Building Relationships During COVID-19
THE STATE WE'RE IN: Rutgers' ties to New Jersey state legislators have been more important than ever.
Successful lobbying is fundamentally about relationships. It is about understanding governmental processes, about being transparent and responsive, and about getting the right information to the right people at the right time. A lot of successful lobbying is about just plain showing up.
The pandemic has presented considerable challenges for those of us who used to spend our time in the halls of the state house in Trenton or walked the corridors of the office buildings serving the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate in Washington, D.C.
The pandemic has changed the way we do business. Legislative committee meetings, where important bills are discussed, are now conducted via Zoom; voting sessions are remote, too. New Jersey governor Phil Murphy’s budget address was delivered to 120 members of the General Assembly and Senate, along with his cabinet and other guests, while he was sitting on the 50-yard line at Rutgers’ SHI Stadium.
In his welcoming remarks before the governor’s speech, Rutgers president Jonathan Holloway quipped, “Welcome to SHI Stadium. I am happy to provide you with these field-level seats. The next time you are in this stadium, however, I promise you a football game!”
Despite these challenges, we have fared quite well. President Holloway has been on an aggressive schedule of meetings with Senate president Stephen Sweeney and Assembly speaker Craig Coughlin as well as with the legislative caucuses and individual members. He also meets regularly with Governor Murphy and his senior leadership team, which had included Diana Gonzalez LC’07, GSE’16, a proud Rutgers alumna and former student representative to the Board of Trustees, who served as the interim secretary of higher education.
The members of Rutgers’ boards have been building relationships with policymakers. Leading that effort has been the Board of Trustees Task Force on Legislative Engagement, chaired by trustee Mike DuHaime LC’95, SCILS’95. State and federal government affairs teams have been as engaged as ever and, with the support of the president and board members, managed to achieve a full restoration of more than $50 million in cuts to the university’s state aid that was proposed in August.
Rutgers is blessed with a president and board members who understand the importance of building relationships with policymakers. Just as important, their efforts are backed by a team of public affairs specialists who are in a class by themselves, among the very best.