Citizen lobbyists: This is your window of opportunity

By Chris Dornin, a retired Statehouse reporter and an amateur lobbyist

Here's a heads up about lobbying your state legislatures on behalf of reforming sex offender laws. The time to get started is now. The attached article in the August issue of the Economist is gold (http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14164614.) I hope everyone gives it to every lawmaker in your state. Or at least makes it a handout each time you meet with a lawmaker. They're more likely to read it as a personal favor to the giver. It's receiving a great response from the policy makers I've shared it with. Seven of our towns this week are going through panics over sex offenders moving into the community or about allegations against people who haven't been charged with a crime yet. Despite that climate, or maybe because of it, lawmakers on our side have agreed to sponsor a bill for us prohibiting towns from banning sex offenders. But a competing bill would establish a statewide 2,000-foot buffer zone from places where kids congregate.

We're prepared to hold our bill until a non-election year if need be, and mobilize to block or amend the hostile legislation. The sponsor is an old friend of mine from my news beat willing to share plans with me and vice versa. Remember, all gains have to be incremental, if you can make any gains this year. The losses can be tsunamis if you don't see them coming. The District Court in Dover, NH, just shot down that town's residency restriction on sex offenders, but the local decision sets no statewide precedent. That gives us at least the high ground against the coming offensive, if we can't take the initiative yet.

I'm encouraged that Democratic and GOP leaders alike widely, but privately, understand the sex offender laws are way out of touch with the data, but they're scared to be branded for re-election as soft on crime and sex offenders in what shapes up to be a tough political campaign next summer and fall. Anyone can understand their problem. It's not cowardice.

Lawmakers tell me they welcome testimony from sex offenders brave enough to stick their necks out these days. Find them and train them to testify. If they can't testify, they can be almost as influential talking to their reps by phone or by email as constituents. If you already know the way around your Statehouse, take some articulate sex offenders on a walking tour to meet lawmakers and tell them what's going on. The reps will share what they hear with other reps. Any personal contact is hugely beneficial.

Please start checking out your state legislative websites and learn to use them, because the window for filing bills is going to close soon in most states if it hasn't already elapsed. The earlier you spot the good and bad pieces of legislation, the better. After the deadline passes, and the one-line summary of bills is posted on line, you can find what you're looking for in half an hour by searching the list of submitted bills for terms like sex offender, predator and pedophile. Then network to the sponsors, both friendly and unfriendly, and to the key stakeholders. Keep watching for the proposed texts of the bills, which will be drafted this fall. Any work you do now behind the scenes will be far more productive than waiting until positions have hardened and political careers and credibility are on the line come January. Now is the time to meet your lawmakers. It's also the time to lobby your potential legislative enemies and keep them close and respectful. The bills haven't been drafted yet, and you can shape how they are worded. Even the enemy bills. Start with the bill sponsors. You can probably find their contact info at the legislative website too in a sortable Excel file you can download.

It's worth reaching out to your judiciary, by the way. Now is the time. I learned that tidbit to my surprise last week from a state senator who said I should speak to the governor's legal counsel, the AG and the Supreme Court chief justice to find out where they stand. Apparently, it's pretty routine for lawmakers and lobbyists to do this. Any lawyers in your group can also do some powerful networking within the Bar Association. Favorable articles in your Bar Journal reach every judge. I fear the war on sex offenders is going to be won in court, one way or the other, and the courts seem to be the last to get what's going on. Or they're touchy about stepping on important legislative jurisdiction after all the landmark litigation in most states over state funding for an adequate education. That turf war almost got our NH chief justice impeached, and I'm sure the same lingering feelings run pretty deep in other states.

The law journal articles I'm reading as preliminary research for a book against the war on sex offenders are running about 20 to 1 in opposition to the jurisprudence on sex offenders over the last 15 years. The law school academic community gets the reality that civil commitments, internet registries and residency restrictions are ex post facto laws and always highly punitive to sex offenders. Thus they are and should be found unconstitutional.

The judges need to act on that growing consensus. You can help them understand the huge personal cost to these laws. Be patient, though. No judge wants Bill O'Reilly of FOX making him or her a daily spectacle. Many states elect their judges, so you can picture the pressure they feel. Be aware a judge can get censured for violating judicial canons if they have an apparent ex parte conversation with you on a pending case. The person in your group with the best access to judges, maybe a lawyer or lawmaker, should make the approach, based on an established relationship. Even general discussion on a matter pending before the judge could be construed as ex parte.

One useful tip. The blogger and internet guru, eadvocate, has posted articles on his website documenting murders of sex offenders by state in the last 15 or 20 years. I believe you can also track those crimes up to the minute. He updates his site that often. There were five such murders in August, for example. A package of those news reports for your state would make a good handout at legislative hearings. Almost nobody in power knows about this sort of vigilantism. The mainstream press doesn't either.

Do the math. The ongoing witch hunt has killed about 10 times as many people as the more famous witch hunt in 1692.

Internet links to the articles would be helpful too when you're emailing stakeholders and policy makers. Lobby the opposition as dutifully as you would your allies. You won't get blind sided. You lose nothing by keeping them aware of what you're up to. Surprise is overrated in a legislative session that's almost a year long if you start now.

As a precaution on the murders, I'd take the time to call the newspapers in your state that printed the articles to verify the stories are legitimate. Another way is to go to the newspaper's website and see if the story comes up in an archives search. Eadvocate comes with good references from RSOL members, but some lawmakers will ask if you took precautions against getting hoaxed. You may never have to show your proof of due diligence, but be ready if you need it.

Better yet, surviving relatives of a murdered sex offender would make good witnesses in your legislature. You can find those people by using the published news accounts as a starting place. Maybe you can do the rest by Internet investigation.

If not, the presiding police station, and the court record if a case went to trial, will have the full folder on each case, and it's a public document. Read it. You might have to go to some central archive for the oldest material. You might find some amazing stuff in there that lawmakers need to know. Cops like to discuss cold cases, too, by the way. They may not like sex offenders all that well, but they dislike vigilantes even more. Think of every person you contact in the Statehouse is somone to lobby. They can all help, and they have friends who trust their opinion if you change it. Give them the Economist article. If they read it, that's one more person inoculated against the O'Reilly Factor.

Good luck. Email me if you have questions or shop talk to share.

Chris Dornin in New Hampshire, cldornin@aol.com