I was the Chief Lobbyist for the Association. It is a trade association which comprises realtors, who are like real estate agents…The Realtors’ Association has local, state and federal affiliations. I worked at mostly the local and the state level. Philadelphia occupies a very important position in the state of Pennsylvania, so I did some state lobbying work, but I mostly worked on city lobbying issues and did advocacy at the City Council and met with lawmakers. With any legislation that was introduced, we used to take positions on those. I would review the legislation and take them back to my board of directors, asking them to take a position for or against the legislation. Then, we strategize our legislative efforts according to whichever position the board of directors took, based on my review.
For example, if we took a position against a legislation, we would try to strategize our advocacy efforts to make sure that the legislation did not pass. But, sometimes when you do advocacy work, you don’t get 100% success. So we try to negotiate the least amount of damage that can happen with lawmakers, with the other side, the other coalition and within our coalition. So, we work to ensure that the legislation that passes is least harmful for the work that you’re doing.
I also did fundraising and political campaigns for my Association. Since ours was a 501C4 (social welfare organization), we were allowed to do fundraising and political campaign work. So, while I was not directly involved in doing political campaigns for elected officials or people running for office, I was doing behind the scenes work for them.
Source: Barandbench
