Fax populi: armed with computers and fax machines, grass-roots organizations are shaking up the liberal establishment

ON WEDNESDAY morning, September 28, House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich phoned to tell Free Congress Foundation President Paul Weyrich that his staff had found some troubling provisions in the lobbying reform bill about to hit the House floor. In previous incarnations the bill had passed the Senate 95 to 4, and the House 315 to 110. But in conference--where negotiators meet to reconcile the Senate and House versions of a bill--language had been added that could impose onerous registration requirements on conservative grass-roots groups. Gingrich faxed Weyrich a draft of a "Dear Colleague" letter outlining the bill's trouble spots, Weyrich distributed it to the noon meeting of conservative activist groups at Free Congress, and soon the lobbying bill was under siege.

Gingrich also phoned Rush Limbaugh, who spent much of Thursday talking about the bill on his show. Weyrich appeared on the popular radio talk show hosted by Michael Reagan (son of Ronald Reagan) and slammed the bill on his National Empowerment Television network. The Republican Study Committee in the House faxed an alert to 500 talk-show hosts across the country. Representative Tom DeLay (R., Tex.) appeared on a dozen shows, including Limbaugh's. Americans for Tax Reform faxed a warning about the bill to 7,800 trade associations across the country. The Christian Coalition activated its fax network, reaching about 2,000 leaders nationally. So did just about every other conservative grass-roots organization. On Thursday the bill passed a key test in the House by only six votes, and the next week it died of a filibuster in the Senate.

"We were able to energize the nation in two hours," says DeLay. "We met with our Wednesday lunch group, informed the outside groups about the bill, and within two hours people were tying up the phone lines from all across the country. It killed the bill."

The obscure life and rapid death of the lobbying bill was a fitting punctuation mark to the 103rd Congress. Here was a piece of legislative arcana--purportedly affecting only Washington's pricey operators, crafted largely in the insiders' sanctum of a conference committee--that prompted outrage among ordinary Americans. Things aren't supposed to work this way in Washington. Now they do, thanks to a twin revolution: the rise of instant communications technology, (faxes, talk radio, the Internet), and the blossoming of an enormous grass-roots anti-government movement.

This techno-roots revolution threatens Washington's traditional liberalism, which has thrived in the dark recesses of Capitol Hill and the mind-boggling verbiage of 500-page bills. Information, rapidly spread, is simply taking away its base of operations. The enormous liberal edifice--from the universities to the Hollywood studios, from the networks to the White House--is being cracked by ordinary people. The establishment can hardly believe it. Reports the New York Times' Adam Clymer: "Republicans were careful to say they opposed the lobbying bill because it might hurt grass-roots lobbyists, not the Guccishod, K Street professional who stood outside the Senate chamber and cheered Thursday's vote." Also standing outside the chamber was Marshall Wittmann, legislative director of the 1.4-million-member Christian Coalition. Footwear? "I get my shoes at Hahn's," he quips.

"This is the 'We want to be left alone' coalition," explains Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform, itself an important grass-roots network. "The Clinton power grab didn't work because the country saw it coming. Most of the Left just have no clue why they lost. They really believe General Motors or some corporate lobbyist beat them. But it was the grass roots. The creation of syndicated talk radio and fax machines means you can get a response from the American people about what's happening in Washington today."

Sometimes Republicans didn't have a clue either, but the key to their successes in the 103rd Congress was finally recognizing the latent power of the grass-roots movements. The confluence of a public revolted by Washington and a liberal White House determined to overreach sometimes led to the appearance, as with the lobbying bill, of a major departure from politics as usual. Whether those moments can be recaptured next year will be crucial in determining the future of the Republican Party, and perhaps American politics.

Gore's Disappointment

THE rightward shift effected by the techno-roots revolution is apparent from the tattered condition of environmentalism. The 103rd Congress was supposed to produce a raft of environmental bills--elevating the EPA to Cabinet level, rewriting the Mining Act, reauthorizing the Endangered Species Act, ratifying the Biodiversity Treaty, etc. The Democrats got only the California Desert Protection Act, and that just barely.

Environmentalist goals have been blocked by the property-rights movement. Five years ago it barely existed; now it's a behemoth. The Alliance for America, based in Caroga Lake, New York, was founded in 1991 as a network of 23 property-rights groups. Today, the volunteer-run umbrella organization covers 650 groups and has a fax network that reaches 3,000 organizations, which in turn each send faxed material along to four or five other groups. Putting People First, based in Helena, Montana, was started in 1990 by a designer after her daughter was subjected to an anti-hunting diatribe in school; it has 40,000 members and its own radio program. The Oregon Lands Coalition, founded five years ago, has 82,000 members. The list goes on.