HUNTING

Harris Rifle

"The U.S. Congress Management" By Mikhail Kryzhnovsky, KGB and CIA

 

 

  The US Congress Management

"To my mind Judas Iscariot was nothing but a low, mean, premature Congressman."
"It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American class except Congress." — Mark Twain
"If everybody here connected with politics had to leave town because of chasing women and drinking, you'd have no government." — Senator Barry Goldwater.
One night President Cleveland was awakened by his wife: "Wake up! There are burglars in the house!" "No, my dear," said Cleveland sleepily, "in the Senate maybe, not in the House."
"Israel controls the US Senate. The Senate is subservient, much too much; we should be more concerned about US interests rather than doing the bidding of Israel. The great majority of the Senate of the US — somewhere around 80% — is completely in support of Israel; anything Israel wants, Israel gets. This has been demonstrated again, and this has made [foreign policy] difficult for our government." — Senator W. Fulbright, April 15, 1973).

  The White House, not Congress, represents the nation.
You are the leader and you set the legislative agenda.
They can't start business until you give them State of the Union Address and a budget message. That's your program - and theirs.
Start your first term with a big legislative victory.
The US Constitution says nothing on how you manage the Congress so feel free to use the advice in these pages.

 
 4.1 How a Bill Becomes a Law

 A Senator or Representative introduces a bill in Congress by sending it to the clerk of the House or the Senate, who assigns it a number and title. This procedure is termed the first reading. The clerk then returns the bill to appropriate committee of the Senate or the House. If the Committee opposes the bill, it will table or "kill" it. Otherwise, the Committee holds hearings to listen to opinions and facts offered by members and other interested people. The Committee then debates the bill and possibly offers amendments. A vote is taken, and if favorable, the bill is sent back to the clerk of the House or Senate. The clerk reads the bill to the house — the second reading. Members may then debate the bill and suggest amendments.
 After debate and possibly amendment, the bill is given a third reading, simply of the title and put to a voice or roll-call vote. If passed, the bill goes to the other house, where it may be defeated or passed, with or without amendments, If defeated, the bill "dies." If passed with amendments, a conference committee made up of members of both houses works out the differences and arrives at a compromise. After passage of the final version by both houses, the bill is sent to the President. If the President signs it, the bill becomes a law. The President may, however, veto the bill, refuse to sign it and send it back to the house where it originated. The President's objections are then read and debated, and a roll-call vote is taken. If the bill receives less than a two-thirds majority, it is defeated. If it receives at least two-thirds, it is sent to the other house. If that house also passes it by at least a two-thirds majority, the veto is overridden, and the bill becomes a law.
  If the President neither signs nor vetoes the bill within 10 days — not including Sundays — it automatically becomes a law even without the President's signature. However, if Congress has adjourned within those 10 days, the bill is automatically "killed"; this indirect rejection is termed a pocket veto.

4.2  Functions of Congress

  If you want to rule America, you have to rule the US Senate. Remember, you are one person concentrated on your program. Congress is a big and disorganized, chaotic institution — not a single word pronounced by these people ever makes history. Respect Congress anyway — it creates the illusion that the American people influence big politics through their representatives.
The functions of Congress are supposed to be:
- lawmaking for all Americans
- serve constituents as brokers between them and federal government
- representation of diverse interests — which is often impossible, because members can't be delegates for everyone
- oversight of the bureaucracy to follow up the laws it has enacted to ensure that they are being enforced and administered in the way Congress intended
- by holding committee hearings and investigations, changing the size of an agency budget and cross-examining high-level presidential nominees to head major agencies (a formality, nothing serious)
- the public education function
- resolving conflicts in American society (see "Interest groups" game).

