Reserve Officers Association

Chapter 30

What ROA Does

Every now and again we get questions about how the association influences the legislative process in support an adequate national defense. The list of activities that follows, while not all-inclusive, does suggest the breadth of our legislative efforts.

To begin with, ROA's executive director, deputy executive director, service directors, and legislative counsel are all registered lobbyists. We seek to educate members of Congress and their staffers, many of whom have little or no military background, about defense issues. Our job, as lobbyists, is to influence legislation and to help shape the military policy that underpins our national defense. We are not a political action committee: we have no money to contribute to political campaigns. We do provide information to members and committees of the Congress and to officials in the Executive Branch of government, especially the Department of Defense. We also work with individuals and agencies in and outside of government to provide grassroots support for legislative initiatives and programs that affect all components of the military.

Our largest single asset in presenting the ROA story or point of view is our headquarters itself. Dedicated in 1968, and located on Capitol Hill just across the street from the Capitol and the Senate office buildings, the Minute Man Memorial Building provides a unique venue for our operations and continuous interaction with the members, committees, and staffs of the House and Senate.

In addition to providing a convenient headquarters and base of operations on the Hill, ROA National Headquarters, with its attractive office spaces, library, and fifth floor function room is an ideal location for meetings, conferences, and receptions. Operating out of the Minute man Memorial Building, our congressional liaison staff develops and maintains relationships with congressional members and staffers through telephonic and personal contacts as well as letters and testimony that outline the association's position on various issues.

We also make frequent use of our fifth floor for functions that involve congressmen and their staffs. The headquarters' location makes it the site of choice for receptions, seminars, informal conferences, and other educational meetings. The visibility, access, and good will that our "fifth floor" functions bring are substantial. For instance, we host an annual holiday luncheon for congressional staffers each December and a similar breakfast function that allows our National Council to meet with key staffers during our mid-winter meeting. The fifth floor is also the site of our annual "breakfast with industry" gatherings, at which the Reserve chiefs and representatives of defense contractors meet to informally discuss the Reserve components' equipment needs. All of these functions keep ROA's name before the Congress and remind lawmakers that we are their one-stop source for defense, and particularly, Reserve component information.

Focusing grassroots voter support for various defense-related legislative initiatives is another important function of headquarters staff. We work through the 1,200 members of ROA's Congressional Action Brigade (CAB) and utilize the Letters to Congress Program available at our semi-annual national meetings, as well as direct appeals published in The Officer. We also work in conjunction with other organizations of the Military Coalition, a consortium of 24 military-oriented organizations with a combined membership of more than five million voters, to present the association's positions on various defense matters and to influence legislation to reflect the will and intention of our members as articulated in ROA's resolutions and mandates.

Underpinning all of these activities are, of course, the association's resolutions, which are our member-driven mandates that focus our annual legislative agenda. These resolutions are provided to the appropriate committees and subcommittees of the Congress as well as the pertinent agencies and departments of government for comment and dialogue immediately after each of our semi-annual national meetings.

Another important feature of our legislative effort is the annual "Hill blitz" that takes place during the Mid-Winter Meeting of the ROA National Council. Organized primarily at the departmental level, the blitz gives attendees at the Mid-Winter Meeting the opportunity to talk with their congressional representatives and their staffs to present their views on issues of particular interest to them. The ROA National Staff prepares legislative agenda and position papers for use of members who are participating in the blitz effort and for those members whose departments are sponsoring breakfasts and luncheons with their congressional delegations.

Your association testifies before Congress as expert witnesses in support of specific national defense issues and as a part of the annual budget authorization and appropriations processes. We prepare testimony, answer questions, and provide information for the record. We also suggest questions that may be asked of administration witnesses, and keep the Congress apprised of developments within the Department of Defense.

We work closely with our friends in the Congress to plan and draft legislation and report language that reflect the association mandates and priorities. We assist congressional members and their staffs in coordinating legislative provisions and, when necessary, act as trusted agents to help broker compromises on contentious issues. We also prepare witnesses for their appearances before congressional committees.

In a period of severely constrained defense budgets, many of the items critically needed by our Reserve forces are never included in the president's annual budget request. Remember, too, that the service chiefs and the chiefs of their Reserve components must support the president's budget, which is based upon available dollars and service priorities, not solely upon component needs and mobilization requirements. Thus, the president's budget reflects budget guidance, not the chiefs' absolute requirements for their Reserve forces. The chiefs cannot tell the Congress what they really need if it's not in the president's budget -- and it frequently isn't. However, ROA can and does provide that information authoritatively to the appropriate congressional committees for their action.

ROA had a hand in the establishment of the Reserve Component Caucus in the House of Representatives. The caucus, which is bipartisan, and now has more that 60 members, was established to provide congressional oversight of Reserve issues and programs, and to serve as a focal point for legislative initiatives and actions that will affect the way our Reserve forces are organized, supported, and ultimately utilized. We see the caucus as a vital force in future Reserve affairs, and we look forward to working closely with its members in the years ahead.

In closing, I would be remiss if I did not at least avert to the fact that influencing the Congress and legislation is more of an art than a science. In practicing this art, we deal in the realm of the possible. Sometimes there are other practitioners of the art working against us, and sometimes their art is, for very good reasons, more powerful and persuasive than ours -- sometimes the dragon wins the day. What is important to remember, however, is that legislation usually takes time, changing peoples' views takes time, and that persistence and endurance will ultimately accomplish more than flash and bang, particularly if you're on the side of the angels to begin with.