D.C. Insider Says Scientists Must Court Politicians

Former congressman Walgren, now a lobbyist, advises his clients to befriend lawmakers before advancing their own cause WASHINGTON--Scientists who feel frustrated because they can't get Congress to consider their remedies for what ails science can take a tip from a former legislator who is already sympathetic to their cause: Leave your data at home and start thinking instead about becoming friends with the congressional member whose ear you're trying to gain. Doug Walgren was such a friend. He was a staunch advocate of science during a career in which he served as chairman of the House science committee's research and technology subcommittee, which over- sees the National Science Foundation. He also served as chairman of the subcommittee on consumer protection and competitiveness within the Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees the National Institutes of Health. The seven-term incumbent Democrat was upset last November in a close race in his suburban Pittsburgh district. "It's one thing to be informed," Walgren says, "I know many scientists who want to form themselves into a little group to provide expert information when the member needs it. But the member never calls. And the truth is, he doesn't need much more than what he reads in the newspaper." Instead, says Walgren, scientists should think first about meeting the needs of their Senate or House member serving in Washington. That's more important, he says, than trying to convince their legislators of the importance of a particular issue. While a campaign contribution is always welcome, Walgren says, it's not the only way to a representative's heart. What a politician looks for as much as money, he says, is personal contact with potential voters. And that can be achieved by something as simple as inviting friends to a coffee klatch and letting the politician work the room. Once scientists have proved they can be useful in helping the legislator get elected, he says, they are in a much better position to influence subjects closer to their own hearts. "My feeling is that what you want to do is have a friend in Congress," Walgren says. "And the way you have a friend is to be a friend. And then, after you've told the member that you believe he or she can be counted on to do the right thing, you can tell him what the right thing is. That may be a little cynical, but it's essentially what should happen." Even in defeat, Walgren is stuck on politics. The urban Democrat has teamed up with rural Iowa Republican Tom Tauke, a six-term congressman who lost his House seat last year when he unsuccessfully challenged Sen. Tom Harkin. The two have opened up a lobbying firm in a townhouse a few minutes' walk from the Capitol in an effort, says Walgren, "to help people design programs to advance their interests in Congress and in the administration." Such services might well be useful to scientists, a group that some feel is not particularly adept at getting its message across to policymakers. Presidential science adviser Allan Bromley, who spent 30 years as a physicist at Yale University, said in a recent talk at the National Academy of Sciences that "the scientific and engineering community do not constitute a singularly effective political force." And in a January 15 interview in the newsletter Science and Government Report, Bromley attributed Walgren's defeat, in part, to the fact that "there was no great surge of activity on the part of academics in Doug's constituency to rally around and do something [for him]." There were exceptions. Herbert Simon, a Nobel laureate in economics and a professor of computer science and psychology at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Mellon University, has maintained close ties with Walgren for many years and contributed to his campaigns. "I have always found him intelligent and somebody who you can talk to," says Simon. But Simon stands out, according to Walgren, because so few scientists are willing to find common cause with politicians. "People think that the world is so big that nobody has time for them," Walgren says. "But that's not true. In fact, these members of Congress have every reason in the world to be available to constituents, and scientists more than most, because they are doing interesting things." Walgren explored how scientists can play a more active role in influencing the political process during an interview with The Scientist in his office. The 50-year-old lawyer doesn't fit the stereotype of the glib, glad-handing public official. In fact, the soft-spoken liberal Democrat comes across as meek to the point of self-effacing. Following is a portion of that interview. Q What should scientists do to make their voices heard in Congress? What works best? A The Congress is simply made up of a number of individuals, and to be heard you have to establish an individual relationship with them. And they are available, certainly on a constituency basis. That means that, if you have a national network, you should be able to place a number of individuals in a relationship with each member of Congress because they live in his district and they are his constituents. The problem is getting people to realize that these people who happen to hold public office are available to them. Q Does it matter if the member of Congress is on a committee that deals with science or, even better, one that oversees an agency that supports work in a scientist's area of expertise? A Any national science network can have a relationship with them all, because they would have people in all the districts. Obviously, you might want to focus on those who serve on committees related to the scientific effort. But, at the same time, I'll bet you that it's hard to find a congressman that is not directly related, on a committee level, with things that are important to science. More than that, each member is supposed to speak to issues regardless of their committee's scope. And one of the things that drives the committees is if other members, not on that committee, are pushing an issue that falls within the jurisdiction of that committee. Congress is a seamless web, and people shouldn't think that some members have everything to do with an issue and others have nothing to do with it. Q Most professions and special interests--truck drivers, bankers, and military veterans, for example--have one national group that represents them, and that tells its members when to speak up. Should science? A That's true. I guess it's because their interests come in much more direct economic terms [than does science], and their national agenda deals with issues that translate into bread and butter for their members. And that enables communication among their members to be done very effectively. But in science, you have internal conflicts, in which advancing one interest doesn't necessarily advance another. And oftentimes the issues are not directly bread-and-butter issues for scientists, and do not result in dollars delivered directly to researchers. And if those dollars go to one field, another field doesn't have much interest in them. So it's harder for scientists to make a general argument. Q Take a broader issue, like science education. You introduced a bill in this area that became law. How much of that was as a result of individual scientists or groups contacting you, and how much was it a result of your own interests and your feeling of what needed to be done? A little of both, although that initiative probably came more from the national scientific organizations. They are very sensitive to the shortfalls in science education, as is the university community. It was also a reaction to the move by the Reagan