How to approach an administrative agency.

Whether you are a neighborhood association pushing back against a regulatory agency’s decision or a government affairs representative trying to influence an agency’s proposed policy, there are three factors that you must include in your approach:

1. Your honesty;
2. Being beyond reproach; and
3. Being the expert.

Honesty is not just for Boy Scouts …

For sixteen years I listened to the policy positions of neighborhood associations, telecommunications companies, and cable companies and for ten years I advocated before state commissions; argued on panels; and wrote in blog posts, tweets, and columns about broadband and affordable energy. In that time, I have learned that nothing moves the listener more than an honest argument. Sincerity that comes across to a regulator or an agency staffer opens them up to an alternative argument. Honesty helps the listener absorb alternative data and increases the likelihood that data enters the policymaker’s decision matrix.

The last thing you want to do as an advocate is to be disingenuous with a policymaker. They know why you are in their office or in their hearing room. You are there to sell a policy. Tell the policymaker (including her staff) exactly what you want and why. Give her not only an honest assessment of your needs but provide her with a clear assessment of the needs of the other stakeholders. This assessment comes in handy where the policymaker may be lacking a clear picture of all stakeholder needs. And trust me, the other stakeholders are sharing with the policymaker their analyses of your needs.

Honesty leads to being beyond reproach …

If an advocate constantly displays honesty, I will hold him beyond reproach. However, ideal policymaking requires listening to all stakeholders in an issue. Ideal policymaking also means the policymaker should make an independent assessment of the issues.

The advocate should expect that the regulator is relying on her own staff and technical resources to analyze the issues. The advocate should leverage this expectation by taking the opportunity to narrow down and clarify the issues. Where the advocate avoids gamesmanship, the policymaker will view her as being a straightshooter; being beyond reproach.

As a regulator I always appreciated the advocate who is willing to avoid word salad and craftiness preferring instead to move efficiently to the bottom-line. Consistency in this approach will classify you, in my eyes, as being beyond approach.

Expertise is the icing on the advocacy cake ….

Former Florida State representative Joe Gibbons once shared with me this approach to advocacy: “You can’t advocate if you can’t educate.” To get the attention of a policymaker, you will have to be an effective teacher. If you wish to come off as an honest advocate, you should know what you are talking about. Can you talk about broadband regulation if you cannot tell me what broadband is? Can you argue that consumers are facing energy bills that are unaffordable without providing me with data on household income or telling me the kilowatt costs per hour of electricity?

Expertise takes preparation and study. Without preparation and study all you can offer is puffery. Puffery does your client no good and destroys your reputation.

In short, sell TEA …

You should take a TEA approach when advocating. Thought requires education and is spread by advocacy. Never forget to be honest to a fault and that the expertise you garner and eventually share will build up a policymaker’s trust in you.

Alton Drew

21 March 2023

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