Unpaid lobbyists don't go unheard

BRAD SHANNON, THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Monday, March 4, 2002

OLYMPIA -- The door pops open on the little white car, and out comes Meta Heller, starting her daily ritual at the Capitol.

Heller, a cane-toting senior citizen with a loud laugh and a liberal agenda, makes it her hobby to hound the politicians in Olympia with suggestions for making the state's tax system more fair.

Heller, who knocks on a lot of legislators' doors, eats lunch in the Capitol lunchroom most days.

She is full of ideas for changing the transportation tax system -- such as charging truckers fees that are tied to their huge vehicles' weights and the number of miles driven.

She also wants to make land owners who benefit from big highway projects pay special taxes on their increased values.

Winning over a 147-member Legislature with ideas like that can be a long haul, but Heller doesn't mind. No more than she minded -- during her run for governor in 2000 -- that Gov. Gary Locke, a fellow Democrat, completely ignored her candidacy, not to mention her calls for tax changes.

"You make a little progress," says Heller, now 76 and still pressing on with her messages. Overall, the retired technical writer says she thinks lawmakers are looking in all the wrong places to fix their state operating and transportation budgets, but she sees a silver lining in the state's $1.6 billion financial shortfall.

High hopes

"I have high hopes because we have a crisis. Something can happen now," she said.

Heller is not the only one trying to steer the ship of state all by herself. A few dozen state residents register each year with the Public Disclosure Commission as volunteer, or unpaid, lobbyists. Thousands of other citizens simply call their lawmakers to beef, cajole or just encourage action on issues that matter to them.

They might not get the kind of access that their well-paid professional rivals get, but sometimes they feel they are heard.

"I'm representing the AARP," said Virgil Clarkson, a Lacey City Council member retired from the state Department of Transportation. He uses his senior-citizen affiliation to open doors. "All I have to do is mention that. They have almost three-quarters of a million voters in Washington."

"I think we get heard in part because the legislators know we are there for a very particular purpose, representing our family members with disabilities," said Mary Jo Wilcox of Olympia, who has advocated at the Legislature for a dozen years. The disability of her son, Keith, spurred her to advocacy, and the issues tend to win sympathy with lawmakers, she said.

Still, she's a realist and says that "whether it translates into everything we want, that isn't going to happen" in the state budget this year.

Other citizen lobbyists have pushed for a ban on mercury-laden products, to keep fluoride out of city water supplies and to boost state funding of transit systems after the passage of Initiative 695. Sometimes the system responds, sometimes it doesn't.

"It's responsive, but it's slow. Everything is bottom line. I don't care if you're paid or not paid, but we, the volunteers, are not going to be there every day," Clarkson said.

Clarkson made only one trip to the Capitol this year to push for lower prescription drug costs for seniors. His hopes aren't high, for practical reasons -- and not because pharmaceutical interests have hired a small army of lobbyists who are opposing changes.

"I don't think we're going to get much out of this year's legislature, either locally or nationally. It is an economic issue. ... Times are tight and dollars are tight," Clarkson said.

Lawmakers say they listen to the citizen lobbyists, just like any other constituent. "Over the years you see fewer and fewer of what you call the real constituents," said Rep. Sam Hunt, a second-year Democrat from Olympia who used to work as a lobbyist for a state agency.

'Constituents are first'

Hunt's 22nd Legislative District takes in most of the capital city, Lacey and Tumwater, as well as the Puget Sound peninsulas east of Mud Bay and Eld Inlet. More often, he hears from constituents by mail or phone.

"I got 180 e-mails yesterday," Hunt said Thursday. Most of the messages dealt with proposals to close the State Library, to reduce prescription drug prices and to repeal Initiative 713, which was meant to ban trapping for fur but also banned mole trapping in lawns.

"Constituents are first. I would never turn down a constituent who called," said Meagan Brown, Hunt's legislative assistant. Still, "there are more lobbyists who want to meet with Sam than constituents."

The Olympian Copyright 2002

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