Articles

Second Session Task List

By Robert E. McLean, CAE
Government Relations, January 2006

This month begins the second session of a Congress, a good time to stop, consider our legislative successes and disappointments from the first session, and develop plans and goals for the second, shorter session of the 109th Congress. Here's a checklist of ideas and tasks to jump-start your planning process.

1. Update committee and staff lists

A good first step at the beginning of the first or second session is to review your lists—of key committee members and especially of the legislative assistants who are assigned to your issue. These lists likely appear in many places: in your grassroots lobbying training materials, on your Web site, or in newsletter articles. Find out now if the list of members is current. (And find out how long it's been since you looked at that members-only Web site reference section.)

At the end of every year many Hill workers depart for home, for graduate school, for new assignments on Capitol Hill, or for new jobs off the Hill. On the committees I follow, the turnover rate at the end of the first session is about 30 percent. Is your list of legislative assistants up to date? Now is the time to get those new names—and e-mail addresses—and distribute the information to your network members.

2. Write a session summary

Next, you'll want to write a very brief first session summary. This is an important document for your own archives and will make it much easier to write an end-of-Congress summary next December. But the group that will most benefit from such a report are your grassroots lobbyists.

Volunteers who work to support your legislative program have, like most everyone, spent much of the last month thinking about anything but your legislative agenda. Get them up to speed and remind them of your priority tasks now, before Congress gets active. Suggest meetings they can schedule and material they can distribute to their members—and let them know about those staff changes.

3. Schedule staff meetings and briefings

Depending on the number of staff changes on an oversight or appropriations committee, you may want to schedule a breakfast or lunch briefing on your key issues. They are usually better attended if the host is a coalition to which your organization belongs. Bring that first session summary and fact sheets on your most important issues.

Always remember legislative assistants prefer getting materials electronically, rather than on paper. So unless you plan on going over a document in detail during a briefing (not the most exciting way to engage staffers, by the way), bring them a CD, not a thick folder of papers they'll never read.

If you're so fortunate as to have only a few new faces among the legislative assistants you see most often, consider individual meetings rather than a group get-together. Face time is usually easier to schedule in January, so call early.

4. Plan lobby days—here or back home

Are you planning a lobby day in Washington this year? Get the word out now and post your registration form online before your volunteers' calendars get too crowded. And consider some new tactics for engaging your grassroots lobbyists. For example, schedule a lobby week when members are back home.

This event is a great way of building momentum for your issue without the expense of a fly-in. Designate one week when Congress is in recess during which your members schedule meetings to discuss your legislative and regulatory issues, or ask the member of Congress to participate in a site visit. (You'll find more information on staging a lobby day event or site visit in previous editions of the ASAE Government Relations e-newsletter.)

Give your lobbyists specific tasks, such as securing co-sponsors for a bill that lost momentum last fall. Encourage them to take digital pictures and send them to you for inclusion on your Web site and in your newsletters.

5. Fill grassroots network vacancies

After the holidays it's very common for some of your volunteers to reconsider their obligations, including those to your association. You may find your letters and e-mails to chapter or state legislative leaders go unanswered, or you may receive notes of apology and resignation. So take the time now to recruit—and train—replacements.

6. Set goals

Perhaps the most important task to perform at the beginning of any congressional session is to develop a list of goals for the coming year. Think about goals for both your staff and your grassroots lobbyists. If you haven't reviewed the association's overall strategic plan in a while, do it now to verify that your program supports the objectives it contains.

Your second session list of goals might include items such as these:

• Attract a specific number of registrants to your lobby day event.
• Get a bill introduced.
• Recruit a specific number of co-sponsors to a bill.
• Encourage an oversight hearing.
• Hold a specific number of meetings (in Washington and back home).
• Schedule a specific number of site visits back home, targeting members of an oversight or other essential committee.
• Get your grassroots lobbyists to write a specific number of letters or e-mails to members.
• Collect a certain amount of money for your political action committee.

Goals are important markers for success, but they also help focus the activities of your staff members and grassroots lobbyists. Goals must be realistic and somewhat ambitious, showing progress in your legislative program's achievements. And they can be an essential means of showing your board why your legislative department is a valuable part of the association that helps achieve the goals in the overall strategic plan—and why it deserves the financial support it receives.

Robert E. McLean, CAE, is president of REM Association Services, an association management company located in Arlington, VA (near the nation's Capitol). He is a former member of the leadership of the AMC Institute and is currently in a leadership role with the American Society of Association Executives. McLean is a registered lobbyist who trains more than 5,000 grassroots lobbyists annually. REM manages numerous nonprofits, including national associations, societies, and foundations. The AMC also has several consulting clients, frequently facilitating strategic planning programs.