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Tech Lobbying Matures Over PNTR Vote
For Jeff Modisett, TechNet's Democratic political director, the sea change in terms of persuading House members to support permanent normal trade relations with China came when he started telling legislators and their staff about how he had witnessed the Internet's ability to spark democracy in Indonesia.
According to Modisett, almost every undecided member he had previously spoken with already knew the economic arguments for PNTR — but couldn't get over concerns about the country's human rights and national security record. So Modisett, a former Indiana attorney general, started telling about when he was in Indonesia to monitor elections in June 1999. There he witnessed people on street corners selling copies of news stories from U.S. publications about Indonesian government corruption — stories that had been downloaded from the Internet. The information was available only online and, according to Modisett, helped to spur the beginnings of democracy in that country.
"It is rare that one is in a situation where you can see the beginning of democracy…I know the Internet had an impact in Indonesia and I am 100 percent sure that what is happening in Indonesia, is going to start happening in China," Modisett said.
Modisett's pitch is but one example of the arguments made by industry lobbyists to shift the debate on high tech and China trade beyond economics to cultural change — and, in so doing, helped to nudge a number of undecided members off the fence to support PNTR. The debate over PNTR — which cleared the House last week after months of intense lobbying — also marked a coming of age for an industry that just a year-and-a-half ago was the new kid on the block.
"This was the first issue that the high-tech community got together with other players in business community and lobbied," said Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-NY, who remained undecided until days before the vote, and who ultimately supported the measure.
To be sure, high-tech firms worked closely with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other members of the business community in 1999 to pass Y2K litigation relief legislation. But that issue was always tied to the realm of the high-tech arena. PNTR marked the first major instance in which high-tech lobbyists worked in tandem with "old" economy sectors, such as agriculture and airline manufacturers, to pass a bill.
"The high-tech industry has gotten more sensitive and more attuned to the need to play the game," said Jim Whittaker, director of international government affairs at Hewlett-Packard and chairman of the High-Tech Coalition on China. "After being involved in political and policy developments over the past several years, we have a better and more sophisticated understanding of how to act in D.C."
What was different in this latest lobbying effort was that the industry learned to use grassroots campaigns, while organizing its efforts in tandem with the Business Roundtable, the Chamber and other business groups. Whittaker said the high-tech industry stuck to lobbying members from districts where high-tech could make a difference — and focused on those who had already established relationships with the industry.
As part of Hewlett-Packard's grassroots strategy, employees in districts where the company has manufacturing facilities were asked to write to their respective members of Congress, to participate in radio shows and to write opinion articles. At Microsoft, Chairman Bill Gates wrote an op/ed in support of PNTR, while the general manager of the company's China office called members of Congress to explain what PNTR meant for the high-tech industry. The Electronic Industries Alliance collected 10,000 employee letters from member companies supporting PNTR and forwarded them to Congress. The day before the vote, the American Electronics Association (AEA) held its annual board meeting and their members fanned out on the Hill with executives to convince the few remaining undecided members to cast the vote for PNTR.
Just how much the industry spent on the lobbying effort is difficult to assertain as it has yet to file official lobbying forms. It is likely that a combination of all the high-tech companies and associations spent more than a $1 million. For example, the High Tech Coalition on China alone spent about $250,000 on radio ads in member's districts. In addition, the industry used much of its staff time to focus on PNTR since the beginning of this year.
"We spent huge amounts of staff time," said B. Timothy Bennett, senior vice president of international policy for AEA.
In addition, Whittaker's coalition — along with the Internet Coalition for China PNTR, 11 high-tech associations and individual firms such as America Online, Cisco, 3Com and Intel — held hundreds of meetings with staff and members of Congress beginning in February. In April, over 200 corporate chief executive officers, many of them in the high-tech industry, sent a letter to all members of Congress declaring that PNTR was their number one priority this year.
"I think what was different was the intensity of support…We were able to augment the debate with that," said Ed Gillespie, a partner in Quinn Gillespie & Associates who worked with TechNet to lobby for PNTR. TechNet had 30 of its member CEOs personally call members of Congress.
High-tech industry officials also were able to leave their own indelible mark on the debate, with stories like Modisett's. Given the intertwining of the industry and the Internet, they had the credibility to argue that the Internet could bring change to a political system.
"The economic argument about PNTR had grown stale and opponents were chipping away at it with human rights and national security concerns…Then the Internet [democracy] message was adopted by President Clinton and House Speaker [Dennis] Hastert and that started to stick in March and April," said a lobbyist for the Internet Coalition for China PNTR. "I don't know if any specific vote was swayed by it, but it became a pillar in the argument — and I know it made a real difference."
For all its recent success, the industry is still considered to be in the adolescent stage as a lobbying force, and lacks the savvy, more mature lobbying shops of outfits such as Boeing or the Business Roundtable. Rep. Weiner, for example, said he had to call high-tech companies first — before they called him to talk about PNTR — while others in the business community sought him out, given his high-profile undecided status.
"They are still in the minor leagues in comparison to some of the heavy hitters," Weiner said. "For example, for Boeing, this was a huge deal to them. They are a big exporter and they are used to lobbying on Capitol Hill. To some degree, high-tech followed the lead of the rest of the business community and got help.….But I think they aren't completely comfortable with it all yet."
The Senate has yet to vote on the measure, but is expected to pass it later this summer.
 | - by Bara Vaida |
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