Differences between the House and the Senate:
        House                                                                      Senate
 
435 members                                                        100 members  
Members chosen from local districts                        Members chosen from entire state
Two-year term                                                        Six-year term
Originally elected by voters                                     Originally (until 1913) elected by state legislatures                            
May impeach (indict) federal officials                        May convict federal officials
Debate limited                                                        Debate extended
Floor action controlled                                             Unanimous consent rulers
Less prestige and less individual notice                     More prestige and media attention
Originates bills for raising revenues                           Power to advise the President on, and consent to, presidential appointments and treaties
Local or narrow leadership                                        National leadership
 National leadership
 
The major difference between the House and the Senate is that the House's rules and procedures are strict, while Senate rules are more broad and open to interpretation.
There's one thing they have in common — inertia.
Note: Members of the Senate serve for six years, with only one-third of the body up for reelection every second year. Thus, every other Senate term is not affected directly by a Presidential election and this gives Senators greater freedom to oppose presidential initiatives without as much concern about short-term constituent pressures. The Senators' independence can be a problem for the president even if they are of the same party.

The Congress has five main checks over the President's power:
1. to override a veto
2. to approve your appointees to federal jobs
3. to approve treaties
4. impeachment
5. to stop funding executive department programs

Seniority (the length of continuous service on the record of a member of Congress or Senate) is the single most important factor in determining:
- who becomes Speaker of the House or President pro tempore of the Senate
- who is influential in floor debates
- who has an easier time getting his legislative measures adopted on the floor of Congress

Never mind about Representatives (especially when it comes to foreign affairs and national security) — they understand very little and can do practically nothing due to their two-year term. Your problem is the Senate (though you have to be involved in Congressional elections every two years, too.) Yes, the Senate is a problem because it shares executive powers with the President (confirmation of appointments and approval of treaty ratification). And if it comes to impeachment, the final decision is the Senate's.
The House originates the most important thing in the United States — tax legislation, but the Senate can amend any bill and the trick is — they do this toward the end of the session. And the worst problem on Capitol Hill is balancing the budget.
  Committees of the Senate:  Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry, Appropriations, Armed Services, Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, Budget, Commerce, Science, and transportation, Energy and Natural Resources, Environment and Public Works, Finance, Foreign Relations, Government Affairs, Health, Education,Labor, and Pensions, Judiciary, Rules and Administration, Small Business, Veterans Affairs.
  Committees of the House: Agriculture, Appropriations, Armed Services, Budget, Education and the Workforce, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, Government Reform, House Administration, International Relations, Judiciary, Resources, Rules, Science, Small Business, Standarts of Official Conduct, Transportation and Infrastructure, Veterans Affairs, Ways and Means.

