Blue Jeans Lobbyist: The Flip Side of D.C.

By Kayla Koether

I’m sure you’ve all heard about lobbyists in Washington, D.C.: shiny shoes, wool coat, expensive looking briefcase. However, I was given the valuable opportunity to work for three days as a lobbyist myself--in a button-up shirt and blue jeans. I saw a very different side of our nation’s capitol, and I learned some things that they just don’t teach in school. Instead of studying the past, I was studying the present, and putting in my 2 cents worth to help shape the future.

I came upon the opportunity to go to Washington through a Minnesota-based organization that my family and I are members of. This organization is called the Land Stewardship Project (LSP), and represent members who support and practice sustainable agriculture techniques. LSP is a member of a larger coalition called the Midwest Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (MSAWG). This group is comprised of many smaller groups like LSP and encompasses many Midwestern states.

MSAWG and LSP planned this trip to Washington so that members could talk to our representatives about the 2007 farm bill, and also about the budget cuts currently being made to farm programs because of our deficit crisis. I was lucky enough to get the chance to go along as the youngest lobbyist; the second youngest was Kristen, a graduate student from Ohio.

When I told this story to my Current Affairs class, they were much less interested in what the group proposed about agriculture and more interested in what we actually did while we were there. (They also wanted to know if I got peanuts on the airplane; I didn’t, they served pretzels.) So I will make the policy section short and sweet.

President Bush has proposed huge cuts to the Farm Bill. This proposal includes payment limitations on commodities, as well as using historical yield rather than present yields to calculate commodity crop payments. Using historic yields would make our commodity program WTO (World Trade Organization)-compliant...in an underhanded sort of way. Our group supports strict payment limitations that could reduce the deficit without hurting small farms, and opposes using historic yields to calculate payments, because it would cut subsidies for every farmer, small and large. We also want the Conservation Security Program (CSP) to become a central part of our Farm Bill in 2007. CSP (don’t confuse this with CRP) rewards farmers for conserving natural resources and using sound stewardship practices on their land. This type of program supports all farmers who are doing positive things, is WTO-compliant and has measurable results in our communities. When CSP was passed, it was supposed to be a full entitlement program and available to farmers in the entire U.S.A. Unfortunately, the CSP fund was cut and sign-up was only available in 18 watersheds. The CSP fund has also been raided many times for disaster relief. This is obviously a disappointment to our group, which has worked very hard to get CSP passed through Congress. There were quite a few messages we wanted to deliver to our elected officials; and we wanted them to be sent authentically, minus the shiny black shoes.

So, after leaving home at about 2 in the afternoon on Sunday, March 6, we arrived in Washington at approximately 10:30 p.m. Eastern time. We were somewhat acquainted with the Metro (subway) system, and we had good directions, so finding our hotel was a snap. We met the group that we would spend the next three days with. There were 14 of us from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Ohio. After introductions, we fell into bed and slept gladly.

The next day, we met as a group in the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill where MSAWG has a small office space and three working members employed. We solidified a brief but direct and uniform message that would serve as our main talking points in our meetings.

These meetings were scheduled beforehand with many of the aides of our elected officials and with some powerful organizations in D.C. that shared some of our beliefs about the Farm Bill. Most of the meetings with the aides were 30 minutes long, and those with the organizations were from an hour to an hour-and-a-half long. We had about 60 meetings scheduled for the three days that we were in Washington, so we were to split up into smaller groups and attend the meetings that we were most interested in or could contribute the most to. There were from four to eight people at each meeting with one or two aides, depending on schedules and popularity. Most of the Iowans tried to go to meetings with the aides of Iowa representatives and so forth.

The meeting format was a roundtable with the aides, exchanging questions, answers, and expectations. Some were more receptive to us than others. Some were very interactive, and others were just head nodders. One of the aides we met with was Heather Zichal, an Elkader native who works for Senator John Kerry. We were very impressed by her knowledge. For the most part, the aides heard what we were saying and appreciated our views. In a few meetings, the representatives themselves were present. Two of these instances included Steve King (R-Iowa) and Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). Many said that it was important for people like us to travel to Washington to lobby.

It becomes a game really, a huge maze in which one may know secret passages or tactics to reach their goal. It takes on a different form of reality, and it’s good for these political players to receive a reality check every once in a while. The aides that agreed with our views whole-heartedly explained some of the political warfare tactics that are taking place, and those that soon will be. It gave us all a much deeper understanding of “the system.”

This article could have been about the fact that Senator Tom Harkin’s secretaries were some of the friendliest staff of any (and that he has a popcorn maker in his outer office.) It could describe an intense meeting with three of Senator Saxby Chambliss’s (R-Georgia, huge cotton and rice man) aides, and how I saw Senator Kerry walking down a hall in the Russell building. But it isn’t. Although these were all useful experiences that make for good, boastful stories, along with many more (I had to include the exciting parts somewhere), I learned something much deeper. In this country, no matter how heightened security is, anyone can get messages through to those who represent them. We have that freedom. And anyone who is determined enough to make the effort can make their point just as well as those who have money and social clout. I learned something different. I learned the rules of engagement.

Kayla Koether goes to high school and farms with her family in northeast Iowa.