Forgot to Introduce Myself

[James Cooper <james.cooper@socma.com>]

I joined the discussion so late that I forgot to introduce myself.  I happen to be an industry lobbyist in Washington, DC.  This has been a great forum and I've been glad to participate these last couple of days.  My perspective may be a little different than one would initially imagine.  Here's a short list of my circumstances:

- My organization is a non-profit trade association
- We do not have a PAC
- We primarily represent small- to medium-sized companies
- We work more with government agencies (executive branch),
  although we also work with Congress (legislative branch)

The reason we work with government agencies is because that is where the laws are implemented.  Most laws are somewhat vague when it comes to making them a reality.  Members of Congress are too busy to dwell in the details.  We do get involved in helping draft legislation because the laws must make sense and be practical if they are to be effective.  It is also important to take a law's various impacts into consideration.  Economics is often viewed as a dirty word when it comes to regulatory and legislative impacts.  However, the economic impacts of laws and rules can affect many things that will eventually impact the general public.

I don't mean to ramble on about why we do what we do, but I just wanted to provide a little insight to how we operate.