Step-by-Step Organizer Toolkit for the People's Campaign for the Constitution
Questions and Tools for Assessing Your Power
What happens between your coalition and your representative is all about power. No matter how well a group states its demands, a representative has little political reason to consider them unless numerous constituents demonstrate active support.
So it is helpful to seek a clearer picture of what makes up your representative's power and what makes up your coalition's power as you begin this process. The point of stepping back to analyze the power of your representative is to inform what you need to achieve in your coalition. Once you have a coalition, you'll analyze your own power to demonstrate to your representative and to your members that you can affect the political support your representative enjoys.
This task may involve your whole core group, but can be assigned to the Research Committee to report back to the rest of the coalition.
Your Representative's Power Base
To get a picture of your representative's power ask these questions and consider these avenues for further action:
Who funds your representative? The Center for Responsive Politics maintains a highly informative website on campaign contributions to federal elected officials. The money that funds your representative's campaign is an important aspect of his or her power base.
- Are any of these funders potentially supportive of your demands? Are they vulnerable to pressure? If you can get them on your side, you are drawing from your representative's own power base for your purposes.
Who supports your representative politically? Who endorsed your representative in the last contested election? Are you in a position to make an alliance with any of them?
- Can you appeal to any of these people to endorse your organizing effort publicly?
How politically entrenched is your representative? When is the last time your representative faced a contentious election? How wide was the margin? Is there a challenger in the upcoming election? Is that challenger more or less aligned with your demands than the incumbent?
Who surrounds your representative personally? What kind of associations has your representative made? What town did she or he grow up in? Who are the former teachers and colleagues of your representative?
- If you can find people who used to have your representative as a student in their classroom or as a colleague in their firm, and you can get them to publicly (or even privately) state support for your effort, you are drawing upon the personal ties of your representative.
Who advises your representative? Who makes up your representative's key staff and advisors? Which of them relate most specifically to your demands?
- Establishing a relationship with your representative's staff is part of what it takes to move your representative, because she or he relies on them considerably in gaining information for the decisions she or he makes.
Who is your representative already serving? What is your representative's voting record and how does it match up with your demands? How far does he or she have to go to meet your demands in the next Congress?
Your Coalition's Power Base
To get a picture of your own coalition's power, ask these questions and consider these avenues for further broadening your base:
Map out your congressional district. Then, start mapping out every potential ally group active within it. What parts of the district are you strong in and able to mobilize people? For congressional district maps:
- http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/congress.html
- http://www.census.gov/geo/www/maps/cd109n/FF_cd109n_mainPage.htm
Contact members of the other groups as you add them to the list of potential ally groups you’ve identified. Ask if you can make a presentation on the organizing effort so that they can get involved. (See: Initial Outreach Phase; Reach out to local groups and individuals about the PCC strategy.)
Create a Power Snapshot of your congressional district. Include information on the demographics of your district, party affiliation of registered voters, margin of difference in recent votes.
- When you pair this information together, you can make a quick snapshot of political make-up of the district. Then you can pair that with the number of people your organizations are formally or informally in touch with. If that number is larger than the margin of victory in the last election, then you are in a strong position to demonstrate your power when it comes time. Sample: <COMING SOON>.