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Posts: 32880
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | This was sent to me yesterday, I'm trying to find mr. mead to get his permission to post as an article. Great advice.
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A Dozen Rules for Effective Political Advocacy
written by Tim Mead
From time-to-time, folks ask me, “How can I get government to do what I want?” or “How does this work?”
Why ask me?
For most of the last 40 years I have been a politician. I’ve been a lobbyist and I’ve been lobbied. At times, I have been a public official, responsible for making decisions. For all but a few of those years I have been a political science faculty member at a college or university. Here’s some of what I’ve learned.
1. Be firm, but be respectful.
You may have good reasons for doubting the skills of intelligence of people around you; compared to your insight they may seem quite inadequate. Yet, look at the matter from the perspective of public officials. Elected officials – state legislators, county commissioners, city council members – all stood up in public and got more votes than anyone else. Perhaps they were even so politically stout that they ran uncontested. Once they became office-holders, others became deferential, adding to the office-holder’s perception that they have something “on the ball.”
Appointed officials, usually members of the State/Provincial Fish and Wildlife Commission or local environmental of planning commissioners, were selected by elected officials from among many eager to serve. They, too, are treated by the larger community with deference and respect.
Often attorneys or persons from other professions serve at some financial sacrifice, at least in the short run. Most appointed officials serve for expenses only, and given the financial constraints on state and local government, the payments for expenses do not equal the expenses themselves.
In any event, public officials perceive themselves as competent and public-spirited. When they are not treated with respect for their effort and the office they hold, that treatment is in conflict with both their expectation and their perception. Remember, these are the people who will make the decision you are trying to influence. Offend them at your peril.
2. Work with staff.
Agency staff persons – wildlife biologists, policy planners and analysts, field agents and others – ordinarily get their positions based on years of training and experience. You may think someone with a Master of Science degree from the State University lacks real world experience and thus may be discounted. Experts in the field (the instructors in the academic life), however, have put these folks through rigorous testing and found them sound. Further, the staff persons are likely to know from their contacts what other states and localities have done, what worked and what did not. Depend on the professional expertise of staff persons.
Further, from the perspective of trying to influence the persons who will actually make the decisions, the elected or appointed officials, no other source of information is as important to them as the professional staff. Staff persons get the first opportunity to explain to the decision-makers what the implications of policies are. Staff persons interact with decision-makers informally and repeatedly. Staff persons depend, for their personal and professional success, on good relations with decision-makers.
From the perspective of persons trying to influence decisions, good and on-going relations with the agency staff are critical. Get to know the staff persons. At public hearings or meetings, introduce yourself and others in your group to the staff folk. Ask them questions. Invite staff persons to make presentations at your meetings.
3. Make your pitch based on the public interest, not parochial protection.
When making your case before public officials, make the case on grounds of a larger public good rather than a narrow interest. If your lake needs a new boat ramp, argue for wider public access, not “the clients of my bait shop would like a ramp across the road from the shop.” In other words, explain how better fishing or enhanced water quality or other “goods” will have wide-spread benefits.
Public officials, when making any controversial decision, are faced with a variety of claims. One private claim of benefit counters another claim of benefit. Since many of the decisions made by public officials require money, a case has to be made that a significant and wide-spread public good will be realized. As an example, ask (and be prepared to give a good answer), “Why will a trophy musky (or pike, or bass, or trout, or…) fishery be good, with wide-spread benefit, when only a small number of persons actually fish for trophy muskies?”
4. Know the science, and accept it.
Controversial public decisions always generate reports, from agency staff, consultants, private interests, and perhaps others. Often these reports are quite technical. Perhaps the technical material is merely designed to “dazzle with footwork,” perhaps it really becomes the basis for a decision. Most public officials cannot do their own study, so for technical matters they must rely on those who do. In order to respond effectively, you must understand the science, whether biology, hydrology, ichthyology, or other scientific discipline. If one of the scientists tells decision-makers, “It all depends on the amount of phosphorus in the water,” your response has to be more than, “I don’t think phosphorous has anything to do with it”
If you, personally, do not understand the science, either bone-up or find someone who does.
5. Understand the players and their roles.
Governing decisions are made in a complex environment of national, state or provincial, and local agencies. Depending on a wide variety of factors, the players and their roles may differ from place to place and decision to decision. Though there are exceptions, generally, national policies trump state or provincial policies, and state and provincial policies trump local policies.
