K Street Cafe

The K Street Café editors posited this thoughtful question to its contributors this week: How should advocacy organizations adapt to stay relevant in the changing paradigm of constituent engagement with Congress and the Administration that largely removes the need for any sort of intermediary presence?

The idea behind the question is that the government becomes SO transparent and easy to interact with that professional associations, nonprofits, and (gasp!) advocacy vendors become obsolete. My reaction is three-fold: 1) Add value to the raw data of government; 2) Provide expertise for interacting with government online; 3) Continue to use the aggregate power inherent in organizing.

First, government is unlikely to provide the type of sophisticated interpretation of government data that advocates need to get motivated or even involved. For example, the Department of Health and Human Services can post online a new fee formula of Medicare payments for doctor procedures, but it will take every medical professional association’s government affairs department to interpret the data and communicate to their members what the new policy actually means to them. That type of analysis is expensive, needs to be tailored to particular audience, and could be too controversial for sheepish government agencies.

Second, it would be ideal if interacting with government was a simple as ordering a book on Amazon.com. But the reality is that both the legislative and executive branches will always be complex, no matter how great the transparency. Plus, added transparency and added data means added noise – it will be difficult to discern what data is valuable and how to use it. Advocacy organizations and vendors will be needed to guide advocates through the maze of bureaucracies in order to have an impact on policy.

Third, the Founding Fathers included the right to peaceably assemble in the First Amendment precisely because they recognized the power that comes from aggregated interests, and the value of that power as a check in our democracy. The dark side of greater “direct democracy” without intermediaries is a diffusion of people’s organizational power. A chorus (or an angry mob) is more likely to be heard by government than a lone voice.

Finally, while I have great hope that the new Administration will genuinely follow through with its promise of new transparency and access to government through the Internet, it will take years to implement. And, at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue is the Congress – which is not exactly the most receptive entity to introducing new technologies.