This appeared in the Philadelphia Daily News and is reproduced with permission of the writer.

Disclosure: I worked with Brady Russell on the Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition.

John

Power to the little-guy lobbyists!

By BRADY RUSSELL

WHAT DO YOU think of when you think about lobbyists?: Well-dressed, remarkably connected power players? The only ones who know the secret passages in the Capitol? Legislators come and go, but the lobbyist cabal remains, right?

Some lobbyists do have extraordinary power, but a lot of us who work as lobbyists or sometimes-lobbyists, don't. It's more like an everyday salesman, only we pitch people who can't buy even if they want to: Most of the ones who support you can't help. (And most of those who don't can't do anything either.)

It seems like only four legislators matter: the Senate and House majority leaders, the Senate president pro tem and the House speaker. The lobbyists are the ones who get their calls returned by these four guys.

We little guys can go after an issue (like the recent minimum-wage campaign) and get stuck in a state of we-could-win-except-we-can't. We knew most legislators supported raising the minimum wage, but our fight was not for the vote itself, which is an exercise in democracy, but for scheduling the vote, which isn't.

The Senate members of the Big 4 leadership opposed a hike, but they wouldn't have scheduled it even if it would have failed. It's a popular issue, so they knew a vote against it wouldn't fly back home. Better to silence it.

We went lobbying anyway - leaders and non-leaders. We usually knew where a legislator stood before we walked in the door. So, why lobby them if you knew what they were going to say? And why, if nothing could happen without all four of the Big 4 anyway?

We had to bring the issue home for the leaders, and all four faced re-election. So our Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition went to crazy lengths to stir up public ire in rural Pennsylvania.

Luckily, the minimum wage is a simple and widely supported issue, so we were able to generate local support when we showed up in Lebanon and Altoona.

The coalition never seriously worried about losing a floor vote. We worried about getting one. Think about the implications for representative democracy: A majority supported raising the minimum wage, and it still didn't move. How democratic is that?

And when the four leaders live in seats so gerrymandered it would take a bizarre political year (like this one) to ever unseat them, what sort of pressure can the public bring to bear to ever move them?

It all felt so futile at times. And it shouldn't feel futile to talk to an elected leader. That's why I support at least one of the reforms proposed by the bipartisan House coalition, led by Rep. Tangretti.

Their solution to this kind of impasse? Every legislator should have the power to pick one piece of legislation that will at least get a hearing and a vote in committee. This would force at least some public debate and some sort of voting record for majority-party members on minority priorities. When legislators go on record on issues they'd rather avoid, the public gets new opportunities to hold them accountable.

This all lends a little chance to move a few bills each year past leadership's arbitrary power. The public can ask politicians to make our priority his priority. Which bill he chooses to push each year would be a means for us to assess our legislators.

If you think our legislature is out of control, the answer might be less in changing its powers and more in spreading some of that power around.

But lightning struck this year. Half the Big 4 didn't make it past the primary. But whoever replaces Bob Jubelirer and Chip Brightbill will still enjoy all the arbitrary powers they enjoyed.

So let's give Joe Blow, Joe Blow's lobbyist and Rep. J. Blow a little more to work with. Give every legislator a chip they can use each year to set the agenda.

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Brady Russell lives in Philadelphia. He was active in the Raise the Minimum Wage Coalition in 2005 and 2006.