Video demo for meeting planners
How to use Money:
A moral, ethical, legal and
effective tool to achieve your
political goals
Joel's NPR Interview
These politicians and lobbyists tell you
how you can have enormous power...
Congressional Management Foundation
study of how staff in Congress devalues
e-mail (pdf file).
Business owner becomes
his own lobbyist
Congressional Management Foundation
study of what kind of communication
works best: personalized
Find your member of Congress and
communicate with them
For best results, do not email your
member of Congress unless you
already have a relationship with a
human who is expecting your email. A
fax is very powerful, but follow up to see
that it was delivered to the correct
person.
You can keep on voting just like these people from Michigan
How Many Politicians?
The National Conference of State Legislatures lists
7382 elected state legislators. That includes
American Samoa, Guam, Northern Marianas
Islands,Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands and DC City
Council. There are 535 voting members of Congress
and five nonvoting members from the territories and
commonwealth listed above. The Northern Marianas
has no representative.
Download printable brochure: Specific
steps
to maximize your meeting
with a politician
Download brochure that explains specific steps to maximize your meeting with a politician (pdf)
U.S. Rep. Linda Sanchez explains one big
mistake you should avoid

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow helps you
understand how to deal with staff

U.S. Rep. Jerry Weller tells what he's looking
for video

One Phone Call Gets Results: video
Sen. Lamar Alexander: "More than
ever, the media, outside interest
groups and party structures reward
conflict and the taking of
irreconcilable positions. There is little
reward for reconciling principled
positions into legislation."
How many lobbyists
Does it take
To change a Congress?
(From The Book) Lobbyists come to the process both
passionately and dispassionately. They all have
deep, powerful beliefs about what they do. Many are
personally committed to the cause they represent. In
many ways they are like lawyers (many are lawyers,
but by no means all). They are hired to defend a client
and they succeed on their ability to make the best
possible case for that client, regardless of guilt or
innocence.
A term lobbyists use to describe themselves time and
again is ‘‘hired gun.’’ Politicians and staff view them
that way too. They often like lobbyists, have close
relationships with them, respect them and trust them.
But everyone knows the lobbyist may also be working
for the other side a day later, just as a lawyer may
work as a prosecutor and then switch to defending
criminals. Their message to politicians is always
weaker than that of a true believer, a stakeholder, a
participant, a constituent. It’s like the defense lawyer
who does not say to a judge, ‘‘My client is innocent’’
but rather, ‘‘Our position is that he is innocent” or “My
client maintains he has done nothing wrong.” Huge
numbers of lobbyists ply their trade in Washington
competing for time with 535 voting* elected officials
and their staff.

Just how many is not clear. CNN reported that there
are "more than 37,000 registered lobbyists." The
Christian Science Monitor cited "39,402". The Seattle
Times has "32,890". USA Today, "more than 32,000".
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) referred to "more than 30,000".
The Senate Office of Public Records (SOPR), the
agency responsible for receiving lobbyist
registrations and publishing them online, reports
32,890 registered lobbyists last time I checked.
Debra Mayberry, president of Columbia Books Inc.,
publisher of several directories listing professionals,
including lobbyists and association executives, puts
the number at about 11,500. The difference is, her
company only counts unduplicated, active lobbyists.
Having used her directories for years, I think she’s
probably more on the mark than other estimates. The
actual number in Washington and your state doesn’t
matter. What’s important is that there are so many the
competition for the time and attention of elected
officials is intense.

How do people become professional lobbyists?
Usually by accident. There is almost no formal
training for the job and no high school counselor will
ever say, “You should be a lobbyist.”
Someone who has solid experience on a House or
Senate committee might be able to leave government
and take a lobbying job that starts at $300,000 a year.
To retain one of the big lobbying firms might cost an
association or corporation $15,000 to $30,000 a
month or more, depending on the activity.
But there is a limit to what lobbyists can do no matter
how many people and much money they represent
and how good the relationship with a politician is. A
politician’s most important loyalty and dependence is
on the voters back home. No politician ever got
defeated for making a lobbyist angry, but plenty have
been sent packing for making voters angry. That’s
why your role as a volunteer advocate is so important.

