Advocating in the Judicial Branch

It's funny that when some people think of "advocacy" they think almost instantly of lawyers. In fact, many definitions of "advocate" at Dictionary.com indicate that an advocate is someone who pleads for a cause in a court of law. And yet ironically, the judicial branch of government has been, in many ways, the most closed off to the type of citizen advocacy I'm usually talking about.

This makes it doubly interesting that President Obama has decided to nominate someone who he admires because she has "an understanding of how the world works and how ordinary people live" (from one of the Washington Post articles on this topic). If you think about it, in the way the world really works, citizens want to avoid the judicial system at all costs. But it sounds like President Obama and his pick for the Supreme Court might actually be looking at our court system as a venue in which the barriers and obstacles that citizens many face are overcome. I'm wondering if this will be possible in an environment where citizens are rarely effectively heard?

Certainly, as was seen in the case of the U.S. Senate's refusal to ratify the nomination of Judge Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987, citizens can have a say in who might actually be placed on the court. But in that case, their voices were heard by their duly elected representatives in the Senate.

What I find interesting about this choice, and many of the choices of the Obama Administration, is that he and his team seem to be bringing that ethos of "citizen engagement" to all levels of governance -- even a branch that has traditionally been almost completely removed from the input of "regular people." I wonder if it will work? I guess we'll have to wait and see!

Congress: Coming Today to a Neighborhood Near You!

Well, it's quiet in DC this week, but that doesn't mean the policy work isn't happening! In fact, this week is the Memorial Day District Work Period, and members of Congress and many of their DC staff are in their legislative districts and states looking for feedback from their constituents.

Following are a few tips for providing that feedback in a meaningful way (I mean, beyond "stop being such an idiot"):

• Find out about townhall meetings: Most elected officials are holding townhall meetings over the next few days. These are open to the public and are often held at local civic institutions, such as a library, school auditorium or city hall. Call their offices (you can find numbers at www.congress.org), ask when and where the next meeting is -- and attend! You'll be surprised at how few people actually show up -- and how much personalized attention you can get.
• Craft a personalized, thoughtful, relevant message: What messages meet this criteria? Specifically messages that explain how you personally are impacted by a policy issue (personalized), relate to the elected official's constituents (relevant) and don't contain any swear words (thoughtful) -- not one. You'll also want to do your best to ask for something specific, such as asking the official to cosponsor a specific piece of legislation, support funding for a certain program or even just agree to have a more in-depth meeting on a policy issue.
• Learn about your legislators: If you want to influence policy makers, you need to know a little about them. Spend some time over the next week looking up bills they've introduced at www.congress.gov and reviewing their webpages at www.house.gov and www.senate.gov. You might be surprised at what you find -- they may already be on your side!

More ideas and resources at www.advocacyguru.com/resources.htm

Why Obama's "Grassroots Army" isn't Working (and How it Can be More Effecitve!)

The Washington Post had an article today titled "Obama's Grassroots Machine Sputters in Effort to Push Budget." It's an interesting look at the difficulties "Organizing for America" is having in translating the power of the citizen-based movement that lead to Obama's election into legislative victories.

Now first off, I think it's important to cut them some slack. No one has ever really tried to utilize campaign supporters in this way before and I applaud them for doing it. Nevertheless, it appears in this case that they did not have much of an impact on the budget debate, which was passed through the Congress using the same old partisan techniques that are always used.

Why didn't they succeed? In my opinion, Organizing for America failed to recognize a fundamental truth about legislative advocacy, as opposed to electoral advocacy. When trying to get individuals to ultimately vote for a specific candidate (i.e., electoral advocacy), asking them to sign a petition can go a long way toward achieving you goal. Once someone has signed a petition they are generally far more likely to walk in to the ballot booth and support that candidate.

However, in legislative advocacy the role of the citizen is slightly different. In this case, citizens must encourage legislators to vote a certain way on legislation. Organizing for America chose to demonstrate citizen support through petitions. However, recent evidence shows that names on a petition really aren't that influential with members of Congress. In fact, personalized, thoughtful and relevant communications are what can make a true difference in this environment. The organizers of the effort could have been far more effective if they had targeted a few key areas and worked to get a few members of the grassroots army making a more personalized pitch to their legislators as opposed to getting thousands of people to sign petitions.

