22. Study Your Legislator, Her Friends, and Staff ``DON'T PUT NO CONSTRICTIONS ON DA PEOPLE. LEAVE 'EM TA HELL ALONE.'' Jimmy Durante. Every legislator has friends and allies--lots in fact, that's why she won the election. Some of those friends and allies may be pro-rights, and might be willing to put a word in with their legislative friend, if you ask them. How do you find the legislator's friends? Look in the public record. Every Congressional candidate, and most state candidates, have to file reports listing their campaign contributors. (Small donations usually don't need to be reported.) The Congressional reports are on file with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) in Washington, DC. (1325 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20463. 800-424-9530.). Reports must usually be filed on a quarterly basis; the quarterly reports are consolidated into a final report for each election. When asking for reports, specify whether you want the quarterly reports, the final report, or both, and the time period you want (e.g., ``all quarterly reports for 1983 through 1992.'') The FEC charges a photocopying and document retrieval fee. The state reports will usually be filed with the Secretary of State's office in each state capitol. (At the state level, the position of Secretary of State has nothing to do with US foreign policy; it's mostly a record-keeping job.) For both federal and state election reports, remember how busy election time is for the agencies that receive and process the reports. If you make a document production request around election time, give the agency plenty of lead time. The campaign finance reports will list major donations, expenditures, and will also list some of the major campaign officers. Guides to Congress, such as the Almanac of American Politics, Congressional Directory, and Congressional Quarterly Politics in America all have biographies of Congresspersons. Available at high-quality bookstores and most libraries, these books tell you facts such as where the Congressperson went to school, what jobs he's held, what religion he believes in, and what issues interest him. Many state legislatures publish low-cost booklets giving short biographies of the members. Your town library may also have back issues of the local newspaper on microfilm or microfiche, plus an index to the old newspaper articles. Biographical articles about the legislator will be a strong source of information, and may tell you who his political allies are. Computer databases such as Prodigy, Compuserve, and Nexis may also be useful. These databases usually contain a specialized political biography library. Even better, they also contain full-text versions of newspaper articles, allowing you to pull up dozens or hundreds of articles dealing with every facet of the legislator's career. If the legislator is an attorney, his law firm will be listed in the Martindale Hubbell law directory. The massive multi-volume reference, available in all law libraries, and some general libraries, lists every attorney or law firm in each state, in alphabetical order by city. For lawyers who are affiliated with large law firms, the directory also often lists major clients of the firm. As you find out about the legislator's circle of friends, you may recognize some people that you also know. And if you don't know anybody the legislator knows, then somebody in the local gun rights organization may share a common acquaintance with the legislator. Staff As we've said, good relationships with staff members are important, so you may want to do some research about the legislator's staff. Detail about the staff person can most likely be found in newspaper articles, and in computer databases which compile newspaper articles. When you're interacting with legislative staff, a good staffer will throw the hardest questions he can at you. After all, the legislator is going to ask him hard questions about the staffer's recommendation, and the legislator's colleagues are going to ask the legislator even harder questions. While the staffer will be trying to ask hard questions, he may ask ignorant ones too. Like the legislator, the staffer must be a jack of all trades, and can't be expected to master every issue. Staffers look good when they provide their boss with solid, reliable information. So when you provide such information to the staffer, you begin to give him a reason to like you. There are some important differences between staffer and boss. First, only the boss has the authority to make a commitment, so don't demand that the staffer promise you positive action by his boss. Also, the legislator is used to rough-and-tumble verbal combat. The staffer isn't. (The legislator's facility with human interaction is one reason that she's a legislator, and the staffer is a staffer.) While you don't want to provoke verbal clashes with legislators, you want to be even more careful about keeping things courteous with staff. Staffers have their advantages too. For instance, they're likely not to be as pressed for time as the legislator is. Your meetings may last longer. Also, there's a greater chance that the staffer will accept your offers for activities outside the office, such as a gun demonstration at the firing range, or a 25 minute lunch at the capitol cafeteria (Dutch treat). Likewise, if you give a staffer a pro-rights book or monograph, there's a chance he'll actually look at part of it. How easy it is to get the staffer's attention is will vary with who the staffer works for. Senior Washington staff for United States Senators are quite powerful, and quite busy. The above suggestions have focused mainly on legislative assistants--the staff personnel who help legislators evaluate issues and answer mail. Good manners, though, are never out of place no matter who you're dealing with. Smart journalists make a point of being pleasant to the secretaries they meet, since secretaries can be a wonderful source of information about their boss. Making a pleasant acquaintance with everyone in the legislator's office, powerful or not, will make your dealings there more pleasant, and may also, perhaps, yield a valuable advance notice of something important.