administration against science education, and support for it built up over time. But I want to emphasize again that these members of Congress are individuals, and they want to support their friends. Particularly friends who are individuals, because that's who we deal with. And we don't want to be a disappointment to people whom we have developed a friendship with. . . . I've always believed that the greatest motivator is not to fail a trust. And through friendship, these members of Congress can be impressed with a trust that they have for the interests that individuals who know them care about. And they will try, to the best they can, to be supportive of what their friends care about. Q How does a scientist become such a friend? A The immediate instinct is to provide them with information, to think that there is some factual information that the member needs. But the truth is, members of Congress don't need an awful lot of information. The job of members of Congress is to listen and sort out, to try to make common sense of what's happening around them. And that's usually not based on a really obscure fact or circumstance that's not already obvious to anybody who reads the newspaper. So I think the first thing that's important is to understand that members of Congress essentially are not operating on expert information. Q Given that a member always needs help in the next campaign, is that one way to be a friend? A That's right. The reason the founding fathers made it a two-year term is that they wanted the member always to need help in the next campaign, and to provide a way for citizens to become involved. And I'm a great believer in citizen contributions. We're fools if we don't use human nature to its best advantage. And one of the things that is so meaningful is what we call "citizen contributions." I heard a candidate recently who said he'd raised $250,000 in a campaign and he'd be hard-pressed to name those groups that had given him $1,000, but that he could name a lot of people who had given him $25. The point is, there's a way that's within all our reach, of helping somebody who's trying to run for public office. . . . These campaigns are not that big, and if somebody both holds a little get-together and tries to spread the word among their circle of friends and makes what you'd call a citizen contribution, that member is going to remember that person. And he's not going to want to disappoint that person, unless there is compelling reason to. And the way most issues come up in Congress, there's not a compelling reason not to support science. And so, in a sense, the person in Congress is not really between a rock and a hard place when it comes to supporting science. But he could use a little push sometimes to give it some real shape and form. Q Last year you and Rep. George Brown (D-Calif.) introduced a bill to create a separate social sciences directorate within the National Science Foundation. How did that NSF bill come about? A That came largely at the Washington level of several societies. But the most important overlay on that, I think, was the fact that, in my constituency, there are committed social scientists that I know who would care about that, like Herb Simon at Carnegie Mellon. Q How did you first meet him? A I think it was through Carnegie Mellon. There's an example of where a university, as a major constituent, brings about a lot of contact with the member. And that's good. But my instinctive response was that I felt he was a friend of mine. And he went out of his way to be a friend of mine, and he helped me. And that made a lasting impression on me. Q How did he help you? A It was during election campaigns. It was mostly in years past, but, as they say, a friend made is a friend forever. Although I haven't had any direct contact with him for a number of years, nonetheless that friendship is still there. And that's an example of somebody reaching out and being supportive in a way that they become a recognized friend. So when the national organizations brought that grievance to me, it had a basis upon which to stand in my own world. And that is a real motivator. It's just human nature--you don't want to disappoint friends. And that beats an awful lot of analytical arguing over whether it's the right thing, will it increase the administrative costs, and what are the ramifications on the rest of the foundation. Well, all of that really doesn't overcome friendship and what your friend believes is the right thing. . . . With an issue that comes up without being brought to you by somebody you know, it's hard to remember all that stuff. And you have to ask yourself, "Here's a parade of people unrelated to these members of Congress, at hearings or wherever. They're coming before you and giving testimony. But how do you remember the testimony of hundreds of people?" Well, you do remember points that are important to somebody that you have a relationship with. You remember that. To me, it was like the Mormon God being described as a god of body parts and passion. To a certain degree, a god like that would be much more real to us than would some other, perhaps more abstract, notion of God. The same thing is true about political ideas. The ideas that come to you with body parts and passion have an existence and a reality to you that isn't the case for something brought to you by somebody who you don't know and who is speaking to you in an abstract way. Herbert Simon doesn't actually live in Doug Walgren's former congressional district. Redistricting 10 years ago created a congressional district that encircles but does not include the city of Pittsburgh, and Simon at Carnegie Mellon University. But Simon says he's never had any trouble getting through to Walgren on an issue of science policy. "I've always felt free to communicate with him, although it's rare that we do it in person," says the 74-year-old Simon, a Nobel laureate in economics for his work on the decision-making process within organizations. "Usually I call him, or write him a note. And I've testified on a number of occasions before his [science] subcommittee." His Nobel Prize aside, Simon isn't an apolitical researcher. "I started life as a political scientist," he says, "and I was active in the anti-machine Democratic politics of the 1930s, as well as the first time that Paul Douglas [who would later become a United States senator from Illinois] ran for Chicago alderman." In short, Simon has a long history of being involved in the political process on behalf of Democrats, up to and including the three $500 contributions that he made last year to Walgren's primary and general election campaigns. But Simon says that neither his prominence nor his campaign donations would carry much weight with Walgren if the former congressman wasn't already receptive to hearing about ways to strengthen the country's scientific enterprise. "Doug played a major role in saving social science research in the early 1980s after the Reagan administration had tried to cut out funding for the field," Simon recalls. "And I was one of several scientists who talked to him about that issue." Scientists must try to nurture such interest, Simon says, even if their representative or senator disagrees with them on a particular issue. "He [Walgren] doesn't always agree with I am saying, especially on the subject of earmarking federal funds for academic facilities," says Simon. "But his defeat means that the scientific community has lost someone who understands the importance of basic research. I just hope that we can find other members who are equally strong in their support for science." --J.M.

D.C. Insider Says Scientists Must Court Politicians

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