  4.3 What you don't know about them
 
1. A Congressional session is nothing else but a waste of federal time and money — you don't need debates because Congressional staffers can do all the technical work and they can negotiate between themselves and balance positions. Senators and Congressmen don't even have to come to Washington — they can vote from their local offices. So these people can spend their time helping thousands of constituents, most of whom never saw their Senator alive.
2. The President is dependent on Congressional cooperation to carry out the executive responsibilities of the Office because Congress has to authorize government programs, establish administrative agencies to implement the problems and funds to finance them.
3. It's important if President belongs to the party with a majority in the House and Senate. But if your party loses the majority in Congress, you have to work out new political strategy yourself. And you know what? Go to the polls right away and ask voters why they supported the other party. What happened?
4. President's prestige (popular support or political capital) affects Congressional response to his politics.
5. Influence in Congress is courted only for long periods of service; a Senator with 30 years in office (like Edward Kennedy) has considerably more power than a Senator in his first or second term.This causes the electorate to increasingly favor incumbents, as dislodging one's Congressman or Senator after 30 years, even if the candidate or his party have become unpopular, can be viewd as hurting one's district financially. It is often thought that a freshman would be less able to bring home federal money for his state or district.
6. For most Senators, the Senate is a platform for Presidential election campaign. Senators who openly express presidential ambitions are better able to gain media exposure and to establish careers as spokespersons for large national constituencies.
7. The first act of a newly elected Representative is to maneuver for election to the Senate. Why? First, they enjoy their position, power and money for six years non-stop. Second, there are only a hundred Senators and the publicity is much, much greater. But…Representatives have a much better chance to be re-elected.
8. Congress rejects two thirds of President's proposals.
9. Senators are always looking for a BBD (bigger, better deal) and often shift from one committee to another (a good choice is those dealing with taxes, budget, energy, commerce).
10. Bills to benefit big business move smoothly. (Congress doesn't like the poor — they don't contribute; sorry). To gain majority support for big business legislation members have a special trick — log rolling, when factions combine efforts.
11. Senators don't depend on the people — they depend on the media.
12. If a certain Senator is blocking the President's proposal, appointment or plan, that means he wants to get the President's attention.
13. When Senators want to bury issues without resolving them, they create committees.
14. The Senate is a relatively small structure and personal relations between Senators are extremely important.
15. Senators have no incentive to study the details of most pieces of legislation and their decision is simplified by quickly checking how key colleagues have voted or intend to vote.
16.To have power a Senator has to object: much of the Senate work is done by unanimous consent and if you object you'll be approached for sure by some influential people including other Senators, Secretaries, President's aides or the President himself. They'll try to press, blackmail or buy you — and that means you've got a piece of the power pie.
17. Senators avoid responsibility and their legitimate functions and roles, especially in economic policy.
18. Congress doesn't like it when any government agency grows, but these people love the military because military contracts are very lucrative for Congressional districts.
19. Senior Senators teach "newcomers" to vote against any reform which is a threat to their stability.
20. A Senator has real influence on legislation only if he has professional staff in charge of the projects.
21. Senators are afraid to vote against a defense budget increase because then they may be accused of a lack of patriotism (the Pentagon gives jobs in their states too).
22. Republicans and Democrats are not really enemies, here, though both sides are always looking for a "traitor" or "insider" in the other camp.
23. You must have "insiders" in the Senate yourself, because the other party could prepare secretly and then launch officially some investigation against you or the members of your Administration.
24. A legislator does exactly what his voters want him to do — stealing federal money from other states and districts, because for him the most important thing is numbers — polls in his state showing how many people approve his activity. His donors watch these numbers too and estimate their investment and the necessity to support re-election.
25. Every member of Congress has a so-called "split personality" — a "Hill style" while working on Capitol Hill and a "home style" while back in the state or district with the voters.
26. A Senator makes a decision only after thinking about what it means in terms of the re-election money that will come to him or to his opponents. His voting decisions depend on his party membership, constituency pressures, state and regional loyalty ideology, interest groups' influence. His stubbornness comes from the fact that he doesn't want to be seen by his constituents as a "rubber stamp" for President's decisions, especially when the bill in question benefits a Senator's state. (And the hidden problem is — you want to move fast, especially during the first year while your personal popularity is high — but for the Congress speed is not important).
27. Sooner or later every member of Congress starts playing the "pork barrel" game. It's nothing else but a diversion of federal funds to projects and places not out of national need but to enhance a member's chances of re-election in his district (military projects, federal buildings, highways construction projects). So be ready for a "Christmas gift" when these fellows add pork barrel amendments to appropriations bills you are about to sign. They often wait until late in each session to pass critical spending bills, which narrows your range of possible responses because a veto may not be feasible if Congress has adjourned and the funds needed to run the federal government are contained in the legislation.
28. In Congress a small percentage of bills (about 500 out of 10,000) actually become law because many bills are introduced merely to get favorable press. The strategy is especially effective if the legislation is "tied" to the headlines of the day (mass murders, natural disasters, ethnic riots etc.).
29. In the Senate it's easier for  a minority to block the bill than for a majority to pass it: a 60-vote majority is needed to force a final vote on the bill, while only 41 votes are needed to continue debate and delay a vote.
30. The  minority can hold the majority responsible as the party in power for whatever legislation does or does not emerge from the Senate. But both parties prefer to be the party in power in the Senate - all Senate legislation begins in the committees, whose membership and chairmanship are controlled by the party in power. Besides, each chairman has power in terms of controlling the committee budgets and deciding which hearings will be held and which legislation he will allow to be released to the Senate floor for a vote. He can also "lock up the bill" in committee until it dies. Perfect!

