Frequently asked questions:
1. I run a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Can I hire a lobbyist?
Yes. The Internal Revenue Code explicitly permits 501(c)(3) organizations to engage in lobbying, but there are limits. A 501(c)(3) organization can only spend up to 20% of its budget on lobbying. Any excess amount is subject to an excise tax.
2. I have an idea for how to make things better. Can I hire a lobbyist as an individual?
Yes. An individual can hire a lobbyist and start advocating for a particular bill. You can create a non-profit organization and advocate through that if you want, but it isn’t required.
3. What are the registration requirements if I hire a lobbyist?
Any entity that hires a lobbyist has to register with the Illinois Secretary of State. The fee is $300. Further, that entity must report every two weeks their expenditures associated with lobbying (usually zero) and undergo an online ethics training course. We will walk you through that and handle your biweekly reporting as part of our fee, but you’ll have to do the annual online ethics courts yourself.
4. Do you charge by the hour?
No. I charge a monthly or an annual fee to clients. This fee is all-inclusive.
5. We’d like to do a lobby day in Springfield. Can you help with that?
Yes. I actively encourage all clients to come to Springfield and meet directly with state legislators, especially membership organizations. I will help with the logistics. It’s really powerful for members to meet their state legislators and ask them face-to-face to support their agenda. State legislators are remarkably accessible and most of them are extremely accommodating to find the time to meet with constituents. They are nice people. You should meet them.
6. When does the Illinois General Assembly meet?
In 2022. the General Assembly is moving up its schedule to meet every week from January 3 to April 8. The Governor signs or vetoes bill over the summer and then the General Assembly reconvenes in October and November for an additional two weeks.
7. When is the deadline to file a new bill?
The regular deadline to get a bill filed is mid January of 2022. However, there are always opportunities to introduce new ideas as an amendment to an existing bill whenever the General Assembly is in session, so the deadlines are more fluid in practice.
8. How do I know if my idea will pass?
The only real way to know is to try. Sometimes an idea is a little ahead of its time and can’t quite earn enough support to pass in the first year. In the second year, however, some of the legislators who weren’t quite ready to support a bill the first time they saw it may be ready to come around. That’s why it’s almost always a good idea to get your idea out there in a bill form, no matter how close to the end of the legislative calendar, as it will lay the groundwork for next year.
9. Do I need to hire a lobbyist?
No. You can do this on your own. But it will likely take you longer to figure out how the legislative process works and to find the right legislator for your issue than if you hired a lobbyist to represent you. It’s a little like going to court. You don’t need to hire a lawyer to represent you, but you’re almost always better off if you do.
10. Do you need to have gone to law school to be a lobbyist?
No, but it helps.
11. Aren’t lobbyists shady?
A few are. But there are shady people in every industry. Most lobbyists are honest people representing clients. Sometimes the clients are shady but I don’t represent those guys. Then again, everybody deserves to be heard in a democracy and shady is in the eye of the beholder.
12. How do you know which legislator to ask to sponsor a particular bill?
Every legislator is trying to do the right thing, but they can’t be an expert in everything. They each develop a particular interest in certain topics. Since I’ve been working with the same legislators for years (we don’t have term limits in Illinois, so legislators tend to work in the Capitol for about a decade on average), I can match up a client with the legislator who will likely get enthusiastic about the bill and really make it his or her own.
13. How important is it to recruit the right sponsor for a bill?
Incredibly important. After all, it isn’t my bill or your bill — it’s the legislator’s bill. He or she is going to have to debate the bill on the floor. We can be there in committee to help, but not on the floor. Legislators can only pass so many bills every year, and finding the right one to really get excited about a client’s bill is crucial to success. With the right bill, the legislator is delighted to work on it, because that’s why they got into politics in the first place — making things better for people by passing good bills into law.
