Government, Politics, and Citizen Involvement; 9; Thomas Joyce, Attorney

Good evening ladies and gentleman and welcome to this the ninth in a continuing series of lectures in title government politics and citizen involvement. The topic for this evening's lecture is Agas ational influences on legislation. Its techniques and ramifications. We're very honored to have as our guest lecturer this evening Mr. Thomas M. Joyce. Mr. Joyce is a partner in the law firm of joystick a blitz Kilroy McNulty in Rhody. He's a graduate of the Boston College Law School and he's a member of both the Boston Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He's a general counsel for the mass Electric and Gas Association and the mass Bankers Association. He's also counsel for the Boston Herald traveler coporation and the AMA ski operation. Some of the corporations of which he is a director are the Massachusetts higher education assistance operation the Boston Mutual Life Insurance Company the Guaranty Bank

interest company of Worcester and the union Savings Bank of Boston. He is an incorporated of the Massachusetts lying in hospital and the Boston Museum of Science. Now it was as if these positions were not impressive enough. We can also add that he is a member of the board of regents of Boston College. So it's a very great pleasure for me to present to you one of our official family Mr. Joyce. Ladies and gentlemen it's pleasant to have an opportunity to talk to you oh I won't call it a lecture because it will not be that. However I feel in any discussion of public affairs the activities of pressure groups and so-called lobbies are quite important. I represent a law firm that does considerable lobbying about 7 percent of our

activities our lobbying activities. And I personally enjoy them more than all the rest of the practice put together because I think the hardest type of advocacy is appearing before a legislator or as in congressional bodies to attempt to influence them. As far as your client's points of view are concerned I think you all realize that lobbying has a bad name perhaps in the past a justly solve. I think in the present it's just a failure to understand the obligations and the duties that are involved in such an activity. I point out that it to me is the hardest form of advocacy for one very good reason. When you go into the court room you have rules and regulations that you follow. You have carefully guarded standards that you must follow. But when you appear before a legislative

committee or you appear before the kind congressional committees the rule book is strong out the window and you're there to take whatever is handed out to you. I think to understand pressure groups to understand lobbying activities as such it's necessary to understand here in Massachusetts for example I legislative set up our legislative process so you can see what any special interest group is up against in preparing a case to present to our Massachusetts legislature for example. As you undoubtedly know we have two hundred forty members in our House of Representatives and 40 members in the Senate. They have 15 standing committees of the legislature to cover every subject that you can think of a committee that decides affairs on banks and banking power and light that the side sings as far as the utility industry is concerned ways and means that the site our financial future and taxation decides that how we will pay for

it and agricultural that the sides are farmers and so it goes all the way along the line but I think the general public and students generally and citizens generally fail to realize what the two hundred eighty men elected to the Massachusetts General Court are up against when they come in an election the era right after election on the first Wednesday in January they are faced with generally about 5000 pieces of legislation. I suppose the 5000 pieces cover somewhere between 50 and 75000 pages of legal advocate Deborah. I don't suppose of every law firm in the city of Boston sat down and studied the 5000 bills for a solid year. They would be able to understand the model. But we asked two hundred eighty men to understand that and to vote on it and to vote right.

So what do we do when our legislative halls here in Massachusetts is to try to bring order out of chaos. Every member is assigned to one or more committees which means substantially this before the standing committees 50 to 75 to 100 bills are heard by the committee depending on the subject matter be it banks or utilities or whatever it may be they have the proponents and they hear the OP phonons and they make up their mind and report to the Massachusetts legislature whether they think the bill ought to pass or it ought to be rejected. Now bear in mind we are the only state in the union that has the complete right of free petition. We could have 500000 Bill if you were you were you decided by the first Wednesday in December of any given year that you want to file 500 pieces of legislation. You're going to get

everyone and everyone filed everyone hired everyone acted on by both branches of the legislature and that happens and no place else in the 50 states that are union or no place else in the civilized world. That's why you hear so much about our long sessions in Massachusetts. That's why when the arc is out at the end of three months after having 3000 bills and putting in their pocket twenty nine hundred of them and acting out of 100. That's why in Massachusetts many times we're still going in November because of the 5000 odd bills to be heard. Everyone has to be heard and acted upon and they run the gamut from everything imaginable. Every special interest group Taxpayers Association chiefs of police school teachers labor utilities banks every group you can name the Council of Churches will file 30 or 40 bills.

