Grass-Roots Muscle : Big Business Taps Its Own for Lobbyists

Dick Lee, a financial analyst in Los Angeles, recently took a day off from work and jetted up to the capital for a whirlwind tour through the rarefied environment of state government.

Citizen Lee listened to Assembly Speaker Willie Brown address a luncheon crowd and walked onto the floor of the ornate, imposing state Assembly and Senate chambers.

But the highlight of the trip came when the 47-year-old Playa del Rey resident finally met his Assemblywoman, Gwen Moore (D-Los Angeles). The two sat in Moore’s office and chatted for 45 minutes about traffic, the pace of building construction, the proposed Century Freeway, public schools.

“It was just me,” Lee reflected later on the rare private audience. “And to tell you the truth, that was the first time I ever got to meet a representative of mine.”

And if it is up to Lee’s employer, the Atlantic Richfield Co., it won’t be the last, either.

That’s because Arco--which paid $152 a pop to fly Lee and 95 other employees into Sacramento for the day Feb. 29--is one of a number of corporate giants that are hoping to strengthen their political muscle by using their employees as a sort of soft-sell army of “grass-roots” lobbyists.

Urged to Befriend Officials

Instead of only hiring high-powered professionals who work the traditional good-old-boy network, companies such as Exxon, Nationwide Insurance, Hallmark Cards and Pfizer Inc. are encouraging thousands of their employees to eat with, listen to, campaign for, write and generally befriend their elected officials.

The result, say experts, is that some segments of corporate America have converted their payrolls into a potential army of political activists that, at any given time, can unleash a flurry of letters and phone calls on legislators in Washington and state capitals such as Sacramento.

They’ll Think Twice

And when that happens, elected officials take notice. At the least, a politically active work force can make a legislator think twice about voting against a company’s wishes on a bill.

“It gets down to where we focus somewhere beyond the corporate logo,” said Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-Long Beach), who has spoken to employees at Arco’s Carson refinery, located in his district. “We focus on individuals who are our constituents and, while they tend not to be so vocal, they do vote.”

Yet some people, such as public interest czar Ralph Nader, say grass-roots organizing by large corporations is unfair and distorts the political process, making letter writing and legislative contacts appear to be a “spontaneous expression.”

“They’ve got the worker’s back up against the wall,” said Nader. “Then, they tell them, ‘If you want to get out of a tight spot, get your congressman to vote for this subsidy or tariff or whatever. . . .’ They’ve got these people under duress.”

But the technique has paid such handsome dividends that even labor unions, traditionally far ahead of companies in getting behind political candidates, have begun to train their members on how to be part-time lobbyists.

“It is a rising force in American politics, at the federal level and you’ll see even more on the state level,” said Mike Gildea, who organizes grass-roots campaigns for the AFL-CIO. Gildea said the union called on the 5,000 members trained in legislative contacts to lobby against the confirmation of conservative Robert Bork to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ray Hoewing, president of the Public Affairs Council in Washington, said corporate America decided to cultivate its workers as a grass-roots lobbying force during a series of serious political challenges during the 1970s.

Companies learned the hard way, he said, how effective groups like the environmentalist could be in bringing grass-roots lobbying power to bear on Washington.

A new political order had begun to emerge in Washington, said Gerald Keim, a Texas A&M; business professor who instructs companies on how to establish political action programs for employees.

Old Ways Passe

Gone were the days when power was concentrated in the hands of a few congressional committee chairmen, easy targets for the phalanx of well-heeled lobbyists that swarm the nation’s Capitol, said Keim.

Congressional reforms in the 1970s decentralized the power, and Keim said that special-interest groups such as the National Rifle Assn., the National Wildlife Federation, and the National Education Assn. soon found a way to capitalize on the change.

Groups like these could mobilize constituents to lobby their congressmen on arcane provisions of legislation before a bill even had the chance to emerge from the bowels of the congressional committee system, said Keim.

But what’s more, interest groups also represent precious political currency to office holders: access to voters.

“The groups can provide money, they can provide campaign workers, to man phone banks and get-out-the-vote drives. . . ,” said Keim. “The game had really changed to where competing on the basis of delivering voters is what you have to do to be influential.”

In terms of voters, big business itself forms a powerful constituency, said Keim. Counting employees, shareholders and their spouses, there are between 50 million and 60 million voters associated with the country’s 1,300 largest corporations--just shy of the number of people who voted in the 1984 presidential election.

Yet corporations have been slow to exploit this potential, said Keim. Estimates are that 150 companies, usually those facing serious government regulation, sponsor civic affairs programs, some as simple as publishing an employee newsletter about pending legislation or political events.

Even at that, Hoewing of the Public Affairs Council said there are indications that an increasing number of corporate chiefs are eager--in some cases, compelled--to explore the political potential of their employees as grass-roots lobbyists.

Perhaps the most dramatic example of this is what happened last year with the pharmaceutical manufacturers. Fearful that impending federal legislation would lead to government price controls on prescription drugs, the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Assn. paid a consultant $3 million to whip up an instant grass-roots effort that included doctors’ groups, church organizations, nursing groups and senior citizens.

Meetings With U.S. Senators

In short order, the consultant contacted those groups and community leaders in key parts of the country and set up more than 60 meetings with U.S. senators contemplating the legislation last fall, said Richard Stone, director of communications for the PMA.

The expensive political effort paid dividends. Senators wrote a more sympathetic version of the bill and expressly prohibited the government controls.

Yet most grass-roots efforts are relatively cheap and are restricted to working within a company’s payroll. In some cases, it is simply a matter of resurrecting a political action program that has become dormant during the boom years of the early 1980s.

