Lobbying: Communicating with any Public Official for the Purpose of Influencing Legislative Issues

This weekend hundreds of folks advocating for a wide range of policy initiatives trekked up to Albany for the annual Black, Puerto Rican, Hispanic & Asian Legislators weekend conference, panels, workshops speeches and parties and the opportunity to meet with legislators and advocate for your issue. CUNY college presidents concerned with perhaps dramatic cuts in funding, health providers and unions.  All hoping to influence legislators as the budget clock ticks. The size of the budget is set by the governor and the legislature decides on the size of the slices.

For the UFT folks Fix Tier 6 at this point is probably not a budget issue; the union is aiming at reducing the retirement with full benefits from 63 to 55 and the first retiree under Tier 6 is decades in the future. Tier 6 needs a number of “fixes,” beginning with the age requirement as the first step.

Yes, it’s a messy system that continues to get messier, but, it is what it is and it’s unlikely it’ll change in the near term.

A teaching opportunity.

The Constitutional Convention was also “messy,” from May to September in 1787 the fifty or so delegates argued, large states v small slates, slave state and free states, spending the days listening to long speeches and the evenings in taverns. “sipping” and continuing the “politics.”  The convention ended probably more due to exhaustion than the oratory.

The founding fathers had doubts whether the system they created would survive.

The Constitution required nine of the thirteen states to ratify, vote to approve the document, Federalists (Hamilton, Madison) in favor and Anti-Federalists (Patrick Henry) opposed. From October 1787 to May 1788 Madison, Hamilton and Jay wrote eighty-one essays, today we’d call them op eds published in the major newspapers of the time.

Madison acknowledges the nature of mankind in Federalist 51,

If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: You must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.

And the corrosive impact of factions in Federalist 10,

Among the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction. The friend of popular governments, never finds himself so much alarmed for their character and fate, as when he contemplates their propensity to this dangerous vice. He will not fail therefore to set a due value on any plan which, without violating the principles to which he is attached, provides a proper cure for it. The instability, injustice and confusion introduced into the public councils, have in truth been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished; as they continue to be the favorite and fruitful topics from which the adversaries to liberty derive their most specious declamations.

The founders, were erudite men, deeply steeped in the classics, from Aristotle to Hume and Locke, and today?

Jeffery Rosen, the leader of the Constitution Center and other scholars discuss the Founders in a fascinating podcast here.

Back in my union rep days I wrote a newsletter, and a local Assembly member at a meeting said he didn’t think additional funds for education were necessary, I mentioned in the newsletter with his office phone number. My union superior said he called her livid, apparently my comment stoked the troops, she asked me to retract, I said let him retract, we argued for a while, he eventually made a public statement changing his position. He respected me and we got along pretty well. I think our little spat impacted other electeds.

Teachers and other union member live in every electoral district, the union can easily target correspondence, why poke the big, bad UFT?

The legislative bodies are run by a handful of folks, the Speaker of the Assembly and the Majority Leader of the Senate, the committee chairs and a few senior leaders, plus, in the background, the Governor.

On the other side of the fence plenty of opposition.  There are organizations opposed to Defined Benefit pensions, mayors and others opposed to increased pension costs, and the Trumper anti-teacher union crowd. New York City pension costs are actuarial calculations and lower required member contributions increase the city contributions, (See discussion here)

Mayors opposing increasing teacher pensions has a long history, on the other hand governors seeking higher office used increasing pensions to woo teacher votes.

On the March Lobby Day teachers will visit legislators in Albany and visit legislators in city offices, discussions in whatever replaced “smoke filled rooms” and by the June 5^th adjournment date a bill may be awaiting the governor’s signature.

Listen to Rhiannon Giddens: sing at Occupy Wall Street  “We are the 99” here – it’s inspiring!