That is of interest to them so that here in Massachusetts we have and I hope it never changes even though it's cumbersome and tiresome. The complete write a free petition and when these bills are filed they're due to get a hearing. And every one of you that ever cares to file a bill can get them in and get them heard. Bearing in mind however when each member of the legislature serves on one principal committee that every senator and representative will know fairly intimately the insides and the outsides of about 50 pieces of legislation and he'll know nothing about. And I say this nothing about four thousand nine hundred fifty. So it is necessary if he is to have any understanding of these basic

measures and I've already afield from the highest difficult tasks in electronics and atomic energy and all the rest. There's somebody someone must present to him views on both sides of those issues. He can depend to a degree on his fellow members that have sat on the bill but most of the legislators would like to know themselves what's in the bills what they portend what it means back home because fundamentally while they are elected to the great and general court their main duty in life is getting re-elected. And they get re-elected it's necessary to please a majority of their constituents and to do that it is necessary to vote in the way that the majority of their constituents would recommand. So that's where pressure groups come into the picture. That's where industrial groups and labor groups and all the rest

study end by going before the committee and presenting their point of view. Going down in the lobby where the word lobbying comes from. And talking to each representative and senator on the basis of a bill that they may be interested in. And there's a great balance A.I. because if industry gets down explains to Senator X what his views are 15 minutes after he goes. Labor is down there explaining their point of view or the League of Women Voters is down there explaining their point of view or the taxpayers association is down their point to explain their point of view. We have I believe in the state house at the present moment people register at 300 I believe an 85 registered lobbyist representing all these groups labor industry churches teachers police chiefs district court judges Supreme Court judges a Perrier court judges almost any group that

you can name among your citizens in Massachusetts. But there is one rule if they're going to go back and make any further impression on a senator or representative or a group of them they've got to be fair and honest and deliberate in what they tell them because if they lie to them once they won't be accepted again they will not have a chance again to make the same mistake. So that with out special interest groups it would be impossible for the members of the legislature to understand all around if occasions of the very highly technical bills that are before them. Now there are many ways that precious groups operate. You have the associated industries of Massachusetts and the taxpayers association to take the

strictly industrial point of view no give or take it's got to be this way and they present their point of view that way. You've got labor on the other hand the feels it's got to be this way. This is our point of view. We demand that we go to our membership and we'll expect it. And they argue for their point of view. You have the special interest groups such as I represent like the utility industry in Massachusetts that have their point of view of the specifically applies to electric and gas companies or utility companies in Massachusetts. And we'll have 500 bills a year that would either do anything from help us to put us out of business. We estimate this year that the bills filed against the utility industries if they were passed would cost some 100 million dollars as far as the utility industry is concerned. Many of them filed in completely good faith. Many of them filed by people who fully believe in what they have filed but in

many instances do not halfway understand the consequences of the bills if they were passed. We started out in the utility industry to give you one way a pressure group that group operates about 20 years ago in the society that we should go to our employees we have 25000 of them in Massachusetts. It's not enough to have management making decisions on this bill or that bill votes count numbers count. So we decided that there must be some area some area where management and employee was in the same boat. So we started during the fall of the year going to just as many of the employees management labor in these companies that we could reach and I think some years we get as many as 14 or 15000 during the course of the year. And we said Look gentlemen. We're not trying to fool you people in the labor end of the business by representing management.

But let's take a few individual met individual measures let's say for example if Boston Edison doing the electric system Western Mass electric is taxed 15 million dollars. It's 15 million dollars no longer available for dividends. No longer available for executive salaries and no longer available for collective bargaining. In other words it's one area where 15 million is taken right out of the company. Take it to the state and you never see it again. So we said to the employees is this an area where everyone of us have the same stake and they said yes. So for the last 20 years in that field instead of having one two three or four or five lobbyists we've had 25000 because everyone felt their own pocketbook their own living their own future was hurt. And that is what is fundamentally the so called grassroots lobbying the

only really effective means of special interests are general interests making their wishes felt. We took the area of public power which you've all heard so much about over the last 25 years. And we could say to our employees as I've said to them many times you work for a private company if it became federalized or owned by the state or owned by the municipality you would earn so much as you do now it is 20 percent 10 percent 11 percent 9 percent 8 percent last in a simple plan in a state plan in a federal plan. In other words your salary and fringe benefits are this much higher now you look it up yourself your labor people are just as able their lawyers are just as able to understand whether or not that is true. Then you come back and say to us is this a place where we're in the same boat. So in the field the public power over the last 20 years in