4. 4 A Few Congressional Run-ins with the Law
 
Upon certification by the Senator's/representative's home state, a new Senator/Рepresentative takes an oath of office:
 "I,(name) do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies,foreign and domestic;that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same;that I take this obligation freely,without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter:So help me God".

1904    Senator Joseph Burton of Kansas is convicted of bribery.
1924    Representative John Langley of Kentucky is convicted of violating the National Prohibition Act.
1931     Representative Harry Rowbottom of Indiana is convicted of accepting bribes.
1934    Representative George Foulkes of Michigan is convicted of conspiracy to assess postmasters for political contributions.
1946    Representative James Curley of Massachusetts is convicted of mail fraud and conspiracy.
1947    Representative Andrew May of Kentucky is convicted of conspiring to defraud the government and accepting bribes.
1948    Representative J. Parnell Thomas of New Jersey is convicted of conspiring to defraud the government, payroll padding and receiving kickbacks from salaries.
1954    Senate censures Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin for having acted "contrary to senatorial ethics" and for bringing the Senate "into dishonesty and disrepute."
1956    Representative Thomas Lane of Massachusetts is convicted of federal income tax evasion.
1969    Representative Hugh Addonizio of New Jersey is convicted of extortion, conspiracy and income tax evasion. In a separate incident, on Chappaquiddick Island in Massachusetts on July 18, a car driven by Senator Ed Kennedy plunges off Dike Bridge into the water. While the Senator manages to extricate himself from the vehicle, his young secretary Mary Jo Kopechne, a passenger, is trapped and dies in the car.
1970     Representative John Dowdy of Texas is convicted of conspiracy, perjury and bribery.
1972     Representative Cornelius Gallagher of New Jersey pleads guilty to tax evasion.
1973     Representative Frank Brasco of New York is convicted of conspiracy to receive bribes. Representative Bertram Podell of New York pleads guilty to conspiracy, bribery and perjury.
1975    Representative Andrew Hinshaw of California is convicted of bribery and embezzlement.
1976     Elizabeth Ray avers that Representative Wayne Hays of Ohio put her on the payroll solely because she was his mistress. The Washington Post reveals a Justice Department investigation into influence buying by Tongsun Park, a South Korean businessman. Representative James Hastings of New York is convicted of mail fraud.
1977     Representative Richard Tonry of Louisiana is convicted of receiving illegal campaign contributions and obstruction of justice.
1978     Representative Charles Diggs of Michigan is convicted of mail fraud and perjury.
1980    Representative Michael Myers of Pennsylvania is convicted of bribery and conspiracy as part of the FBI's ABSCAM investigation. Senator Harrison Williams of New Jersey is convicted of bribery and conspiracy in ABSCAM. Representative Raymond Lederer of Pennsylvania is convicted of conspiracy and bribery in ABSCAM. Representative John Jenrette Jr. of South Carolina is convicted of bribery and conspiracy in ABSCAM Representative Frank Thompson of New Jersey is convicted of bribery in ABSCAM. Representative John Murphy of New York is convicted of bribery in ABSCAM. Representative Richard Kelly of Florida is convicted of bribery in ABSCAM. (ABSCAM was an FBI sting operation in which a mysterious Arab sheik Abdul bribed top US officials and inveigled them into illegal investment schemes.)
1983    Representative George Hansen of Idaho is convicted of filing false financial disclosure statements.
1987     Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, who had disclosed that he was a homosexual, was accused of hiring a former sex partner as a personal assistant.
1988    Representative Mario Biaggi of New York is convicted of obstructing justice, tax evasion, conspiracy, extortion and accepting bribes. Representative Pat Swindall of Georgia is convicted of perjury. 1989 Representative Donald Lukens of Ohio is convicted of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Representative Jim Bates of California accused of sexually harassing women on his staff.
1990    Senator David Durenberg of Minnesota is charged with receiving illegal reimbursements for housing expenses and for backdating his purchase of a share in a condominium. The senate formally denounces him in July 1990 and orders him to make restitution for his financial misconduct. The "Keating Five": As the trial of Arizona financier Charles Keating proceeds, it becomes known that five US Senators (Alan Cranston of California, Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, Donald Riegle of Michigan, John Glenn of Ohio and John McCain of Arizona) used their influence to limit the regulation of Keating's savings bank. (By 1987 McCain received about $112,000 in political contributions.) The Senate Ethics Committee issues a report reprimanding Senator Cranston for accepting more than $850,000 in contributions to voter-registration groups that he sponsored in return for intervening on Keating's behalf with bank regulators. The other four Senators are mildly reprimanded for their conduct.
1991     Representative Nick Mavroules of Massachusetts pleads guilty to bribery and tax evasion.
1993    Representative Larry Smith of Florida is convicted of income tax evasion and campaign-reporting violations. Representative Albert Bustamante of Texas is convicted of racketeering and accepting an illegal gratuity.
1994    Representative Carrol Hubbard of Kentucky pleads guilty to filing a false financial-disclosure statement.
1995    Representative Mel Reynolds of Illinois is convicted of having sex with a minor and obstructing justice.

