(Pictured above: Inside the United States’ Capitol Rotunda)

Chris Ball, Michelle Clements, and I, recently accompanied Craig Borr on a three-day trip to Washington D.C. to learn more about hot-button issues facing co-ops, and to advocate on our members’ behalf. Click here to read about our first day as we engaged with ACRE and NRECA on a legislative briefing.

DAY TWO – 15,000 STEPS

On Tuesday, our group had appointments with eight elected officials and/or their staff in as many hours. This required pin balling back and forth from six different House and Senate office buildings—so we synchronized our FitBits out of curiosity to track our walking for the day.

Craig impressed upon us two points as we prepared for our meetings. Number one, our legislators cannot possibly be experts in everything, and therefore rely on us to educate them. And number two—without frequent contact to establish and nurture relationships with them, we cannot achieve the first.

Our group met with staff of both Michigan Senators, staff from four congressmen, and two congressmen themselves—Jack Bergman and John Moolenaar. Our conversations were warm and friendly, and most were already aware of our interests and actively seeming to advance them. It was clear that NRECA, MECA, Wolverine, and its members have invested years of effort into cultivating those relationships.

Many of those relationships play vital roles advancing the cooperatives’ interests. Several delegates from Michigan serve in key leadership positions within committees that have tremendous impact on our members and rural Americans. Michigan co-ops are constituents of these officials, giving our members a unique local advantage to influence nationwide policy-making.

Inside the House Ways and Means Committee room, where lawmakers decide many issues pertinent to electric co-ops.

Eight hours and 15,000 steps later, we had meaningful dialogue with the offices of nearly every elected official in Congress or the Senate that represent Michigan’s electric cooperatives.

OUR TAKEAWAY

American history engulfed us as we paraded by endless breathtaking buildings, monuments, and landmarks in Washington, D.C. But for all the history that surrounded us, it’s impossible to feel the age of a city that’s incessantly moving onto what’s next.

The pace of progress in Washington is both breakneck and glacial—it is the very definition of hurry up and wait. Chris Stephens, NRECA lobbyist tasked with protecting and enhancing co-op employee pensions, is the perfect example. Chris was responsible for leading a landmark pension achievement that took eight years of daily hustle to will across the finish line.

This pace is the very reason our co-ops need a consistent presence to cultivate relationships and advocate on their behalf. Luckily, as is always the case for the cooperatives, we have strength in numbers. NRECA represents more than 900 cooperatives in 47 states. ACRE has one of the nation’s largest memberships for political action committees. Working together and leveraging our numbers is both effective and vital to advance our mission for our members.

The opposite is also true. In the race to advance the cooperatives’ interests, we take our hands off the steering wheel without a consistent advocacy presence.

Finally, we are grateful for Craig’s enthusiastic guidance as he detailed the political machine that is Washington, D.C., and the invaluable set of knowledge and skills he taught us to benefit our members in the future.