14. Don’t state legislators have staff to do this for them?
Surprisingly, no. Each legislator has a total expense account of $150,000 to cover all district staff, rent, mailings and office supplies. That’s it. They also get one administrative assistant in Springfield. They just don’t have many policy staffers working for them, like they do in DC (where Members of Congress have a staff of 20 or so). The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate have a large staff of 30 or so, including many great policy people, and those people are available to individual legislators, but it’s not the same as having a staff devoted to a legislator to work on developing a policy agenda. That’s why they are looking for people like you to bring them good ideas that can make for good bills they can work to pass.
15. I’m not comfortable getting started with my idea because I haven’t thought through every possible ramification. Should I try to get a bill filed anyway?
Yes! That’s what amendments are for! Don’t be scared about getting an imperfect bill filed. Most bills get changed, amended and improved several times until they are ultimately implemented. You don’t need your idea to be absolutely perfect in order to engage in the legislative process. You just need a general sense of what you want to do. Half the battle is getting other stakeholders that probably know more than we do to pay attention to our idea and offer suggestions on how to improve it. Without a bill filed by a legislator, it is often impossible to get stakeholders to a table to hammer out a better bill. One you’ve got a good idea, get in the game. See where it takes you.
16. I don’t have a group. I just have an idea. Can I hire you to help me pass a law?
Absolutely. A surprisingly large number of laws were sparked by one person who just decided to get involved. Give me a call.
17. Shouldn’t I hire you through a 501(c)(3) organization?
You can. But basically the value of donating to a registered charity is the tax deduction which reduces your net contribution by about a third. So instead of donating $100,000 to a 501(c)(3), you can spend $60,000 and hire Progressive Public Affairs for the same after-tax impact, without the many reporting requirements and restrictions that 501(c)(3) organizations contend with. You get a bigger policy impact bang for your same after-tax buck if you don’t go though a 501(c)(3).
18. Can you work in other states or nationally?
Sure. Email me. Or give me a call.
19. Can I hire you as a consultant? I'm not sure if I want to hire a lobbyist.
Yes, you can.
20. How much is that?
I don't know. Give me a call and we can figure it out. First call is always on the house.
1. I run a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Can I hire a lobbyist?
Yes. The Internal Revenue Code explicitly permits 501(c)(3) organizations to engage in lobbying, but there are limits. A 501(c)(3) organization can only spend up to 20% of its budget on lobbying. Any excess amount is subject to an excise tax.
2. I have an idea for how to make things better. Can I hire a lobbyist as an individual?
Yes. An individual can hire a lobbyist and start advocating for a particular bill. You can create a non-profit organization and advocate through that if you want, but it isn’t required.
3. What are the registration requirements if I hire a lobbyist?
Any entity that hires a lobbyist has to register with the Illinois Secretary of State. The fee is $300. Further, that entity must report every two weeks their expenditures associated with lobbying (usually zero) and undergo an online ethics training course. We will walk you through that and handle your biweekly reporting as part of our fee, but you’ll have to do the annual online ethics courts yourself.
4. Do you charge by the hour?
No. I charge a monthly or an annual fee to clients. This fee is all-inclusive.
5. We’d like to do a lobby day in Springfield. Can you help with that?
Yes. I actively encourage all clients to come to Springfield and meet directly with state legislators, especially membership organizations. I will help with the logistics. It’s really powerful for members to meet their state legislators and ask them face-to-face to support their agenda. State legislators are remarkably accessible and most of them are extremely accommodating to find the time to meet with constituents. They are nice people. You should meet them.
6. When does the Illinois General Assembly meet?
In 2022. the General Assembly is moving up its schedule to meet every week from January 3 to April 8. The Governor signs or vetoes bill over the summer and then the General Assembly reconvenes in October and November for an additional two weeks.
7. When is the deadline to file a new bill?
The regular deadline to get a bill filed is mid January of 2022. However, there are always opportunities to introduce new ideas as an amendment to an existing bill whenever the General Assembly is in session, so the deadlines are more fluid in practice.
