Friends and Others: Influencing Our Representatives in Congress

Like it or not, a good many of the decisions that affect the lives of all Americans, old and young, are made in Washington, D.C. Fortunately, we folks back home can influence those decisions. Influencing public officials is lobbying, and although that term has been sullied by powerful interests over the years, lobbying can give us a valuable opportunity to take part in the democratic process. 

Lobbying is based on the premise that legislators not only want to be responsive to their constituents, but that they have to be responsive because they work for us. 

The closer a public official is to the grassroots, the more responsive that official will be. Presidents and appointed officials are the hardest for ordinary citizens to influence. On the other hand, Anne Welsh, who worked with the American Friends Service Committee, points out that your "member of Congress is the national public official most sensitive to us at the grassroots. We know that these officials pay close attention to what citizens in their district are thinking and feeling. Research has indicated that, on a national average, around 500 letters from constituents on an issue create a mighty force on the Representative. 

"That 500 figure is a national average, including highly populated districts. In more sparsely populated districts, perhaps 40, 80, or 100 letters would constitute 'the critical mass.' Public policy research also suggests that handwritten letters, personal visits, and phone calls are much more persuasive than post cards, form letters, or petitions." 

Effective lobbying requires going one step further than just taking a pen in hand. It is necessary only to get enough votes to win, not all the votes. And some representatives won't support some positions no matter how hard we lobby. Our first task, therefore, should be to determine where to focus our lobbying efforts. 

One way that organizations concerned with particular issues find out on whom to concentrate their efforts is by rating elected officials. Here we present the Congressional ratings compiled by the National Council of Senior Citizens (NCSC) for 1984. We chose these ratings because NCSC has a strong record of concern for moderate- and low-income people and of supporting entitlement programs tor elders. (For more about the ratings, see the key beginning on the next page.) 

Officials with a score of 100 deserve continuous expressions of appreciation and can be considered reasonably safe bets to support NCSC positions in the future. Officials who score 0 probably should be ignored in lobbying on elders' issues. They may vote with us, but it will take a lot of effort, and with that same effort we might line up two, three, four, ten votes from the representatives who are unpredictable. And that's where our lobbying time should be targeted: on the undecided, the fence-sitters, the wafflers. 

Targeting goes further. Not all the key votes are voted on by the House or Senate as a whole. A key vote might be taken in a committee or subcommittee, as a bill is being considered before it reaches the floor of Congress. Lobbying only the members of a committee rather than the whole House or Senate is much easier, of course, and in addition bills are more open to our influence earlier in the process. The most important decisions on issues of concern to elders are made in three committees and five subcommittees. These are listed here with information about the types of legislation that each considers. The Rules and Budget committees of each house are also important. 

The ratings chart also includes the percentage of the population in each district that is over 65. There seems to be very little correlation between the potential block of elder voters and a representative's responsiveness to elder issues. Of the 15 districts with the highest percentage of elders, five Congresspeople scored 100, but eight scored 30 or below, and one scored 0 in a district 26.7 percent elderly. For the South as a whole, all of the top 15 were Democrats and all of the 0s were Republicans. 

This pattern suggests that there is still a great potential for elders and all of us interested in the quality of life for older people — present and future — to make our voices heard more effectively in Congress. We need to do two things: educate ourselves on the important issues affecting elders and who is voting for or against them in Congress; and organize and mobilize to lobby effectively. 

Welsh suggests one process for being more effective. First, think and plan a course of action in terms of your Congressional district. Next, hold district-wide meetings and planning sessions and set up a district-wide steering committee. Third, create a communications system to generate letters and phone calls. Finally, follow up; did the network members send out the letters they promised? 

A new effort to create a nationwide grassroots lobbying network on elder issues is the Advocates Senior Alert Process (ASAP), coordinated by the Villers Advocacy Associates. It will provide participants timely and thorough information about current issues, especially health and income issues. In return, ASAP seeks the commitment of local activists who participate to lobby on those issues as part of a national strategy of letter-writing, visiting legislators, phone-calling, and other grassroots efforts. Twelve groups are already cooperating with ASAP, including the Gray Panthers, the National Caucus on the Black Aged, the National Council of Senior Citizens, and the Older Women's League. 

According to Ronald Pollack, director of the Villers Advocacy Associates, "This sort of coordinated grassroots effort is critical if we all are to fight back against the serious cutbacks in benefits and programs that are critical to all low- and moderate-income people, especially the elderly." To expand the network and its effectiveness, each person involved is asked to mobilize five other people to take part in ASAP's efforts. To find out more about ASAP, contact Jeff Kirsch at 1334 G St., NW, Washington, DC 20005 (202)737-6340. 

The ratings chart also suggests that issues affecting elders are not isolated and that coalitions with people organized around other interests make a great deal of sense. In 1984, Southern Exposure produced a "progressive" rating for Congresspeople for the previous year. A comparison of the NCSC and the Southern Exposure scores shows that representatives who support elders' issues also tend to support the issues of the other progressive groups. The 31 Congresspeople scoring 100 on NCSC's ratings had an average rating of 65 on the Southern Exposure scale, a very high score. The 10 Congresspeople scoring 0 on the NCSC scale had an average Southern Exposure rating of a pitiful 2.3 out of 100. On the Senate side, the NCSC 100s got a Southern Exposure average of 73, and the NCSC 0s got a Southern Exposure average of 15. 

We might not win every time we lobby, but our willingness to continue trying is one more weapon we can wield in convincing those in office to serve us better. And Senators and Congresspeople who get scores of 0 may not be convinced that they should represent us better, but they can be replaced. In some cases, we may have to do just that to win.