In order to be effective, environmental advocates have to know who the players are and what jurisdiction or authority they have. Most governmental agencies have websites. Go to those sites and find out who does what. If you go to some person or agency and ask it to accomplish something it has no authority to do, you demonstrate that you do not know what you are talking about and you offend those who do. Does this take some study? Yes. Do you want to be successful?
And in asking for some policy to be adopted, be realistic – don’t ask for things impossible to get. Don’t ask a land use regulator to prevent a private property owner from using the land in a legally permitted fashion. Don’t ask the state or provincial utility agency to bar a railroad from replacing a worn out bridge. Rather, ask that these things be regulated in an environmentally sensitive way.
6. A group is more powerful than a person.
Those making the case for any public policy are more effective as a group rather than as a single individual speaking alone. Don’t have a group? Make one. Create “The Committee of Neighbors Who Want to Improve the Quality of Life” or some such. With a computer, create some letterhead. Identify half a dozen like-minded folks, the more prominent the better, to serve as the Board of Directors and run their names down the side of the letterhead. Maybe ask an attorney how to create an organization with a fictitious name (virtually any attorney will know how to do this).
7. Form alliances with others.
Too often, petty differences prevent persons whose larger perspective is compatible from acting together. For most of the issues of interest to anglers, whether those concentrating on Esox species or panfish, all anglers are on the same side of the question. That is true of anglers and bird watchers, anglers and hikers, anglers and a wide variety of other outdoor enthusiasts, including those from the city who merely ride through the country-side on Sunday afternoon. Decision-makers are favorably impressed with broad-based coalitions.
8. Write and speak correctly and effectively.
Poorly written letters are less effective than no letters at all. Inarticulate speakers at public hearings or meetings lose the attention of decision-makers. Think of it from the perspective of decision-makers; they get, perhaps, hundreds of letters from persons and listen to hours of speakers. One local official told me, vis-à-vis, e-mail messages she received, that to be effective she needed, “a maid, a driver, and a deleter.” Don’t write grammatically correct letters? Get someone who can. Don’t speak interestingly and forcefully? Find someone who can. If your organization cannot attract such persons, it probably has little prospect of success in the first place.
Why is this important? Decision-makers tend to be well-educated persons. If you do not know the rules of grammar and syntax, if you cannot speak effectively, you suggest, however, subtly, that the decision-makers do not know those rules or that the skills which decision- makers have are unimportant.
9. Respect the time of public officials.
Your issue may be the only one important to you. Public officials, however, hear from many folks about many issues. Their time is very constrained. If you waste their time, they will soon come to think you are merely a windbag and may be safely ignored.
If given two minutes to speak, take a little less. If given three pages to make your case, take two and a half. If you cannot cover the material to make the case within such boundaries, in the time or space allotted, say so and provide the more detailed argument in an attached report.
10. Don’t impose yourself.
Particularly local officials are often out-and-about in places the rest of us may see them. Give them the room to go about the business of living, going to the grocery store, attending a youth soccer match, whatever. In the event you see a public official that you want to tell about the case you support, at an appropriate time introduce yourself and tell the official that you will be sending a detailed memorandum supporting whatever it is you wish to advocate.
11. Avoid personalizing.
Make your case on the substance of the issue or issues, not on the persons advocating or opposing. It is fine to say that such-and-such a policy is short-sighted. It is not fine to say that such-and-such a person is short-sighted. Once angered or offended, public officials (or anyone else for that matter) are very difficult to persuade later of the merits of your case. And remember, even though you may lose the present issue, you may need the support of these same persons later. If you anger or offend now, you may lose not only the current issue by many yet to come.
12. Monitor what is going on.
Often citizens complain that it appears as though some public decision is a pre-ordained outcome, a “done deal” by the time citizens learn a decision is about to be made. All the staff reports have been written, powerful interests have already made their case and their interests accommodated. The appearance is only party true.
Public agencies usually have to provide notice that an issue is under consideration. For many public decisions, a public hearing must be held with sufficient lead time before the hearing so that interested persons may prepare. It is during this time that interest groups that may oppose environmental enhancements make their case. How can they do this? They monitor the activities of public agencies. They read the legal notices in the back of the newspapers. They stay in touch with the professional staff and ask frequently, “What are the next issues that are doing to be decided?”
Citizens often complain that the relationship between the professional staff of public agencies is “too cozy.” The reason for the cozy relationship is that the representatives of the interest groups frequently interact with the staff, and no one likes to work with people in a tense environment – both professional staff and interest group representatives work hard to maintain pleasant relationships. Citizens who maintain contact with professional staffs of organizations will find the same sort of dynamic if they stay in close touch with the professional staff.
