PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

One of my friends, a former state lobby colleague, asked a good question the other evening. It was this:

Do lobby coalitions work and, if so, how do they work?

Well, as a top Salem lobbyist, she probably already knew the answer. But, in this blog, I’ll endeavor to provide my best attempt at some perspectives, with comments.

1. What are lobby coalitions? The term refers to situations where groups with similar interests band together to advocate for results at the Capitol.
2. Do coalitions work these days? Yes.
3. Are coalitions a magic answer to achieving results for clients? No. They are one means to an end.

My view is that smart lobbyists at the Capitol are very willing to start or join coalitions because of their value, which I express in these ways:

• Coalitions help to verify that you are not alone in what you are advocating in Salem.
• Coalitions help to avoid what I call “the special interest contention” – statements by those who oppose you that you are just a special interest and, therefore, not worthy of consideration.
• Coalitions help to make arguments you advance better because those arguments have to pass muster in a group – a group whose members, I like to say, sing from the same sheet of music, but in different voices.
• And, of course, coalitions help to spread the work of lobbying around to a group, a fact which helps to indicate that advocacy is not just being done on the part of one lobbyist for one client.

Some lobbyists in Salem are good at working together in pursuit of a joint goal. But there are those who are not good at it, as well. I remember a situation where some of us who were advocating for targeted state funding for quality arts programs in the state – me for Oregon Public Broadcasting – got together to work together.

In several cases, we met at the Governor’s Residence in Salem because the First Lady was in favor of arts funding, especially for a program called “Main Street Oregon.” She clearly was on board with all other arts interests and believed that working together would increase chances for success.

At one meeting, when we went around the room to express solidarity with the group goal, one of the lobbyists said she could not join in an expression of support because, in the end, she might have to go her own way on behalf of her clients. In other words, a single interest was more important than the group interest.

With her comment, we had to kick her out of the meeting, plus the coalition, because she couldn’t support the group effort.

Let me put this more positively by citing a couple examples where, with colleagues in my firm, I created coalitions and used the collective advocacy to achieve solid results.

Case #1: When I represented Providence Health System and was advocating for sustained, if not increased, state government investments in Medicaid (the program that serves thousands of low-income Oregonians), I worked with my client to create what could be called an “internal coalition.”

It consisted of nurses and doctors within Providence who shared the goal of sustained or increased investments in Medicaid. With permission from these individuals, we produced one-page summaries, including their names, their photos, and their positions within Providence, along with their words advocating for Medicaid.

We then distributed these one-pagers at the Capitol, especially to legislators serving on the Joint Ways and Means Committee who would make the final decisions on funding.

Some might call this “grassroots lobbying” – getting real people from real places in Oregon to make their real advocacy known at the Capitol.

But, this also was a coalition and the result was that we sustained funding for Medicaid, even though there were many competitors for the state dollars.

Of course, beyond this internal resource, I and others chose to work within a broader coalition of all those interested in health care for low-income citizens, including the Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems, the Oregon Medical Association, the Oregon Nurses Association, the Oregon Health Care Association (nursing homes) and various others who supported quality health care investments.

Case #2: When I was advocating for state funds to help defray Oregon’s share of the costs to deepen the Columbia River channel from Astoria inland to Portland, I joined with colleagues in my firm to develop another coalition that consisted of two parts.

The first was various business groups that shared the goal of a deeper channel, which would mean bigger ships could ply their way to inland ports and, thus, increase economic activity in region. This part of the coalition included various union groups, as well as businesses.

The second part of our coalition was to create a list of businesses in every county in the state that had relied, in the past, on a viable Port of Portland to ship goods out and receive goods in. They wanted to be able to rely on the Port again, so were very willing to coalesce around the major investment.

This illustrated that a deeper channel was not just a goal for the Port of Portland. It was a goal for a far deeper coalition – pardon my play on words — throughout the state of Oregon.

The result was that we obtained the money to deepen the channel. Along with funds from the State of Washington and the federal government, the channel is deeper today and producing the predicted economic benefits for the regional economy.

So, given these examples and others I could cite, do coalitions work and are they a good idea? I say yes, unequivocally and clearly.

Creating them, participating in them and using them to achieve results should be in the tool-kit of any good lobbyist.