Lobbying is lobbying, after all
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Should you tackle committee lobbying differently than you do floor lobbying? Lobbying is lobbying, after all. While there are certainly some similarities between the two venues, there are also some important differences between lobbying legislation in a policy or fiscal committee, or on the Senate or Assembly Floors.
Click Here to Subscribe to the California Political Review
In lobbying committees, the focus is on a smaller number of legislators and their staff (although the Senate and Assembly Budget Committees are quite large in size!). The target, of course, is to get a majority of the committee members to agree with your position, just as you need a majority or sometimes a higher threshold on either Floor for certain types of bills.
When your bill is in committee, you spend time working with the committee staff (both majority and minority party consultants) on the bill language, and perhaps whether any amendments are necessary or appropriate. And you work with the consultants on their respective analyses, providing relevant information and answering their questions in the hope those analyses will reflect your support or opposition comments.
The lobbyist also needs to determine what key points he or she will raise in their brief testimony before the policy committee. Committee consultants may be able to shed light on the chair’s recommendation or the key points that may be persuasive to their committee members. You can also fine tune your main arguments prior to the hearing, primarily by making succinct comments in your office visits leading up to the hearing. You might to consider asking friendly legislators to ask questions of your witnesses to elicit additional points that can be made.
When your bill is in the fiscal committee, your focus obviously turns to the potential fiscal consequences of the bill, minimizing the potential impacts if you are a supporter and maximizing the projected revenue impact if you are an opponent. That can usually be addressed in a sentence or two if public comment happens to be made at the usually brief hearing in the fiscal committee.
Speak Your Mind