How the Chamber's Computers Con the Congress
Buchsbaum, Mark Green and Andrew
How the Chambers Computers Con the Congress by Mark Green and Andrew Buchsbaum In 1975, a genuine grassroots groundswell began in Asheville, North Carolina. The people of Asheville were mad as...
...Not all congressmeri may be as credulous as Taylor, but the technique continues, nevertheless...
...The majority hail from small but worthy businesses like Exxon, General Motors, General Electric, Sears, OwensCorning, Caterpillar, and Dresser Industries, to name a few whose officers dominate the Chamber's board...
...The KRP said...
...One such bill would require auto buyers to purchase their parts from the same company that made their cars...
...The computer contains elaborate detail on the Chamber's corporate members-their revenues, numbers of workers, plant locations, and key officials...
...Around each point was drawn a circle 120 miles in diameter...
...As a Chamber official recalled in an interview, several Years ago, the national Chamber wanted to explain a tax proposal to then tax-czar Wilbur Mills, who often refused to see or listen to lobbyists...
...The influence of big businessmen in the Chamber explains its enthusiasm for such issues as foreign investment credits, something that would seem to be oflittle interest to a small brewery in Menomonee Falls...
...We really put a lot more stock in what people can do at home to influence meIllbers of Congress than in what we can do by talking to congressmen," said Hilton Davis, head of the...
...The computer then dashes off a single page "Action Call" to the managers, warning the industry of its peril...
...It's housed in a squat, marble building across Lafayette Park from the White House, a location not chosen for its convenience to bus lines...
...A federation of corporations, trade associations, and local Chambers of Commerce, the U.S...
...It's not the Chamber that's proposing that cheap auto parts be regulated out of existence-it's 15,000 concerned citizens in Asheville, North Carolina...
...Luckily, large businessmen have more time on their hands to catch flights to Washington...
...When it is lobbying directly, the Chamber tries to make its points in dramatic ways, often with less concern for accuracy...
...KRP stands for Key Resource -Personnel...
...The Chamber employs 45 registered lobbyists- more than all Washington's consumer and environmental groups (its most frequent opponents) combined...
...The circles were colored red...
...The l20-mile diameter was not part of the law...
...to explain their tax proposal...
...Many AFL-CIO local presidents, for example, are Chamber members...
...KRP in Cincinnati Another personal touch the Chamber emphasizes is its network of "KRPs" in town~ around the country...
...A 1979 poll of members of the National Federation of Independent Businessmen, a small-business group, showed its members favored the Kennedy bill two to one...
...The spontaneous appeal that the Cha~ber produced may seem artificial, but it rang true to Taylor, who cast a crucial vote killing the bill in committee...
...The KRP's access may be derived from personal friendship, large campaign contributions or family relations...
...Since 1946, the Chamber's "field force" (now 33 officials in six regional offices) has traveled to local Chambers, encouraging them to form Congressional Action Committees (similar to a business' Political Action Committees or PACs) to bring members up-to-date on Washington issues...
...This local presence is doubly important because, in many areas, the Chamber is viewed as a non-political service organization, planning picnics and promoting tourism...
...The Chamber works best, however, when Washington sees it least-when it sends information to its members so they can in turn contact their congressmen...
...the largest amount of tax shelters in this country is in the lower income brackets...
...In fact, the Chamber was one of the first Washington groups to cultivate a local presence...
...The Chamber usually won't estimate how many letters it has inspired, but congressional staffers, who read the things and get to recognize familiar lines, say it's considerable...
...Chamber's goals are willing to join its local chapters...
...The managers then ask their employees to write their congressmen before it's too late...
...Chamber has 94,000 members, a staff of 1,200, and an annual budget of $30 million...
...Letter writing is certainly the most sophisticated-but hardly the sole-activity of an organization that is at once the country's most public and least understood lobbyist...
...But of course, we forget...
...At the dinner, the Chamber representatives found plenty of time...
...This strategy has existed since the organization was founded as a federation of local Chambers staffed solely by local businessmen...
...So the Chamber had used its $1.3-million computer to grind out letters to all its members in districts of swing congressmen-those who were known to be on the fence, willing to vote either way, like Taylor...
...How the Chambers Computers Con the Congress by Mark Green and Andrew Buchsbaum In 1975, a genuine grassroots groundswell began in Asheville, North Carolina...
...The Chamber's computer system arranges these spontaneous outpourings whenever the legislative staff identifies uncommitted congressmen who can be swayed on important bills-usually those congressmen whose districts are unlikely to be affected by a bill, and thus are open to suggestions about it...
...A KRP is an individual member of the National Chamber- through his company or local chamber-who has direct "access" to a representative or senator...
...The Chamber lumped them all together, however, and marked everyone of them on a map of the country...
...But to help simplify the complex act so even congressmen could understand it, the Chamber had used a few shortcuts-such as making up the 120-mile diameter...