Massachusetts we have had now one two three or four or five lobbyists. We've had 25000 which is enable all legislation in that area to be defeated. And so it goes in these Neriah areas then we came to such things that strike benefits. Well of course management and Labor's views are entirely different. Labor wants that management doesn't want it so we have a good fight on our own in the field of employment security where they want more benefits each week. Management doesn't feel it can afford it. Entirely different point of view so we have a good fight. But we found where we had a a narrow range of common endeavor and common view. It enabled us even in these outside areas to quite often compromise them and do a job for the best interest of all concerned. That is the grass roots lobby. Now one of our major companies in America decided to try the same thing

in a different way. They called in 15000 of their employees inland. And said look there's a bill on Beacon Hill that would increase employment security from $35 to $40 a week I want you to get in touch with your representative and senator and ask them to vote against it. Well if 15000 merrily trooped up the hall call the representatives and senators a don't vote against the doublets and I would have done the same thing because there was no mutuality of self-interest. The employee's interest in management interests was entirely different and you can't con the people in labor you can't con the people in management unless you have a real desire to find an area of complete agreement. We have found that in general in the utility industry and is perhaps the reason certainly not mine not because of me but because of our employees. That over the last oh roughly 20 years there's been no legislation

that was disadvantageous to the utility industry passed in Massachusetts and that was a major reason the grassroots movement they contact their representative and senator they're fully informed both by the management group cleared through their labor groups so there's no question of any curve balls being thrown and they in turn go back to their representatives and senators when they come home and Saturday and Sunday and say look this means this to me. And that's far more important than all the speeches all the public hearings and all the rest on Beacon Hill. That is one method of approach and it has worked very successful We had it only last week to just give you a living example of it. The major oil companies in the United States filed a bill to prohibit electric and gas companies in Massachusetts from giving customer benefits. In other words up until the present time if you put in an electric water heater or you put in an electric

dryer air are in active washing machines the companies gave an allowance to cover the cost of wiring or to partially cover the cost of wire. Now the oil companies have done that themselves because they're not regulated they can do anything they want but they wanted to regulate the electric and gas companies to benefit them so that they wouldn't have any competition. It meant as far as the utility industry was concerned. And then the straightest drop rates in Massachusetts 22 million in the last three years and hopes to drop a 25 or 30 million next two or three years. The only way I can do it is by building loads by building bigger and bigger plants. And to do that they've got to use every promotional device in the book to increase the load to lower costs. This would prevent it. It meant a loss in jobs of roughly 4000 workers in Massachusetts. Well ever believe me every labor union the United Mine Workers the AFL CIO all the brotherhood of utility workers and all the rest flooded the state house

flooded the state I've talked with every senator I happen to be a Senate bill Senate 5 0 1 and when it was all through the great and general court in its wisdom decided 21 to 15 that the bill should be killed. Now that's a definite example of pressure at work from management through labor through notification of all employees through working with the labor leaders in the United Mine Workers and all the other companies so they'd understand the exact portent of the bill what it would mean what it would mean to them personally and they in turn by the thousands got in touch with their representatives and senators and the bill was defeated. Now that's the way pressure groups generally work. If they carefully coordinate employees in management now you have the other side you'll have Chambers of Commerce in many instances you'll have other groups go up there that give a speech before the committee condemning this or praising that and then they go home. And three

days later the bill they condemn went through are three days later the bill they were in favor of was defeated. And they wonder what happened to them. It is a difficult but interesting experiment in psychology if you will have that they industry in Massachusetts and business in Massachusetts twenty five years ago would probably have to give 5 percent of their time if that to any affairs in government. It was not an important factor in the business life of the community it was not an important factor in profits. However today if they do not get 50 to 60 to 70 percent of their time in government they want to have any profit. Nine tenths of the legislation filed on Beacon Hill will affect them seriously be a

workman's compensation Employment Security strike benefits or what have you. So all that most of these companies have every time the Massachusetts great and general court comes into being. Oh hundreds of millions of dollars at stake. And for that reason they must develop their own pressure group. You can very well say well isn't legislation something that's for the best interest of every one of course se. I deal in a republican form of government. There's no question about that. But who is to the side. What is for the best interest of every is a bill that's good for a thousand in BAD FOR 800 good for the Commonwealth as a Bill it's good for 500000 and bad for 400000 good for the Commonwealth and for the best interest of our citizens. The only

