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#14 "Colleague Concept" --
Without Washington Support States Clean Up
National Elections
by Alan F. Kay,
(c) 2003,
all rights reserved, 8/22/03, light edit 9/15/05
Background
Federal
deficit spending has reached unprecedented heights.
State and local authorities are being given new responsibilities
from the federal government without adequate means to achieve them.
Most states face increasing public demands, voter resistance to
new taxes, borrowing restrictions, unfunded federal mandates, and
drastic cutbacks on vital programs.
Any state can
take a sequence of steps to improve its position with respect to the
federal government that will lead to better, fairer treatment from
national legislation and regulations.
Each state can take these steps independently in many different
ways. Although some states
have federal liaison offices, the first step is to be a bit more
up-to-date and use a more effective concept for lobbying.
State leaders
know that Washington is where the money is and lobbyists are the ones to
get it. Corporations invest
in lobbying knowing that the return is on-average better than ten-to-one
in the form of tax reduction or opening new business opportunities.
Lobbying by foreign contingents is circumscribed by law, but the
states could legally just do fine.
States can make a strong case for legitimate needs.
This proposal explains how states can put pressure on Washington
decision-makers and get results.
It is impractical and a conflict of interest to use state money to fund a state's Congressional delegation for the purpose of lobbying Congress. House and Senate Members, favoring home district pork, lobby for grants and contracts to benefit specific organizations and operations in their states. Still the states themselves sorely need federal funds to satisfy the demands of the majority of their citizens for the attention of state officials to deficiencies in welfare, housing, prisons, education, health care and homeland security that are, in fact, a state obligation under federal regulations, but not funded by the federal government.
Colleague Concept
A practical,
effective and inexpensive way for a state to lobby, which helps its
Congressional delegations too, is to put some money into acquiring a
small number of individuals, here called "colleagues", hired and paid
for by the state to work with the Members on state-selected issues.
How colleagues should be selected relates to how they can best be
used to help the state lobby effectively for its needs.
If conventional search methods were used for recruiting these
individuals, the resulting group would likely have demographics similar
to Congress itself – mostly lawyers and mostly interested in or
experienced in politics.
Many would have already tried for office or government jobs and were
trying to get back in again.
The colleague group selected this way would be more troublesome
and not as effective as what is proposed here.
Colleague Selection Concept
Colleagues
should be as diverse as America itself: farmers, engineers,
technicians, service providers, teachers, veterans, homemakers --
construction and factory workers, doctors and nurses, renters and
home-owners -- some fresh
out of school, some retired, a few wealthy, mostly middle class, and
yes, a few on welfare. Very
few of these ordinary people have political experience.
They have experience of the rest of life.
Seek these
people by the methods similar to selecting juries – by lot -- to seek
diversity with a different perspective on Washington but, like Americans
everywhere, good people who serve loyally if treated fairly.
Colleague Duties
Each state
might use colleagues in a different way, chosen from among the following:
-
Meet regularly with their Members, usually in Member offices, to discuss developments on issues of interest to the state and of interest to the Member. Some Members may encourage some colleagues to play a different role, namely to specialize in certain kinds of legislation or certain issue areas and could be selected to be at large with respect to the state. Some colleagues may be very good at such an assignment.
-
Lobby Members of other states on issues of particular importance, or where personal experience may make a difference. This activity must be approved by the Member to whom a colleague is assigned. [Imagine a homeless person acting as a state's lobbyist on the issue of job-loss-benefits. Could be very effective.]
-
Be a Constituent Services Aide helping individuals or companies with routine problems or an Ombudsman working on resolving conflicts-of-interests potentially important for large numbers of constituents. When the country was young there was one Member for every 30,000 people. Today the number is around 640,000. Members try to cover this function themselves but are too busy and need help. The function has devolved to burgeoning staffs, some with bureaucratic mindsets, seeking a political career, and occasionally competing with the Member at election time. Neither the Member nor the staff pays as much attention to the state's needs as they do to the needs of the Members top financial backers.
-
Help manage, organize, train, and/or educate staff in the DC office or other offices and speak to citizen groups on the state's needs, priorities, and agenda on occasions not requiring the Member's attention. Members sometimes get many more speaking invitations than they can handle. After getting to know and trust colleagues, a Member may be quite willing to let one handle a group the Member would just as soon not address, or to turn over similar chores to other colleagues.
From one state to the next, states and their leaders are different. It is likely that each state will have a unique approach for handling such details as how best to obtain, train, pay, and task colleagues.