I think, though, that Thomas Mann's assertion that "...the petition drive was "a pretty lame start to the effort, and largely inconsequential to the outcome,"" and that "... the hard politics of policymaking are still driven by partisanship, by public opinion polls, by the roles of interest groups and all the other things that have always mattered in Washington" was a bit overstated. One thing that ALWAYS matters in Washington, especially to members of Congress, is what real, live, thoughtful constituents think about the issues. Any effort that focuses the energy and resources of these individuals in a meaningful way will, over time, be successful.

Obama and Citizen Advocacy

I read another glowing Washington Post article (Obama Turns to his E-mail List) today breathlessly touting the amazing work of the Obama Administration in developing a grassroots army to help sell its budget.

Don't get me wrong. I admire the Organizing for America approach and everything they're doing to get citizens more engaged in the process of governing the country. And their use of representative democracy to further their message by helping people on the e-mail list connect directly with members of Congress certainly makes sense.

But I have to say, and this may be blasphemy, what's so amazing about this approach? Sure, I haven't seen it used in this particular way before (executive branch using grassroots advocacy techniques to influence the legislature) but the general process is something nonprofits have used for decades (or perhaps centuries, I'm not that old).

Perhaps I don't get it, but what's so "revolutionary" about:

"A new online tool, to be unveiled this week on the DNC/OFA Web site, will help constituents find their congressional representatives' contact information so they can call the lawmakers' offices to voice approval of the proposal "

There are about 20 different sites that do that now, among them Congress.org, House.gov and Senate.gov.

Let's all just remember that grassroots advocacy is almost the world's oldest profession. Nonprofits and even, gasp, those community organizers have been there and done that when it comes to engaging citizens in the political process. What will set this effort apart is not simply the fact that it's being tried, but rather the actual change that is generated as a result. I look forward to hearing more about results, not just the fact that e-mails are being sent to a large list.

What's IN and What's OUT for 2009

The latest edition of the Advocacy Tipsheet highlighting what's in and what's out in advocacy for 2009 is up on my website. What's out? Panicing, Mavericks and Doing it for the Money, among other things. What's In? Planning, Coalitions and Doing it for the Cause.

Take a look and let me know what you think! Oh, and one more thing that's "in" -- my new book! Citizens in Action is being shipped in February. Stay Tuned for more...

If you're still not sure whether Grassroots Advocacy will be important for the next four years...

... or possible eight, then you haven't read this article from the Washington Post outlining how the Treasury is taking steps to restrict direct lobbying on the dispensation of economic recovery funds. In other words, if you're a professional lobbyist, you won't be able to talk to federal officials about the best ways to spend the funds.

But, if you're a citizen advocate you'll be able to talk to whomever you want. If this isn't a strong indication of the new way of doing things in DC, I don't know what is.

Clearly, if you want to get some of those funds directed toward your important cause, you'll need to have an active, prepared and, most important, nonprofessional advocacy network ready to go!

Think of it as the grassroots advocacy Olympics: if you haven't retained your amateur status, you may not be eligible for the Gold Medal.

If you weren't sure whether grassroots matter...

Check out today's Washington Post article "On Health Care, Obama Policymakers Turn to Campaign Tools." It reports on the myriad ways transition team players, like former Senator Tom Daschle, are turning to real live citizens for ideas on how to improve the health care system. On a recent conference call with a thousand upporters, Daschle noted that the new administration is planning listening sessions, town halls and even more online outreach efforts in the next month.

"President-elect Obama believes that change really comes from the ground up, not from Washington," according to Senator Salazar from Colorado, who is helping with health care summits for the new administration.

And people seem to be responding! Several thousand comments have been left on the transition team's Change.gov website outlining options for improving health services. In fact, a recent interactive online conversation combined video with postings from citizens to try to answer the question "what worries you most about the health-care system for our country?" Visitors were able to score the suggestions with which they agreed the most (or least) through a "Digg" like system.

Perhaps most important, though, is how the transition is using technology to make health care policy issues real for both citizens and politicians. As Daschle pointed out, in response to the recounting of a personal story about small business people struggling to provide health insurance, "[w]hen I was in the Senate, it was stories like that, probably more than all the factual information, that really moved you to want to act."

Clearly, the personal, relevant compelling stories of citizens can make a difference. Maybe it's time to think about how you can be involved in the debate!