8. How do I know if my idea will pass?
The only real way to know is to try. Sometimes an idea is a little ahead of its time and can’t quite earn enough support to pass in the first year. In the second year, however, some of the legislators who weren’t quite ready to support a bill the first time they saw it may be ready to come around. That’s why it’s almost always a good idea to get your idea out there in a bill form, no matter how close to the end of the legislative calendar, as it will lay the groundwork for next year.
9. Do I need to hire a lobbyist?
No. You can do this on your own. But it will likely take you longer to figure out how the legislative process works and to find the right legislator for your issue than if you hired a lobbyist to represent you. It’s a little like going to court. You don’t need to hire a lawyer to represent you, but you’re almost always better off if you do.
10. Do you need to have gone to law school to be a lobbyist?
No, but it helps.
11. Aren’t lobbyists shady?
A few are. But there are shady people in every industry. Most lobbyists are honest people representing clients. Sometimes the clients are shady but I don’t represent those guys. Then again, everybody deserves to be heard in a democracy and shady is in the eye of the beholder.
12. How do you know which legislator to ask to sponsor a particular bill?
Every legislator is trying to do the right thing, but they can’t be an expert in everything. They each develop a particular interest in certain topics. Since I’ve been working with the same legislators for years (we don’t have term limits in Illinois, so legislators tend to work in the Capitol for about a decade on average), I can match up a client with the legislator who will likely get enthusiastic about the bill and really make it his or her own.
13. How important is it to recruit the right sponsor for a bill?
Incredibly important. After all, it isn’t my bill or your bill — it’s the legislator’s bill. He or she is going to have to debate the bill on the floor. We can be there in committee to help, but not on the floor. Legislators can only pass so many bills every year, and finding the right one to really get excited about a client’s bill is crucial to success. With the right bill, the legislator is delighted to work on it, because that’s why they got into politics in the first place — making things better for people by passing good bills into law.
14. Don’t state legislators have staff to do this for them?
Surprisingly, no. Each legislator has a total expense account of $150,000 to cover all district staff, rent, mailings and office supplies. That’s it. They also get one administrative assistant in Springfield. They just don’t have many policy staffers working for them, like they do in DC (where Members of Congress have a staff of 20 or so). The Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate have a large staff of 30 or so, including many great policy people, and those people are available to individual legislators, but it’s not the same as having a staff devoted to a legislator to work on developing a policy agenda. That’s why they are looking for people like you to bring them good ideas that can make for good bills they can work to pass.
15. I’m not comfortable getting started with my idea because I haven’t thought through every possible ramification. Should I try to get a bill filed anyway?
Yes! That’s what amendments are for! Don’t be scared about getting an imperfect bill filed. Most bills get changed, amended and improved several times until they are ultimately implemented. You don’t need your idea to be absolutely perfect in order to engage in the legislative process. You just need a general sense of what you want to do. Half the battle is getting other stakeholders that probably know more than we do to pay attention to our idea and offer suggestions on how to improve it. Without a bill filed by a legislator, it is often impossible to get stakeholders to a table to hammer out a better bill. One you’ve got a good idea, get in the game. See where it takes you.
16. I don’t have a group. I just have an idea. Can I hire you to help me pass a law?
Absolutely. A surprisingly large number of laws were sparked by one person who just decided to get involved. Give me a call.
17. Shouldn’t I hire you through a 501(c)(3) organization?
You can. But basically the value of donating to a registered charity is the tax deduction which reduces your net contribution by about a third. So instead of donating $100,000 to a 501(c)(3), you can spend $60,000 and hire Progressive Public Affairs for the same after-tax impact, without the many reporting requirements and restrictions that 501(c)(3) organizations contend with. You get a bigger policy impact bang for your same after-tax buck if you don’t go though a 501(c)(3).
18. Can you work in other states or nationally?
Sure. Email me. Or give me a call.
19. Can I hire you as a consultant? I'm not sure if I want to hire a lobbyist.
Yes, you can.
20. How much is that?
I don't know. Give me a call and we can figure it out. First call is always on the house.