CITIZEN ARCHITECT—GET INVOLVED!
AIA Government Advocacy and Advocacy Week
What you can do to have your voice heard

by Zach Mortice
Associate Editor

Summary: The AIA Government Advocacy team works to develop members’ abilities to lobby and engage their government and also brings architects’ concerns to the federal government with an in-house lobbying staff. As an outgrowth of their ongoing efforts to promote member engagement with legislators, the AIA Government Advocacy department is sponsoring Advocacy Week, during which they will support member architects as they bring legislative agendas to federal lawmakers.

How do you . . . take advantage of AIA Government Advocacy’s services and its Advocacy Week program?

This spring, the AIA Government Advocacy team is making sure that this year’s campaign season means more than televised debates and unsolicited fundraising phone calls. As an extension of their year-round duties to foster advocacy and political engagement, they will be sponsoring Advocacy Week from March 24-29, when they will be supporting AIA members who bring their advocacy agendas to federal legislators in their home districts.

To prepare members, Government Advocacy hosted a series of seminars and classes during February’s Grassroots Leadership and Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., providing information on planning advocacy and legislative events, raising money, basic advocacy, and more.

1. Energy efficiency and green housing
2. Better transportation and community planning
3. Reduce the 10 percent withholding of fees

In March, AIA Government Advocacy staffers hope to be in members’ home districts supporting them as they make their legislative requests and host special Advocacy Week events. This year, the team is focusing their efforts on three specific issues:

• Supporting incentives for energy efficiency and supporting green housing legislation
• Promoting better designed communities through transportation spending, namely in the upcoming transportation bill
• Reducing the 10 percent withholding of fees that architects are subject to when they do work for the federal government.

For details on how to get involved, contact Adam Melis, manager of Grassroots Advocacy, at amelis@aia.org, or visit the Advocacy Week Web site.

Federal, state, and local
Advocacy Week is an outgrowth of the Government Advocacy team’s year-round duties to develop and support members’ abilities to engage federal, state, and local government. The team fields advocacy suggestions year-round from members, culminating in a call for issues in early fall. As with Advocacy Week, the Federal Affairs team work to develop members’ lobbying abilities, but they also have their own team of federal lobbyists, led by Senior Director of Federal Affairs Andrew Goldberg, Assoc. AIA.

The State and Local Affairs staff works through members of the State Government Network (SGN) to organize and coordinate lobbying and advocacy. Because they deal with issues diffused over many different states and cities, they rely on SGN members based in their respective localities. Each state component has one SGN member as well as an alternate member and a case representative. SGN members are component presidents, legislative affairs chairs, contract lobbyists, and AIA members. To find your respective State Government Network member, contact your state component. For more information on state and local advocacy, contact John Loyer, director of State Relations.

The AIA Government Advocacy Web site contains a multitude of resources that can help architects engage their elected officials

The AIA Government Advocacy Web site contains a multitude of resources that can help architects engage their elected officials, from in-depth federal and state issue briefs on subjects like the new Architect of the Capitol and sustainability, to practical how-to’s, like explaining how to set up a meeting with a member of Congress, or how to set up candidate forums. The State and Local Affairs section of the site also comprehensively tracks pertinent state legislation on issues such as ARE timing, affordable housing, and sustainability rating systems.

A leading role
Over the past year, AIA Colorado’s state and local advocacy efforts have helped pass high-performance legislation for state buildings. AIA Utah and AIA Wisconsin assisted in passing mandatory continuing education legislation. A major victory for the Federal Affairs staff was the passage of the 2007 energy bill that included AIA-backed provisions to reduce the carbon footprint of new and significantly renovated federal buildings, increase fuel efficiency standards for automobiles, and establish new energy efficiency standards for appliances.

The Government Advocacy team now is calling on members to help extend this winning streak with their professionally honed skills as creative problem-solvers and voices of public engagement.

What do you have to say?