Broad legislative involvement helps retail voice to be heard

Discount Store News, July 17, 1995 by Ken Rankin

Not too long ago, lobbyists for the retail industry tended their own gardens and seldom wandered off into neighboring legislative fields.

When retail industry representatives came to Washington to testify before Congress, you could bet that the legislation in question involved the minimum wage or some other issue of concern to few interest groups outside retailing.

The industry's lobbying strategy at that time was to defend the home turf, concentrate on issues of direct concern to retailers, and resist the temptation to invest time, energy and political capital on broader legislation.

Behind this legislative tunnel vision: a recognition that while other interest groups would be willing to carry the ball on these broader issues, nobody outside the retail community would be likely to devote much lobbying muscle to the narrower issues that worried retailing.

With only limited resources to devote to the war for the hearts and minds of Congress, industry leaders made a conscious effort to narrow their focus in Washington.

That defend-the-fortress philosophy be an changing during the energy crisis of the 1970s. National energy policy was exactly the sort of issue that retailing tended to avoid. But when the threat of gasoline rationing and federally mandated building thermostat setting requirements threatened to adversely impact consumer shopping patterns, the industry stepped up to the plate.

By joining with other business, consumer and scientific groups to challenge these wrong-minded policies, retailing helped to end the "energy crisis" of the '70s by getting rid of the federal policy makers who created it.

It was a lesson that retail leaders took to heart. The forerunners of industry organizations such as the International Mass Retail Association and the National Retail Federation expanded and upgraded their government relations staffs in order to influence a broader spectrum of legislative and regulatory issues.

Soon retailing's voice was heard on a variety of government issues from product safety to patent law, federal accounting standards to international trade.

Today, it's not surprising to see national retail organizations such as NRF and IMRA actively stake out positions on health care, taxes, welfare reform or federal monetary policy.

At IMRA's Annual Convention in Boston earlier this year, the association's board of directors effectively concluded that the discount store industry needs to become involved in the drive to balance the federal budget.

IMRA's reasoning for tackling such a broad area of concern is straightforward and compelling: on issues that threaten the economic future of the nation, we're all in the same boat.

And when that boat starts taking on water, it's everyone's responsibility to bail.