*In the House of Representatives, there are a few
Members of Congress who are not permitted to vote
except in special circumstances. They are called
Delegates and include: Eni F.H. Faleomavaega of
American Samoa, Eleanor Holmes Norton of
Washington DC, Robert Underwood of Guam, Anibal
Acevedo-Villa of Puerto Rico (called a Resident
Commissioner), and Donna Christian-Christensen of
the Virgin Islands.
Copyright 2007 Joel Blackwell The Grass Roots Guy
2020 Pennsylvania Avenue NW #929
Washington DC 20006
GrassRootsGuy@JoelBlackwell.com
Washington (202) 277-5209 / Sacramento (916) 273-9180
Joel Answers: What is Grass Roots Politics?
If you search the Internet for grassroots or grass roots, you will get a lot of lawn companies, florists and political
organizations of all kinds.
"Grassroots" in a political sense means organized at the most basic level, individual people. Rudyard Kipling
used "grass roots" in his 1901 novel "Kim" to mean the origin or source ("Not till I came to Shamlegh could I
meditate upon the Course of Things, or trace the running grass-roots of Evil").
In the United States, the first use of the word "grassroots" in a political sense is usually attributed to Senator
Albert Jeremiah Beveridge of Indiana. He said of the Progressives Party in 1912 that "This party has come from
the grass roots. It has grown from the soil of people's hard necessities."
I use the term to describe the most powerful moment in politics:
constituents talking, writing, phoning and meeting with the person for whom they can vote.
That’s how you keep on voting after the election.


Lobbyist Karen Sealander
Want politicians to listen to you?

Nurse Melody Mena tells you how to get
results: Video

Former Hill staffer Sarah Dufendach explains
what kind of message has the most impact

Sen. Hobson: phone calls work!

E-mail can't be  licked, can it?
Click to see what it
looks like when you
Keep On Voting
Rep. Don Brown video:
Want political power? It's all about relationship, relationship, relationship
Keep On Voting After The Election
How Ordinary People Get What They Want From Government
Rep. Jerry Weller interview from the book
Sarah Dufendach interview from the book
Rep. Linda Sanchez interview from the book
Rep. Don Brown video and interview
Karen Sealander interview from the book
Sen. Cal Hobson interview from the book
Sen. Debbie Stabenow interview from the book
Joel Blackwell, The Author Of "Keep On Voting"
worked fourteen years as a newspaper editor at the Miami Herald and Charlotte
Observer. Tired of newspapers and hungry to find a way to participate in politics, he
set out to help organizations carry their political messages to the public, politicians
and press through consulting, keynote presentations, training sessions, and
seminars. He ran for the state legislature in North Carolina and that experience
taught him about the love affair between voters and politicians, which resulted in this
book.
Known around the country as The Grass Roots Guy, he speaks each year to about
fifty groups of ordinary people who come together in a state capital or Washington DC
to lobby. He creates educational videos, DVDs and web content that helps people
understand what actions they must take to influence political outcomes.
After helping them understand how much power they can have, he often sits with
them as they talk to members of Congress and state legislatures.
The information in this book derives in large part from those sessions. Joel uses his
experience as a reporter to find what works and what doesn’t, what politicians want
from volunteer advocates and what they don’t. He has interviewed more than five
hundred elected officials, local, state, and federal, asking them what works and how
they want to be influenced.
He also conducted focus groups in nine states asking association members,
corporate executives, and others why they don’t write letters, make phone calls and
give money to politicians.
From this experience, he compiled the tips and techniques in this book, which is
designed to empower people to get what they want from state legislatures and the
Congress.
Read introduction and
critical things you need to
know
Here's why I say don't e-mail
Tidbits
Buy The Book
Buy The Book
Washington Post inquiry casts
further doubt on email lobbying
campaigns.
The Post reports most staff and
members of Congress and their staff
and staff of regulatory agencies doubt
validity of emails. They think many
aren't real and those that are are
meaningless because the senders
aren't aware what they are doing.
Checking with people whose names
were on emails sent to the  FCC, "all
but one said they had not agreed to
send any e-mails at all."
Read The Story Here