms and presentations given by ALL members.

Access to the video is available via YouTube:
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WikiLeaks Announces Release 7x the Size of the Iraq War Logs (Mashable)
WikiLeaks announced on its Twitter account a release it claims will be bigger than the Iraq war logs.

Who Will Speak on Behalf of Social Media to the Next Congress? [OP-ED] (Mashable)
A discussion on who speaks for social media in Washington.

All Online Politics is Personalized, Or May Soon Be (Tech President)
With companies like RapLeaf, campaigns can target real names and addresses from what can be gleaned about users from the web.

Facebook Lacks Friends in D.C. (Politico)
Facebook has one of the smallest policy and lobbying shops in the Capitol.

Google Tries its Hand at Influence in Washington
(The Wall Street Journal)
The company’s growing influence is Washington, especially in the realm of ‘virtual lobbying,’ is drawing concern from critics of the popular search engine.

In Online Political Ads, Facebook Is Catching Up to Google (techPresident)
Political consultants say Facebook’s share of online political advertising dollars is quickly growing to rival Google’s.

Crushing failure for lobbyists (The Hill)
Despite all the hard work of lobbyists in the past week to pass a bailout bill in Congress, yesterday’s vote that defeated the proposed legislation shows that politicians are actually listening to their constituents.

Commenting 2.0 (Community Guy)
New technology promises to create a global blog commenting system that will “revolutionize” the way that  blog readers will provide feedback to engage in the conversation.

Media Bloggers Association Launches Liability Insurance, Legal Advisory for Bloggers (What’s Next)
Bloggers take a large risk in performing their task, but now protection is available to them. Taking into account the many lawsuits that have come about because of blog posts, the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) has started offering liability insurance.

The Future of Your Newspaper (Mental Floss)
Print media has been having a difficult time surviving with more and more people getting their news online. However, this new technology could provide newspapers a new portable outlet.

Advertising Without Radio or Television, Only Word of Mouth (Word of Mouth Marketing)
Don’t think advertising without TV, radio or print will work for you organization? Here is an example of how word of mouth marketing can be used to execute a successful campaign.

Financial Meltdown: Don’t Cry for K Street (National Journal)
With the financial system in ruins from this week’s fallout, the nation’s economic system will definitely be changing. The National Journal examines how lobbyists may have a lot of influence in the reshaping of economic regulations and policy.