Senators listen to lobbyists over citizens

Posted by Al Lewis on October 23, 2010
Washington

If you’ve ever tried calling your U.S. Senator’s office, chances are you got a polite brush off.

Josh Brodbeck, an organizational development and strategic planning consultant in Denver, was so frustrated by this experience, he began to think of ways he could get a senator’s attention.

Would life be any different, he wondered, if he were a federally registered lobbyist? From this question, the Senate Access Project was born.

Brodbeck cold called all 100 U.S. Senate offices as a citizen to ask for a meeting to discuss a health care bill. Then he registered as a lobbyist and cold called them all again abut the same bill.

Guess which tactic got more meetings? Josh the lobbyist by and a 4-to-one margin.

Click here to read my column on Brodbeck’s experiement. And click here to read Brodbeck’s study.