        4.5 How to Control Congres

  The President can propose legislation, but Congress is not required to pass any of the administration's bills. But you know already that Senators and Representatives need re-election more than anything else. So you can go with indirect influence through appeals to the public; this is a confrontation and direct challenge to Congressional authority. You can also enlist the support of interest groups or direct influence through favors and personal involvement in the legislative process. (Get public support for a proposal before it's discussed with the Congress.)
 And don't hesitate to start a national debate — you have enough media attention for that.
 You also have an independent tool, presidential power in the form of an executive order. You can give favors directly to members of Congress or to influential people in their constituency, or the favor may be of benefit to the constituency itself:
- appointments with the President and other high-ranking officials
- federal grants to recipients in the constituency, government contracts with local companies, the deposit of federal funds in banks, grants to local government and educational institutions
- support of projects (military installations, research and administrative facilities, public works such as buildings, dams and navigational improvements to rivers and harbors, etc.)
- recommendations for the US district court judges, attorneys, marshals, etc.
- campaign assistance (cash contributions from the party's national committee invitations to bill-signing ceremonies, White House parties or to accompany President on trips
- bargaining and arm-twisting (pressure and threats to lose the projects).

        Tools

1. The Congressional Relations Office. Used for:
- intense lobbying to form Congressional coalitions if the opposition controls one or both houses
- intelligence gathering (of policy preferences — centralized headcounts reveal the voting intentions on a particular bill and constituency concerns of individual members)
- representation
- creating "inner coalitions"
- coordination of executive branch legislative activity (monitoring and tracking bills, controlling departments' staff appointments, collaborating with departments' liaison offices)
Attention! Senators and Congressmen have to trust your people, who must keep their mouths shut, otherwise there will be no business. Anyway, watch these people — a Senator can call one of your assistants and if they hear  "no," he will try to reach somebody else until he gets "Yes, the President will see you." Don't let this happen — if it's "no," it has to be everybody's "no." There has to be no difference between personal views of your adviser and your official views.
2. Congressional Relations personnel of various executive Departments are a conduit. Talk to the Secretaries and explain to them that they have to give the Director of Congressional Relations their best people.
3. The White House interest groups liaison staff (office of public liaison)
4. Veto. Threatened with a veto, Senators often seek compromise.
Congress has its ways to undermine your vetoes or threats of vetoes. Because you can't veto parts of a bill, they load up major legislation with amendments on a completely different subject ("riders") that they know the President must accept. (Presidents who vetoed the most bills: Franklin Roosevelt  - 635, Harry Truman - 250, Dwight Eisenhower - 181, Ronald Reagan - 78, Gerald Ford - 66).
5. Executive agreement. It permits the President to enter into open or secret agreements with a foreign government without any advice or consent of the Senate. There are two categories of executive agreements:
а) presidential agreements made solely on the basis of the constitutional authority of the President and under his sole power to faithfully execute the laws (or under his diplomatic or Commander-in-Chief powers). President needs to report secret agreement to the Foreign Relations Committees of the two houses no later than 60 days after such agreement has entered into force. Congress has no authority to disapprove it.
b) congressional-executive agreements, which cover all international agreements entered into under the combined authority of the President and Congress.

