Advocate Summary

Issue:  Federal Public Safety Officers amendment to the Affordable Housing For Americans Act of 2002
Advocate:  Fraternal Order of Police – Chris L. Granberg
Date of Interview: 6/26/02

Basic Background
Just by way of background the FOP is the nation’s largest law enforcement labor organization, we have nearly 300,000 members across the United States, 42 state lodges and over 2000 local offices. In terms of our legislative office we have four issues that are top priority issues, one is concealed carry weapons authority for law enforcement, a nationwide collective bargaining bill, a bill of rights for law enforcement and then several social security issues we are working on and how they relate to pension benefits. So those are our top priority issues, on our website we have a list of abut 50 bills we support and are actively engaged with on a regular basis, that we work to get signed into law. Most recently I myself, the most recent bill I’ve been working on, honestly there’s a bunch, but the one with the most recent action is the Housing Bill, HR 3995, it’s called the Housing Affordability for America Act. Our concerns with that bill are three provisions that provide for home owner assistance for public safety officers.  What the bill did not do is two of those programs did not include federal public safety officers, which make up about 25,000 members of our organization. So we successfully lobbied for the inclusion of an amendment to that bill that would then include federal officers where they were omitted before. The amendment passed last Thursday, the bill was still being marked up by the full committee, the House Committee on Financial Services. There’s really no date for when it’s going to be moved out of committee, their still working on amendments they’ve had three markup sessions I think and they’re still trying to weed out the amendments. 

The Officer Next Door program has been in effect since ’97 and about 6000 state and local officers across the country has taken advantage of it. There are three different programs, the first program is reduced down payment requirements for loans, it actually applies to teachers too, teachers and public safety officers, the second program is the Community Partners Next door which provides both discounts and down payment assistance and then the third is the public safety officer homeownership in at risk areas. 

Prior Activity on the Issue 
This is an issue we’ve been working on in various forms for the last year the original bill, there were three original bills that had different homeowner assistance for law enforcement provisions, at the end of the first session they consolidated it into a bill that I think was 3191 and then earlier this year Congressman Rockman introduced 3995, now all three of those bills had an exclusion that the definition of a public safety officer was similar what’s in the public safety officer benefits program, you know if the public safety officer is ever killed or disabled their family gets a substantial benefit from the Department of Justice, and they had an exclusion at the end that said this term does not apply to any officer serving in a federal agency, so there was an exclusion of federal law enforcement. And in all five of those bills no one could ever explain to me why that definition was in there, and so since that’s the case let’s just knock it out of there. Delete those last four words, or those works that say “except and officer working for the federal government” and then everything will be right.  

We had testified, just by way of backgroud, we were asked in February or March of ’01 to endorse a proposal similar to what this bill has in it, actually it was just the reduced down payments for teachers and safety officers. We did that and right away we said why are these guys excluded, we said if the bill ever starts moving we would like to deal with this in a committee markup, we’d like to have this provision fixed that bill didn’t go anywhere, because it was incorporated into a larger bill that comprised all three programs, that bill then was brought in under this massive bill, which is you know 3995 is a massive Home ownership bill, we only have three little provision in it. So we heard that there was a hearing on this 3995 scheduled earlier this year, I talked with subcommittee staff, got us in on the witness list we testified in support of the bill but obviously we made the argument about the exclusion, you know this is unfair and there’s no reason for it. Following our hearing I had a follow up meeting with subcommittee staff and we just took it from there, they agreed in principle that this was a good fix and they were willing to do it. So when it was finally announced that the bill was coming up for markup, the only question was who was going to introduce the amendment, and I’m not sure who it was that made the decision, but they gave it to Mr. Tiberi, Mr. Tiberi gladly did it and that was it, once we found out who the sponsor was going to be we shipped out a letter, faxed out a letter to all members of the committee, faxed them out some talking points on our amendment, we followed up with phone calls to every member of the committee asking for support and in those phone calls nobody expressed any kind of opposition, they all said “well yeah this is you know.” I think faced with all the other amendments they had to deal with on this bill, this looked like an easy one that they could fall behind. 

Advocacy Activities Undertaken
So we talked to Chairman Oxley’s staff and we just got the ball rolling, like I said it was really a non-controversial fix. So Congressman Tiberi introduced it, it was approved by voice vote and now we are just waiting for the bill to come out on the floor. 

Future Advocacy Activities Planned
None mentioned.

