Preparing for Lobby Day 2006
Security design and hazard mitigation will be the focus of this year’s event.

ASLA Lobby Day will be held on Thursday, May 4, 2006. The Government Affairs staff is looking forward to working with ASLA leadership and members over the next several months to prepare.  We will be implementing new strategies designed to grow participation in order to maximize outreach to, and interaction with, members of Congress.

Based on a review of Lobby Day visits between 2000 and 2005, it is clear that ASLA members have routinely met with hundreds of House and Senate offices, many on an annual basis. At the same time, that review highlights gaps in coverage, especially in areas covered by multistate chapters. In an effort to increase interaction with every congressional delegation, for those chapters that cover multiple states and in which the trustee and chapter president are from the same state, one ASLA member from the other state or states will be invited to participate in Lobby Day.  

Lobby Day is a great opportunity to highlight issues important to the profession and the nation. It also can serve as the first step toward building long-term working relationships with federal policy makers.

In an effort to boost interaction with representatives in all states, ASLA proposes two other steps. First, we will encourage Lobby Day participants to meet with representatives from their state in addition to their own representative. Second, we will actively urge all ASLA members to contact their representative to request that he or she meet with the designated ASLA participant from their state. Our goal is to have constituents make these requests.

Government Affairs staff members continue to work with the Government Affairs Advisory Committee to finalize specific policy issues to focus on. We tentatively expect to be communicating about security design and hazard mitigation/disaster preparedness and perhaps one other issue. We do not expect to focus on funding for Historic American Landscape Survey (HALS) at least in meetings with representatives, because the appropriations process in the House is likely to be too advanced to approach members with funding requests. We are actively working with ASLA chapters and HALS liaisons to implement a separate HALS strategy based on the timing of appropriations bills.

Lobby Day is a great opportunity to highlight issues important to the profession and the nation. It also can serve as the first step toward building long-term working relationships with federal policy makers.  

For more information, contact Scott Kovarovics, Manager Federal Government Affairs, at skovarovics@asla.org.