Finally, this is what you can do with a bill:
- sign the bill (the bill becomes a law)
- do nothing (the bill becomes a law in ten days)
- veto the bill (the bill does not become a law)
- pocket veto the bill (hold the bill until Congress is no longer in session, and the bill does not become a law)

    4.6  The "Iron Triangle," a Sub-Government Mafia
 
  The "Iron Triangle," an anti-presidential control system, is a strong alliance among three groups — federal agencies, interest groups and Congressional committees and subcommittees, where each member has a mutually beneficial relationship with the other two and all members work together to pursue common goals. (This strong connection between federal agencies and the Congress members is especially dangerous for the President in a political sense — it's too hard to influence them). Agency careerists, interest groups lobbyists and members of Congress and their staffers with close personal mafia-like relationships discuss policy issues (proposed legislation, budget, personal concerns) and then agree on preferred outcomes on the basis of the mafia principle of exchanging favors. Bureaucrats want unlimited funding and legislation granting them maximum authority and discretion. In return, members of Congress want preferential treatment for their constituencies, technical assistance for their staff, and often help in drafting legislation. Interest groups' lobbyists want members of Congress to pass and fund programs that benefit groups and to help group members be appointed to and confirmed for key government jobs. In return, Congress wants financial and political help for their campaigns. Interest groups want a strong say in federal agencies' decisions, including the writing of regulations, ideally through a formal advisory system that would give the interest group either formal or informal veto power over such decisions. In return, federal agencies want the political support of interest groups, including positive congressional testimony and lobbying for additional funds for the agency.

Interest Groups

There are 80,000 lobbyists in Washington, DC . The National Rifle Association has a full-time Washington, DC staff of 300 lobbyists.

 Congress can't live without interest groups, interest groups can't live without Congress. They are glued together and you must know the hidden mechanism of their relations if you want to manage the US Congress properly. An interest group is any organized group whose members share common objectives. These groups actively attempt to influence government policy makers, mostly Senators and Representatives, through direct and indirect strategies, including the marshalling of public opinion, lobbying and electioneering.
  Lobbyists, like professional spies, are always looking for intelligence information on everybody in Washington, DC from personal contacts, government memos, press releases, public information programs, technical bulletins and regulations. For them the most important thing is to obtain information before it's officially released — it allows their customers, i.e. corporations, to develop PR campaigns to offset possible adverse reaction to their goals. Let's have a closer look at their strategies.

