Lobbying Effort at 2006 March Meeting
Put Capitol Hill on your 2006 March Meeting itinerary!
By Steve Pierson, Head of Government Relations, APS Office of Public Affairs
The APS Office of Public Affairs (OPA) has begun the planning for the congressional visits during the 2006 APS March Meeting in Baltimore. The objective is to have March Meeting attendees from as many districts and states as possible travel down to Washington, DC to educate Congress on the importance of science research funding.
Carrying the message to individual offices remains one of the best means of influencing a Member of Congress.
OPA will assist the participants in all aspects of a congressional visit. We will brief APS members on the common message, offer advice on how to conduct an effective meeting, and cover the logistics of a congressional visit. We will also provide materials to be left with each office that will have state specific information.
The timing of these visits is excellent since Congress will have just started its considerations of the appropriations for the next fiscal year.
To broaden the message and to take advantage of this opportunity, we would also like to host an event aimed at media that would include the congressional visits participants, Members of Congress and Nobel Laureates.
In addition to influencing Congress, we hope that participants see first-hand the importance of informing their elected officials about what physicists do. While you our members are getting more active in this regard and more APS meeting attendees write letters at the Contact Congress computers, there is much more to do.
We would like you and all APS members to view Congressional visits as part of developing a relationship with an office rather than a one-time event. We would hope that you would follow up with the Congressional office at opportune times, make visits to the home offices, and perhaps invite staff or Members of Congress to visits their labs. You may also become resources for a Member's office.
In addition to the congressional visits, Contact Congress will be back at the 2006 March Meeting. We hope that we can best the fantastic turnout in Los Angeles that yielded 4,250 letters (or three letters each from more than 1400 of the 6500 attendees.) Thanks to the help of DCMP, the 2005 March Meeting marked the third consecutive increase in the number of letters (from 1760 in 2002, 2200 in 2003, and 3550 in 2004.)
OPA will begin its publicity and recruitment of the Congressional visits in the fall and looks forward to working closely with DCMP to make the most of this opportunity. If you have ideas for how to broaden our impact, please contact the APS OPA.
Please plan to make the Congressional visits part of your schedule for Baltimore. If your Senators and Congresspersons don't hear it from you, they won't hear it from anybody!