Lobbying Tactic Brings Senators Out of Their Shells

Most lobbyists have trouble getting attention when they travel the halls of Congress, but not Elden Hughes.

The Whittier environmental activist, his wife, Patty, and their five young desert tortoises were warmly welcomed this week as they lobbied legislators to protect the threatened reptiles by supporting the California Desert Protection Act.

In office after office, secretaries, legislative aides and even other lobbyists fawned over the Hugheses’ “tiny little children” and pledged to work to support the bill.

“Some people come to lobby. We’re an event,” the 61-year-old retired computer designer said as he watched his wife and the tortoises mesmerize seven staff members of Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), who chairs the subcommittee overseeing the measure. “We can always get our story told, and the tortoises leave a memory of our visit.”

Everyone, it seems, wants to hold a 7-month-old desert toroise.

“What great lobbying! How can you not fall in love?” exclaimed Trisha Primrose, press secretary for Sen. Richard Shelby (D-Alabama).

The Hugheses are in Washington this week to garner support for California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s bill that would preserve 7 million acres of the state’s desert by creating 74 wilderness areas and upgrading three national scenic areas and monuments to national parks.

Elden Hughes, who chairs the Sierra Club’s California Desert Committee, testified Wednesday at a hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources subcommittee on public lands, national parks and forests.

The act would protect the areas inhabited by the desert tortoise, a threatened species. The Hugheses, who have a permit to raise the reptiles, said biologists estimate that more desert tortoises are alive in captivity than in the wild.

As he did in November, 1991, when the House passed a similar bill, Elden Hughes focused most of his time in Washington on lobbying outside the formal subcommittee hearing.

Realizing that few non-California legislators have a particular feeling one way or the other about a measure concerning California’s desert, he decided that tangible examples of what the bill would protect could be particularly persuasive.

Now, three years after they first brought tortoises to the Capitol, the Hugheses have perfected their lobbying technique.

Patty enters first, carrying her lovable young tortoises in a clear plastic box. Setting them down in the middle of the front-office desk, she removes the lid and offers to let the receptionist hold one.

By the time Elden asks to speak with the legislative aide in charge of the environment, people have already started flocking into the lobby to see the unique attraction.

Veteran staff members in many offices remembered the Hugheses from their last visit. “My daughter still has the pictures you handed out last year,” said Tonya Saunders, an aide to Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.).

Just like any other proud mother, Patty distributes photos of her 34 “children” to anybody who wants one. Rumor has it that one is hanging in the Capitol mail room.

Not that Patty limits herself to photos. She never tires of telling stories, referring to the individual tortoises by name. The five she brought on this trip were named for her favorite opera tenors, including Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Fritz Wunderlich.

In one breath she is describing what the tortoises eat, and in the next she reveals that she and Elden have named a conservator for the tortoises in their will.

Elden, meanwhile, vigorously pursues his lobbying, latching onto whatever top-ranking staff member is available and making a pitch for the aide’s senator to support the act.

In Sen. J. Bennett Johnston’s (D-La.) office, the environmental specialist came out to spend a few minutes with Hughes. A legislative aide for Sen. Bob Krueger (D-Tex.) even pulled Hughes into a conference room for a couple of minutes of one-on-one lobbying.

In one morning, the Hugheses and their tortoises entertained--and lobbied--the offices of eight senators, receiving warm receptions wherever they went. That doesn’t even include all of the people who stopped in the halls to see the tortoises and received a little impromptu lobbying.

The Hugheses have learned that every effort counts. Before the House vote in 1991, they stopped in the hallway to talk to one man who turned out to be a congressman from New York. The legislator decided on the spot to vote for the act.

“It works,” Hughes concluded at the end of the day. “And you don’t tamper with success.”