...Chamber of Commerce, one of Washington's best known lobbying institutions...
...he had heard from the Chamber that the congressman had been wavering on the issue and advised him to vote against the bill...
...The letters urged Chamber members to write and protest, warning them that the NLUP was the first step to a national zoning ordinance...
...When some threatening legislation, say the Fake-Fur Industry Nationalization Act of 1980, is proposed, Chamber officials can punch orders into the computer to call out the names of every manager in every fake-fur plant with more than five employees...
...No Softball Based on its local presence, the Chamber likes to encourage the popular misconception that it is the representative of small business-that its interests are the interests of tiny companies that have been in the same town since the 1880s, who plow all their profits 6ack into jerseys for the town softball leagues they sponsor...
...To make sure he attended, his brother and all his friends in the area were invited, as well as the president of the local Chamber...
...But reality clashes with this romantic vision...
...Its programs are supposed to be a primer in free-market capitalism-at various times the Chamber has opposed antitrust enforcement, federal mass transit subsidies, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the minimum wage, public housing, increased capital gains taxes...
...Its selfimage is uncomplicated: "Our main mission in life," says Chamber president Richard Lesher, "is to influence the United States Congress...
...Chamber.'s legislative action department...
...Later, when asked whether he had been influenced by the Chamber, Taylor professed surprise, insisting, "I never even heard from the Chamber of Commerce...
...Chamber lobbyists distributed the map to congressmen, and it scared them too...
...William Eastham, a former chairman of the Chamber's board, explains the simple reason for this apparent contradiction: "Small businessmen are so busy, they don't take the time out to speak on their own behalf...
...It also explains the Chamber's opposition to Edward Kennedy's bill which would make it easier for small firms to band together and go to court (where they would, in all probability, sue big firms...
...Later that night, the congressman called the businessman's home, and then his club, to give him the results of the vote and to assure him that his advice had been heeded...
...Maher demanded that the Chamber circulate a retraction, and it refused...
...It was outrageous," said Robert Maher, then a counsel for the House subcommittee on health and environment, which favored the bill...
...In opposing part of the 1975 Clean Air Act, for instance, the Chamber wanted to draw a simple map of the areas of the country that would be barred to industry...
...It's also, of course, a flagrant contradiction of freemarket capitalist principles-Adam Smith would send the invisible hand over to throttle anyone who proposed such a measure...
...On another occasion, during the debate on the Con~unier Protection Agency, the . Chamber contacted a businessman in the • South, a KRP who had access to· a particular "swing" congressman...
...I responded to the 15,000 letters I got from my district...
...The bill in question prohibited industrial facilities in national parks, but not in state parks or other public property under local control...
...Last year, the Chamber managed to inspire 250,000 letters opposing a Federal Trade Commission reauthorization bill that wasn't stiff enough for the Chamber's liking, according to Jeffrey Joseph, a Chamber lobbyist...
...Although it's true that 80 percent of the Chamber's member companies employ fewer than 100 people, only four of the Chamber's 65 directors come from such companies...
...To contact Mills, the Chamber had the locill Chamber in Fayetteville, Illinois, organize a dinner in Mills' honor...
...Like good citizens they wrote their congressmen...
...The Chamber engages in all the usual practices of lobbyists-lunches with congressmen, visits with their staff, drafting of possible amendments and legislation, and testimony before friendly committees...
...The obscure Land Use Act had upset the Chamber-but just calling up congressmen to oppose its passage lacked the personal touch...
...This uprising was staged by the U.S...
...It is not completely closed-minded, however: it favors maritime and foreign-investment subsidies to corporations, refused to take a stand on deregulating the airline industry, and has spoken out forcefully about the unfair burdens tax policies place on a muchabused minority-Lesher saying in Politics Today that "the biggest abuse is that the upper 50 percent is paying 92 percent of the taxes...
...The people of Asheville were mad as hellmad about the grant-in-aid provisions in Title 3 of the proposed National Land Use Planning Act...
...Ray Taylor received a record 15,000 letters from his district complaining about the menacing law...
...The Chamber field staff carefully nurtures each KRP, reserving them only for important issues...
...The Chamber's heavyweight clients also explain its support for some measures that would use government regulation to do in smaller firms...
...Given enough time," says Chamber lobbyist Fred Byset, "you can probably generate enough grassroots support or opposition to affect the outcome of a bill on any issue...
...This would benefit the Detroit automakers, obviously, but legislate out of business the entire automotive "aftermarket" of small, local firms that make replacement parts~and usually sell them for less than Detroit demands...
...Because of this public-spirited image, even local leaders who would be opposed to the U.S...
...It was a scary map, even if you hated industry-nearly everything was red, leaving no place in the country to pitch a tent, let alone build a factory...
...The Chamber guards the identity of its KRPs better than the CIA masks its agents, but, as with spooks, it's never very hard to guess who they are...
Vol. 12 • May 1980 • No. 3
