Threat to grassroots lobbying, part 2

Posted on January 10, 2007

In my earlier post found here, I raised questions about the effect of Senate Bill One (SB1) on small organizations and even some blogs’ ability to legally call on members and readers to express their opinions to our elected leaders. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this is a real threat.

I’m not alone in that. FreeMarketNewsNetwork, for which I used to write legal commentary, commented on what the legislation will do nearly a week ago. Here is an excerpt:

CONCRETE EXAMPLES OF HOW THE GRASSROOTS REGULATIONS WOULD CAUSE HARM

EXAMPLE #1:

A small, hypothetical nonprofit organization consisting of only two full-time employees has one issue, and that is to make Congress read the laws it passes before voting on them. They rely entirely on small-dollar contributions from the general public. For the sake of our example, none of these donations exceeds $500. They send a letter to two United States Senators urging Congress to pass a law called the “Read the Bills Act.” They next send out an email to more than 500 citizens explaining their reasons for proposing a “Read the Bills Act,” and suggest that citizens contact their members of Congress.

This little grassroots organization would, under the grassroots regulation bill, be required to register and report quarterly to Congress under the lobbying disclosure law, identifying who they are, how much they spent, which members of Congress their efforts were directed to, and other information.

EXAMPLE #2:

Next, this grassroots organization has cobbled together just enough money to hire a public relations agent to write and place two full-page ads in The Sunday New York Times. The ads simply say, “Congress should sweat the details just like you do. Contact your representatives in Congress and demand they support the Read the Bills Act.” The PR agent is retained to expend more than the dollar threshold that triggers what the grassroots regulation bill defines as a “grassroots lobbying firm.” The PR agent makes no contact with Congress, and spends less than 20 percent of his time writing and placing this simple ad, and thus does not fit any of the current criteria of a “lobbyist.” Nevertheless . . .

Under the grassroots regulation bill, the PR agent must also register with Congress under the lobbying disclosure law, reporting who his client is, which members of Congress the effort is directed towards, and other information.

Now, contrast those scenarios with this one…

FreeMarketNews then goes on to compare how it operates for large corporate lobbyists. I don’t necessarily share their apparent concern about corporations lobbying, but do appreciate that they make the comparison, and show that nothing significant will change under this legislation for those who are already powerful or have the ear of Congress, but things will change dramatically for small groups, and potentially advocacy blogs like this one.