Key Congressional Contact(s)/Champions
Congressman Patrick J. Tiberi (R-OH)

The sponsor was Congressman Tiberi from Ohio. There were no co-sponsors because it was kind of done, typically unless a bill is offered on the floor there’s not really a formal process for it. I mean there’s a process within the committee itself, but when you introduce an amendment of the floor then you kind of have prior notice of it. But in a committee markup like that it’s put on an agenda and it was agreed pretty unanimously, there was really no opposition to it, it was more of a technical fix then anything else. 

Targets of Direct Lobbying
None mentioned.

Targets of Grassroots Lobbying
None mentioned.

Coalition Partners: Names/Participants	
No we didn’t work with anyone else, it was strictly a provision we caught and as I said it was something we questioned since the first session of the 107th Congress and we worked with the committee staff to get it done. 

Other Participants in the Issue Debate
None mentioned.

Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence
We based our arguments on the Officer next Door program, that is operated by HUD, that includes federal law enforcement so we said if you are doing something similar to this there’s no reason why these guys should be excluded, particularly here in the District when you have, obviously there’s a lot of assets that HUD owns that could be provided to law enforcement, you have a substantial number of federal law enforcement here in the District, why should they be excluded from this program. And like I said nobody could ever, it wasn’t even a question of getting a valid answer, nobody could give me an answer at all as to why they were excluded. 

The purpose of the program is to put officers in at risk communities, to give the community somebody that they can turn to if they are fearful of something, that they have a figure in their neighborhood that they can turn to to provide them with assistance. They still have to buy the home, they still have to make payments and everything so we said that there is no difference between he service provided to the community by a federal officer or a state or local officer. 

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence
None mentioned.

Targeted Arguments, Targets, and Evidence
None mentioned.

Nature of the Opposition
We always kind of faced the impediment that “well, this is the way it’s always been” in terms of the legislation and the fact that nobody could give me an answer. I always assumed that they looked and it and if it was this way it was this way for a reason. And so in terms of opposition from the committee there wasn’t any, like I said it was approved by voice vote which means unanimously. 
 
Ubiquitous Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition 
Not applicable.

Secondary Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition
Not applicable.

Targeted Argument(s) and Evidence Articulated by the Opposition (and Targets)
Not applicable.

Described as a Partisan Issue
No

Venue(s) of Activity
House Committee on Financial Services subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity

Action Pending or Taken by Relevant Decision Makers
There’s really no date for when it’s going to be moved out of committee, their still working on amendments they’ve had three markup sessions I think and they’re still trying to weed out the amendments.

Policy Objective(s) and Support for/Opposition to the Status Quo
Working to pass an amendment that would include federal public safety officers in three provisions in the Affordable Housing for Americans Act that deal with home owner assistance to public safety officers.

Advocate’s Experience: Tenure in Current Job/Previous Experience
I was a political hack down in Alabama I worked on sever campaigns down there, and I grew up in this area, so I knew my boss from a previous life, I grew up here. And then I came back up here, I was trying to get a job on the Hill and came by here to get some advice and pointers and got a job offer so I’ve been here ever since, for four years. 

Reliance on Research: In-House/External (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Everything is done in the FOP, we don’t outsource anything to outside organizations. Depending on the issue, we work in coalitions on the issues. Generally though, when we have questions – the legislative office has questions about law enforcement issues we have a ready reserve of guys that we can call up and say “is this in fact the case, are you guys dealing with this issue down in your state.”  We have a grassroots network that we can contact almost instantaneously through email. In all 42 of the state lodges if we have something that we need to generate phone calls or letters from the grassroots we can reach out to those members to get that done. Essentially everything is done within the FOP, not necessarily in this office but in the organization as a whole.

Number of Individuals Involved in Advocacy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Four 

Units in Organization Involved in Public Affairs/Policy (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
We have four full time lobbyists that work out of this office. Our national president is also registered, so is our chairman of the national legislative committee. We have four members on there that do work, not so much lobbying the Hill, but they do getting up the grassroots, each one has a different region of the country and they work with us and the lodges to generate grassroots support for our issues. Generally we divide issues up by what members we have a relationship with first, and then by subject area. If I have a particularly good relationship with the staff of a particular congressman typically I would be the lead guy on that issue. By subject area we kind of break up the criminal justice stuff just because there is so much of it, I handle mainly federal law enforcement issues, federal officer issues, asset forfeiture is another one I handle, one of my colleagues upstairs handles firearms issues, so we kind of break it up by subject area or else by member.  

Advocate’s Outstanding Skills/Assets (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Type of Membership: None, Institutions, Individuals, Both (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
Individual, State Local and Federal Officers

Membership Size (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)
300,000

Organizational Age (Code for Organizational Advocates Only)

Miscellaneous