Jim VandeHei, founder of Politico, addressed our PEAK Leadership Summit on the morning of our annual advocacy day on Capitol Hill. He offered attendees his insights on Congressional activities for the remainder of this Congress and the beginning of the next one in 2013.
VandeHei spoke with us before his speech to offer advice on how not-for-profit aging services organizations can cultivate and leverage strong relationships with their legislators.
Question: What advice would you have for our members about establishing good relationships with their members of Congress?
Jim VandeHei: There's a couple of things that are true of almost every single member of Congress. One, they still are extremely responsive to people who live in their district. Not that many people vote. Not that many people take the time to make a phone call, to send an e-mail, to get engaged. So, you have a distinct advantage if you have a large number of people engaged on one issue who are helping that member of Congress with calls, with information.
Two, they respond to who they have to respond to. They respond to the people that they think are actually going to turn out and vote or turn out and help them organize or do something that helps them stay in office. To put it in its crudest terms, a member of Congress spends 80 percent of their time trying to be able to stick around.
With that context, one piece of advice is to tell them how they can make a difference. Members of Congress, for the most part, are top liners. Most don't want to be killed with detail. Tell them the one thing they can do.
In my experience, especially for not-for-profits, you have the most success when you can just humanize an issue. For a senator, talk about somebody from the state to put a specific face to the problem. For example, Mary Walker faces a specific challenge now, or she wants to be able to live at home.
But, because of regulations and because of the realities in the current system, she's getting forced into something that's probably not good for her, probably not good necessarily for the system.
Next, be clever about using technology. Harness that human face to technology. There are real ways now between Twitter, Facebook, and e-mail campaigns to be able to force a member of Congress to recognize an issue.
You can sort of grab them by the lapel and say this is a real issue in your district. And for LeadingAge, I would assume they're pretty responsive. Older people vote, particularly in Congressional elections. So, there's even an added incentive for them to be more responsive.
Q.: Our members are interested in certain committees, like House Ways and Means, Senate Finance, Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. What advice can you give them about those particular committees and the information that the staff and the members are looking for there?
VandeHei: I would sort of pull the lens way back and understand that, certainly, in the modern Congress, leadership probably matters more than the committees. Most big policies, most controversial policies are litigated and decided on leadership, particularly in the tax writing committees.
It's the most important game in town. If you're trying to influence Rep. Dave Camp (R-WI) or Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), where does the issue of aging fit into the things that he is consumed with right now?
Probably not that high because they're thinking about this debt bomb that's about to explode. At the end of the year, the Bush tax cuts are going to expire. The payroll tax is going to expire. All these cuts are going to kick in that--including cuts that would hit Medicare.
So, to me, your most effective route into influencing a committee is finding the members on that committee who have expertise and command on your issues. And you'll have real influence in working them.
And then look for those moments where big things will happen. There's going to be--the potential for more legislative activity to happen in two months after Election Day than probably happened in 30 years.
In the next Congress, there's going to be substantial action on tax reform, Medicare, and spending at some point in the next 18 months. Make sure that you're well versed on how that's going to unfold and how that affects your issues. That's where the helping of members of Congress matters because something is going to happen.
I always tell people to look at education. With education, we essentially had status quo for 30 years. But, little by little, like, the parties came together. And now, it's--what's happening in education is kind of exciting. There's experimentation. Online-access education is opening up an entire gateway to education for people in rural areas they never would've had before. There's real competition. Look around in Washington D.C. the number of charter schools that have popped up, the number of kids using vouchers to go to different schools. But, that didn't just happen. That took 20 years of building towards. And I feel like tax reform is building towards that.
Q.: If our members could get a member of Congress to come visit their organization--and I think you spoke to this a little before--what should they highlight?
VandeHei: I would say simplify and exaggerate. Don't shout at them with 15 things about your organization. Think about one thing you want them to either know about or to act upon. And then use that to try to tell a story.
You want that member of Congress to leave with a real powerful sense of what that story is. And then find different things throughout the tour to make sure you're amplifying that one thing. We have a tendency when you get the audience of somebody who's important, you have a tendency to -- like going to see a psychiatrist for the first time -- just going to dump it all on the table. You can't do that. You've got to dump one thing on the table. And make that one thing really good. And make it memorable. Otherwise, they're going to walk away with nothing that's actionable.
Q.: What do you think that members of Congress are looking for from not-for-profit organizations?
VandeHei: I don't think members of Congress necessarily always make a huge differentiation between a not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. What they want to see is, at the end of the day, is this organization truly active in my district? Are they talking about an issue that affects a large number of people in my district? And can they help me either with policy expertise or voter mobilization?
I do think not-for-profits have an advantage in that they advocate almost always for something good. And they're not driven by money.