way that this can be found out is by the various groups showing an interest in presenting their point of view to their legislators so they can make a careful and considered judgment. Now we have very careful laws in Massachusetts far better than the other 50 states. As far as lobbying activities are concerned any organization be at the utilities the League of Women Voters Labor has to file under our lobbying statues of John Jones has been employed by the Apple CIO of the Boston Edison and the new electric system. The lobby and Bill saw and saw and saw and saw and saw unsolved as filed in the Sergeant at Arms office at the conclusion of the legislative session his employer is required to file with the secretary of state a report of how much he was paid for his activities in that regard is probably the

best and only real existing lobbying statute in the country. That is one of the measures we have a Corrupt Practices Act in Massachusetts to prevent industries corporations from spending money to elect a public official to help promote or defeat a referendum unless it's against themselves personally. Something that they do not have in but very few of the states in the union. We have a rules committee which constantly makes further rules and regulations as far as influencing of legislation is concerned. But they come back to how you attempt to influence legislation. I think first you have to wonder stand the composition of our great and general Court of Massachusetts. It is at the present moment overwhelmingly Democratic with a Republican governor in

both branches of the legislature Democratic It's been overwhelmingly Republican in the past but I don't think any of us here ever lived to see that day again. But of your two hundred and eighty members one of the con from well over the past few years we have had the highest salaried man in America over the last generation is when he had a poor year he made $800000 a year when he had a good year was up around two million one of our state senators. We had roughly 35 lawyers in the legislature that made over $35000 a year. We had roughly 60 members of the legislature that made over $20000 a year. And then we had 100 that depended entirely on their legislative pay for their support and the support of their family in other words what I'm trying to point out that you had a pretty fine representative cross section of the Massachusetts public from Forman's a very wealthy man. And

that is as it should be. But you had every section and every religious group every relation a racial group every color group represented in the Massachusetts legislature. So I suppose anybody that appears up there a liar be the represent a special interest no matter what it may be. He is far less a lawyer and I suppose more a psychiatrist than anything else is these are human beings these are people who have to go back and face a constituency that the rest of us do not have to do to get reelected to come back and they are really interested in learning the facts nine tenths of them are absolutely hungry to know the contents of these 5000 bills that they never have a chance to read. They have a legal staff of the state house in the Senate the three members in the house of five members.

They couldn't read the 5000 bills if they sat there for the next 10 years it wouldn't be time. So they look to all of various pressure groups to do something about it. Now the pressure groups go five. We have 39 daily newspapers in Massachusetts and we have roughly a hundred daily hundred weeklies. So we go to the newspapers and we explain on issues that are very important to the industries I represent for example our point of view. So that they understand as these public questions arise what our point of view is in connection with it. We go to the public just as much as we can as well as our employees to attempt to establish a point of knowing full well that those are the poses those of feel very strongly the other way will probably do the same thing. Now the general group says against special groups like the League of Women Voters for example is doing far more in that line than they ever did before the

taxpayers associations. I doing far more than they ever did before. Labor has always done a superb job in this regard. They are well armed with five or six hundred thousand members in Massachusetts. They are very well represented on Beacon Hill very intelligently represented they do a great job for the people they represent and industry has to compete with them in the fields where competition is necessary. But all these groups of three hundred and eighty five of them are up there daily contesting for the minds of the legislature. For them to hear them out on a given point of view and perhaps convince them or perhaps convince a majority of them and all these other tools of newspapers employees and all the rest. Becomes just an added way of bringing so-called pressures to

bear so that a point of view will be gotten across. Now of course you take your wraps when you're in this business sometimes even from a strange source. That's one of the vicissitudes of the game. The Crime Commission which you read so much about that seems to take great delight in making statements about public officials be at the legislators themselves in the trying times they've had with their own salary increase. You find a flavor coming out of there that's not conducive to our republic form of government. I know my own youngsters in school of come home to me and said I teach as I've said every politician is a thief. I represent some national companies who say why should we come into Massachusetts. Why should we come into Massachusetts we read all about this scandal in that scandal the other scandal.

And when I point out the number they overlook and sweep under the rug in New York and South Carolina and New Jersey and elsewhere while they may think about it for a few minutes. Fundamentally legislation is compromise. Special interest groups and lobbying activities have been with us for many generations. They will continue for many generations to come. I think more and more of the group of the general public this through organizations like the League of Women Voters like taxpayers associations like teachers groups and the RAS that can get the larger groups interested representing a even larger point of view will make far better government in Massachusetts and legislation that is in the best interest of more people than we've ever had before. Thank you.