You don’t have time to monitor what is going on? You are trying to compete with those who do and will not discontinue their activities merely because you do not. Find someone with a sympathetic point of view who can monitor pending public decisions.
In a nutshell, that’s it. It’s hard work and requires on-going commitment to influence public policy. Takes too much time, you say? Takes too much effort, you say? Well then, those for whom it is not too much time and not too much effort will prevail.
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Posts: 32880
Location: Rhinelander, Wisconsin | Mr Maina, all due respect...
You are taking advantage of your position as a TV and Magazine personality in what now appears to be an effort to damage reputations and cause people you have not even spoken to harm as an at -the -hip attached appendage for the WMRT. It's your personal responsibility to acquire the facts before publishing that sort of content, and it is my editorial position you have failed in that regard in a spectacular fashion. Fisheries Professionals across the country cannot help but nearly choke in disbelief at your recent comments, and several have shared that sentiment with me.
If your intent is to publish extremeley negative comments about Wisconsin's Fisheries professionals, the Muskie Management Team in Wisconsin, and Dr. Sloss's lab, you need to investigate what the actual facts are and what it takes to attain the positions those folks hold and base your accusations on more than innuendo.
Compare their educational and working expertise (and International reputations) to that of the admittedly amateur hobbyists from the WMRT, and ask yourself a simple question...is it possible that this well intentioned group are interpreting data incorrectly, misreading and cherry picking scientific information and are behaving in a manner an article printed in your own website's database indicates is totally unacceptable in the process of disseminating their 'data' to the public?
It is the personal responsibility of any writer or journalist to check the facts, confirm from all sources, and reconfirm that those facts are accurate from at least three credible sources.
Have you READ the studies the WMRT quotes, made any attempt to 'bone up' on the Science, called the Authors and asked if the WMRT's interpretations are adept and apply properly to the platform they put forth? Have you called or spoken to the Author's Peers, and asked if they would support the WMRT's interpretations of the Data? Have you spoken to any geneticist, fisheries scientist, fisheries manager, or biologist anywhere in North America, and asked their opinion of the work underway in Wisconsin at present? Do you have any idea whatsoever what the work underway in Dr. Sloss's lab in Point will mean to fisheries scientists, biologists, and other interested professionals in the field of Muskie Management when completed? Before you again insist that Dr. Sloss's lab's work is a 'waste of money' or question the qualifications and abilities of the Muskie Management Team professionals in this State, I think it's your professional responsibility to do so. Don't tell me you are "too busy and don't have the time", because you certainly have had the time to make unsubstantiated remarks on the subject based on what appears to be solely information posted by the WMRT.
Here's a direct challenge:
Index Finger, either hand
Phone
Number from the WIDNR website, available to anyone
Call Mr. Neuswanger or Steve Avelallemant, or perhaps another Fisheries professional or two working on Wisconsin's Muskie management
Ask them the hard questions, and LISTEN to the answers
Index Finger, either hand
Computer Mouse.
Search engine, maybe Google
Here's a few examples of what a cursory search turns up...see some parallels?
http://www.absc.usgs.gov/research/Fisheries/genetics/genetics.htm
http://sciencecareers.sciencemag.org/career_development/previous_is...
http://notes4.state.ak.us/wa/position.nsf/384853b21d223dea892566aa0... (Think any of the WMRT guys meet these requirements?)
http://books.google.com/books?id=5UatSVA6pugC&pg=RA2-PA163&lpg=RA2-... q=forensic+geneticists+fisheries&source=web&ots=rSzAFaZJSj&sig=pEXK5PJrRZ9ZgaI16X6rL1qV-ps&hl=en#PRA2-PR7,M1
Once those steps are completed, find ONE working Muskie related fisheries biologist, geneticist, or scientist who would be willing to confer with the same people you called, and then conduct an interview with me rebutting or critiquing the current Muskie management plan in force in Wisconsin, and the work Dr. Sloss's lab has undertaken to forward that effort. OutdoorsFIRST will podcast and publish that interview in streaming audio, transcribe the interview and publish it in the articles section, and will provide a secure thread for response from other fisheries professionals across the Muskie's range. Just one, Pete. According to your current position and posts of late, that should be easy.
Have that scientist contact me at [email protected].
I'm standing by....
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