The article below profiles the power of sharing your voice and  provides examples of how other groups got their messages across.

 

Lobbyists Reach for Grass Roots
By ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON
May 3, 2008; Page A5
wsj.com

WASHINGTON -- It's a big year for the Little Guy.

The economic worries of working Americans are moving to the front of the presidential campaign and congressional agendas, and that's changing the way Washington's lobbying machine works.

This week the National Association of Home Builders said it would reassess its February vote to shut off campaign cash to lawmakers until they acted in builders' favor. But it likely wasn't the campaign cash moratorium that moved lawmakers as much as the 300 personal visits and 1,200 phone calls they got from builders this week, as the House finalized a sweeping housing market stimulus package.

At the height of the deluge, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D., Mass.) told the group that the package slated to reach the floor next week would contain most everything they wanted, including a $7,500 first-time homebuyer tax credit, effective this year.

"We made our point," said National Association of Home Builders' Chief Executive Jerry Howard. "Legislation languishing for four or five years is finally getting some attention."

"Folks beat money anytime in a political fight," says Mr. Frank, who is steering Congress's response to the housing and financial markets crises.

Voter disgruntlement with Congress and the White House appears to be driving Washington to strike a more populist pose on an array of issues. In four days this week, Congress took on health insurers and employers for genetic discrimination, oil companies for high pump prices, credit card lenders for unfair practices, and foreign manufacturers and drug companies for safety issues.

All three presidential candidates blame Big Banks, Big Oil, Big Business and high-paid executives for the nation's economic woes. Democrats on Capitol Hill are driving for tighter controls on airlines, banks, and lobbyists, whose freebies for lawmakers Congress itself has pared back.

In this environment, lobbying groups are getting the message to put their members and their dependents out front -- the more Main Street they are, the better.

In a Congress preoccupied by the economy, the Poker Players of America knew it would take some populist bluffing to repeal a law effectively outlawing poker Web sites. The group, whose chairman is former New York Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato, rallied the champions among its one million members to win a spot on the agendas of lawmakers guiding financial-services legislation.

Professional poker players Chris "Jesus" Ferguson, Howard Lederer and Greg "Fossilman" Raymer flew to Washington and played Texas hold 'em in the Capitol Hill Club with Rep. Joe Barton (R., Texas), a skilled player and ranking member of the Energy and Commerce committee.

The group bested Mr. Barton, then won him over. "The exposure and talking to these people gives you a greater appreciation of their professionalism," Mr. Barton said.

In December, Mr. Barton and 15 fellow legislators sent a letter to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson questioning proposed stiffer rules over online gambling.

Poker Players has embarked on a voter-registration drive and formed a political action committee. Its members sent 25,000 emails to lawmakers last month alone, urging them to support bills favoring poker, the group says.

This month, the group will keep up the pressure when members play alongside 20 lawmakers in a charity poker tournament in Washington.

"These are attorneys, mathematicians...expressing their love of the game and the public policy reasons for treating poker differently than other forms of gambling," said John Pappas, executive director of the group.

The National Wildlife Federation, looking to sway Republicans to favor legislation capping greenhouse-gas emissions, organized dozens of hunters and anglers to testify at a Senate hearing about global warming's impact on spawning runs and duck migration. The group coupled its testimony with a letter signed by more than 600 local hunting and fishing groups.

The American Bankers Association, the face of Big Banks in the capital, is moving to reshape its image. The association now stresses that it represents thousands of local banks that came aboard after its merger with America's Community Banks.

"Bankers are important in their states," said Ed Yingling, president and chief executive of the group.

In the past, the little banks sometimes complicated the American Bankers Association's efforts to settle on a legislative agenda.

No more. The association needs local banks in its battles against tighter credit card lending rules and changes to bankruptcy laws, and its lasting clash with credit unions, whose lobby group is a mammoth of the grass roots.

The Bush administration's proposals for overhauling financial sector regulation this month put credit unions in the crosshairs by placing them under the same regulator as their powerful arch-foes, traditional banks. Dan Mica, president and chief executive of the Credit Union National Association, responded by threatening to exercise -- for the first time -- "the nuclear option." That's a request to all 85 million credit union members to rally on Capitol Hill, jam lawmakers' phone lines and inboxes.

Mr. Frank's reaction was swift.

"As long as I am chair of the committee...no such proposal will have the slightest chance of succeeding," Mr. Frank wrote to Mr. Mica, a Democratic former congressman from Florida.

Mr. Mica has taken his finger off the button for now. Mr. Frank's letter, he says, was "very gracious."

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