I. Direct strategies
1. Lobbying
  The main activity of lobbying is private meetings, in which lobbyists make known to Congressmen the lobbyist's client interests, and possibly offer inducements for cooperating. Lobbyists furnish needed information Congressmen could not hope to obtain on their own. It's to the lobbyist's advantage to provide accurate information so that the policy maker will rely on him in the future.
 Lobbying includes: testifying before congressional committees for or against proposed legislation; testifying before executive rule-making agencies, such as the Federal Trade Commission, for or against proposed rules; assisting legislators or bureaucrats in drafting legislation of prospective regulations (lobbyists often can furnish legal advice on the specific details of legislation); inviting legislators to social occasions such as cocktail parties or boating expeditions; providing political information to legislators (lobbyists often have better information than the party leadership about how other legislators are going to vote). In this case, the political information they furnish may be a key to legislative success).
2. The "Ratings" Game
The over-all behavior of legislators can be influenced through their rating systems. Each year the interest group selects those votes on legislation that it feels are most important to the organization's goals. Legislators are given a score based on the percentage of times that he or she voted with the interest group (from 0 to 100%)
3. Campaign assistance
A strong side of interest groups is that they are able to provide workers for political campaigns, including precinct workers to get out the vote, volunteers to put up posters and pass out literature. In states where membership in certain interest groups is large, candidates look for the groups' endorsement in the campaign.
Endorsements are important because an interest groups usually publicizes its choices in its membership publication and because the candidate can use the endorsement in his campaign literature. Making no endorsement can be perceived as disapproval of the candidate.
II. Indirect Strategies
By working through third parties — which may be constituents, the general public or other groups, the interest groups can try to influence government policy. Indirect techniques mask the interest group's own activities and make the effort appear to be spontaneous. Furthermore, legislators are usually more impressed by contacts from the constituents than from an interest group's lobbyist.
1.Generating public pressure
Interest groups try to produce a "groundswell" of public pressure to influence the government. Such efforts may include advertisements in national magazines and newspapers, mass mailings, television publicity and demonstrations. They may commission polls to find out what the public sentiments are and then publicize the results. The goal of this activity is to convince policy makers that public opinion wholly supports the group's position. Some corporations and interest groups use such a method as climate control — it calls for public relations efforts that are aimed at improving the public image of the industry or group and not necessarily related to any specific political issue. Contributions by corporations and groups in support of public TV and commercials extolling the virtues of corporate research are examples of climate control. By building a reservoir of favorable public opinion, groups believe it less likely that their legislative goals will be met with opposition by the public.
2. Constituents as lobbyists
A very effective method is to use constituents to lobby for the group's goals. In the "shotgun" approach, the interest group tries to mobilize large numbers of constituents to write or phone Congressmen or the President. This method is only effective on Capitol Hill when there is an extraordinary number of responses, because legislators know that the voters did not initiate the communication on their own. A more influential variation of this technique uses only important constituents (mostly local big business).
3. Building alliances
Interest group forms alliance with other group concerned about the same legislation. The advantages of an alliance are that it looks as if larger public interests are at stake, and it hides the specific interests of the individual groups involved. It's also a device for keeping like-minded groups from duplicating one another's lobbying efforts.

One of the strongest iron triangles is a so-called "military-industrial complex" — its members include the Department of Defense, weapons contractors and related firms and congressional armed services committees. Some popular interest groups include: American Bar Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, American Welfare Association, Fund for Constitutional Government, National Association of Community Action Agencies, National Rifle Association, National Organization of Women.

About the Author

Mikhail Kryzhanovsky

=================

.

30 years of international espionage experience

KGB Counterintelligence School

KGB Intelligence Institute

a former KGB intelligence officer

a former KGB "Nabat" anti-terror group sniper

a former SBU (Ukrainian Security Service) illegal intelligence officer

a former CIA/FBI "Filament"

the author of the White House Special Handbook, Algora,2007

the author of the US National Security System, 2011

unemployed

prof7prof@yahoo.com

A radio station 91.7 fm australia talking about killing an african president with sniper rifle in wrong?

Talking about killing political firgures is dangerous as people .This radio station announcer sounds like a risk to liberty and freedoms of africans but also the threat could spread across the world to other political figures.David Harris.

ok I had to search what radio station that was and i came up with the ABC on the Gold Coast ( in QUEENSLAND)....

Now without knowing that announcer ( i am in melbourne and listen to 774 am ABC radio) ..I find it hard to believe that any ABC journalist would actually advocate such action....

and without hearing the actual program.. I don't know in what context things were said...

But taking out any other nations leader.. whether they be elected fairly or a dictator is NOT the right thing to do ...

ONLY the people of a nation have the right to over throw a dictator... or vote them out of power if they have elections....

3 Gun - OKC Gun Club - January 2010 - Stage 1 - Rusty Harris