At International Paper, a 1970s’ program at one time required plant managers to make political contacts as part of their routine duties. They were expected to visit locally elected officials at least five times a year, as well as arrange at least two plant tours for the lawmakers.

After that system withered in the early 1980s, the corporate brass has decided to reactivate it slowly so employees could once again begin to influence lawmakers and elected officials, said William Greener, a former deputy for the Republican National Committee who is now International Paper’s director of corporate communications and state affairs.

In Boston, the Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. is stimulating the political awareness of its 26,000 employees and retirees by sending out quarterly newsletters about current events. The January newsletter explained why the company stopped writing workers’ compensation insurance in Maine, a move that was highly controversial.

Liberty also sponsored a presidential candidate’s forum in February, where the campaigns of Democratic and Republican hopefuls were invited to set up information booths in the company’s Boston lunchroom.

“Down the road, I would like to implement occasional speaker forums,” said John Murphy, who directs Liberty’s civic action program. “There are some companies that have successful brown bag forums where they will have political speakers come in.”

Hallmark, based in Kansas City, Mo., is one. The greeting card company has sponsored 40 lunches during the last non-election year for employees and their state legislators from Missouri and Kansas. The company goal is to make sure the lawmaker meets the “Hallmarkers” who are constituents in his district.

Employees and agents for Nationwide Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, are strongly encouraged to become self-starting political activists through a program that has even sponsored rallies featuring presidential hopefuls.

Inspired by such company films as “Grass-Roots” and “I Can Make a Difference,” Nationwide employees are taught through company materials how to write to their government representatives (use personal stationery, put your return address on the letter, pick one issue per letter).

Benefit to Nationwide?

“So what does Nationwide get out of it?” said June G. Ebner, coordinator of Nationwide’s civic action program. “We get people who will go to bat for us.”

And it was just last month that Nationwide asked its 22,000 employees and agents to step up to the plate when it sent out a one-page memo urging them to write Congress to oppose proposed legislation mandating up to nine-months leave for births, adoptions or tending to family members with severe illnesses.

“The views of constituents are the only way we can influence how legislators vote,” the Nationwide memo said, calling the proposal an example of unnecessary government meddling in company affairs. “Encourage your family, friends, co-workers, and neighbors to contact their lawmakers as well.”

Companies can expect that up to 40% of their employees will respond to such an appeal, research indicates.

The grass-roots program that is considered the most sophisticated is Arco’s, according to those who follow corporate politicking. Arco’s “civic action program” has been around since the early 1970s, when the oil crisis bloodied morale in the industry.

Michael Dunn, Arco’s manager of political affairs, said the program began as a way to instruct employees on how to answer the Los Angeles-based company’s critics.

Grows Over the Years

Over time, the program has become a $500,000-a-year operation that includes 30 employee and 18 retiree chapters in 14 states. In California alone, there are nine chapters with 1,500 employees active in the program.

Arco employees are encouraged to form chapters at each of the company’s facilities. The chapters meet once a month during the lunch hours, and they invite speakers to talk about current events.

Last year, Arco employees throughout the country held 200 luncheon forums, during which they ate box lunches while listening to different speakers.

In California, those luncheon speakers included Secretary of State March Fong Eu, as well as those discussing traffic congestion, air traffic safety, health in the workplace, the national debt, the new federal tax forms, and--a pet concern of the company--congressional debates over opening up portions of the Alaskan wilderness for oil exploration, said Yvonne Nix, director of the program.

On March 21, about 270 Arco employees even filled a ballroom at the Los Angeles Hilton during lunch to hear presidential candidate Pat Robertson.

While discussion ranges to controversial topics, Nix said Arco’s program tries to make sure that employees are exposed to different viewpoints, even when the speakers may disagree with the company’s official views. For that reason, Nix said, the program is not considered a lobbying activity per se but one of employee education.

No Secret of Purpose

But Arco makes no secret that it hopes its employees will befriend their state legislators or become involved in the partisan races of their choice. During the Feb. 29 trip to Sacramento, the first in four years for Arco employees, Arco employees met with 19 Assembly members and 11 state senators.

That kind of face-to-face contact, said Dunn, only helps to bolster Arco’s credibility.

“When Arco comes to you on a matter that affects it directly, you might remember that there is this knowledgeable, active, savvy constituency out there,” said Dunn. “They (legislators) are more likely to listen and to think seriously about the arguments of a group like that.

“It also takes some of the pressure off the legislator (a company like Arco) is trying to influence because the legislator is seen as responding to grass-roots efforts, as opposed to campaign contributions or lobbyists,” said Dunn.

Walter A. Zelman, executive director of California Common Cause, said he sees no problem with Arco’s approach, as long as no employees are coerced into political action.

“While I know many people would expect a reformer like myself to react negatively, to say that this is one more way (for companies) to use their undue power, I think it’s a much healthier form of political expression than most of the forms of political expression we’re getting today,” Zelman said.

Has Natural Curiosity

For Dick Lee, Arco’s program is just a way for him to follow a natural curiosity about politics. Since he joined the civic action program eight years ago, Lee said he has made connections with local Republicans, helped work on the unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign of Ed Zschau, and is gearing up to help elect a friend to a state Assembly seat from Northridge.

And then there was the recent visit to Sacramento, when he met Moore. Since then, Lee said he has called the assemblywoman’s office to request materials for a class he’s teaching to juvenile delinquents held in the youth authority.

“I feel very free that if anything else happens in my neighborhood, I can pick up the phone and call her,” said Lee. “I know they will pass on the word to her.”