What Does a Lobbyist Do?

The short answer to the question of what lobbying is all about is that a lobbyist pursues achievement of his or her clients’ legislative objectives.

How a lobbyist goes about dong this, and whether the lobbyist is successful in reaching the intended goal, is really the essence of the profession.

A lobbyist must be able to explain to legislators the impact on his or her clients of a legislative proposal, why its passage would be either good or bad, and be able to convince legislators to vote in accordance with the lobbyist’s position.

Most legislators are experts only in the field of their occupation prior to being elected to the legislative office. It is the lobbyist’s job to educate them on the lobbyist’s client’s issues so that they can make intelligent, well founded decisions on how they vote.

Unfortunately, there is no law, or even rule of the legislature, that prohibits the spreading of inaccurate information or untrue statements. Thus, a good lobbyist must be prepared to offset such misperceptions with facts, and legislators must try to develop the skill of being able to tell when someone is attempting to mislead them.

In the hunting arena, many animal rights activists and people who refer to themselves as “environmentalists” are often guilty of purposely spreading misinformation. They are more interested in achieving their anti-hunting goals, regardless of the means, than enacting laws based on sound logic and facts. A lobbyist representing hunters must be able to prove the facts and set the record straight.

Sometimes legislators will take an emotional course in deciding on how to cast a vote. This phenomenon is not uncommon and lobbyist have dubbed it the “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind’s made up” syndrome. When this happens, logic and reality no longer play a role in the legislative process. A lobbyist must know how to counter this by applying political pressures, both inside and outside the capitol, to get the legislator(s) in question back to dealing with the real issues at hand.

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Send comments to:

California Sportsman's Lobby, Inc.
P.O. Box 1527Sacramento, CA 95812-1527
Phone: (916) 441-7563 Fax: (916) 441-6490
E-mail to: csl@calwildlife.org

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Copyright © 2006 California Sportsman's Lobby, Inc. All rights reserved.
Revised: June 7, 2006.