Randy Haynie, whose firms represents corporations such as Philip Morris and Waste Management, Inc, explains how they categorise politicians according to their past votes and other factors into those likely to support a bill, those likely to oppose it and the others who could go either way. It is this last category of politicians who are targeted with grassroots campaigns. Corporate lobbying now commonly includes a grassroots component.(Faucheux 1995)

The letters and telephone calls resulting from these PR efforts tend to have an exaggerated effect on politicians because most operate under the traditional assumption that a letter writer or caller is extremely committed and motivated and that for every letter that the politician receives, there are hundreds or thousands of citizens who feel the same way but who lacked the time, resources, skills or motivation to write a similar letter. Also someone who goes to the trouble of writing a letter is likely to feel strongly enough to actually monitor how the politician votes on the issue and decide their own vote accordingly when he comes up for reelection. With grassroots organising however these assumptions about letter writers and callers are not valid since the so-called letter writers are not necessarily as committed and motivated as a genuine letter writer.

According to Edward Grefe and Marty Linsky in their book The New Corporate Activism, letters, particularly to state, county and city legislators, are especially influential because people at these levels seldom get more than one or two letters on any subject. Even at the national level letters are important (1995, p. 148). A 1992 Gallop Poll found that over 70% of members of Congress said that they paid "a great deal of attention to (a) personally written letters from constituents, (b) meetings with heads of groups, (c) CEO visits representing companies with a job presence in the district, (d) personally written letters from heads of groups in the district or from company officials with a job presence in the district, and (e) phone calls from constituents." (Faucheux 1995)

Another study of congressional staff found that 79% said that individually written letters were most effective form of grassroots campaigning, 64% said phone calls (64%) were most effective and letters and phone calls were more effective than public demonstrations and petitions, which were more effective than mass mail responses. When their estimates were averaged, respondents said that it would take 2035 mass mail responses to get a legislator to place a high priority on an issue, compared with 156 individually-written letters and 188 phone calls. In order to change their position on an issue, staff suggested it would take almost 20,000 mass mail responses compared to about 700 letters and 1500 phone calls. (Lord 1995)

Front groups and PR generated grassroots responses also help politicians who want to vote for or against a piece of legislation because of corporate inducements but also want to be seen to be responsive to voters. According to Michael Pertschuk, codirector of the Advocacy Institute: "Fronts are useful for politicians who essentially want to do industry's bidding but are reluctant to be seen as tools of industry." (Anon 1995, p. 319)

These methods are not confined to the US. Such services are also available in Canada. In his speech to the 1993 Wise Use Conference entitled How to use communications technology to compete with radical environmentalists, Ross Irvine, President of the Canadian firm, Public Relations Management Ltd, explained to the audience the value of computer generated letters as a powerful way of influencing Canadian politicians. "Politicians feel compelled to respond to letters, and for each letter they receive politicians believe there are 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000 voters who feel the same way as the letter writer." (Irvine 1993)

How about if you make a few copies of the computerized list of law makers and prepare form letters which can be merged with your list of names...Then you give copies of these computer disks to all your members, to all your friends, to all your neighbours, -- to everyone you know -- and ask them to send letters to the law makers.(Irvine 1993)

James Gardner, author of Effective Lobbying in the European Community has described "the soaring growth in transnational lobbying by giant global corporations" and contended that grassroots lobbying is likely to be used widely in future in many countries. He notes, for example, that there is provision for citizens to petition the European Parliament and that this "furnishes a framework for a grass-roots lobbying campaign aimed at the Parliament and indirectly at the Commission and the Council." (Gardner 1991)

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Additional Material

Anon., 1994, 'Public Interest Pretenders', Consumer Reports, Vol. 59, No. 5, p. 319.

Faucheux, Ron, 1995, 'The Grassroots Explosion', Campaigns & Elections, Vol. 16, No. 1, pp. 20-30, 53-8.

Gardner, James N., 1991, 'Lobbying, European-Style', Europe, November, pp. 29-30.

Grefe, Edward A. and Marty Linsky, 1995, The New Corporate Activism: Harnessing the Power of Grassroots Tactics for Your Organization (New York: McGraw-Hill).

Irvine, Ross, 1993, 'How to use communications technology to compete with radical environmentalists', Paper presented at the 1993 Wise Use Conference, Reno, Nevada, July 25.

Lord, Michael D., 1995, 'An agency theory assessment of the influence of grassroots political activism', Academy of Management Journal (Best papers Proceedings) pp. 396-400.

McBride, Ann, 1995, COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY: SUBCOMMITTEE ON THE CONSTITUTION, U.S. House of Representatives, 7 September.

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