particularly welcome the field in my constituency and customers who are in the cutting edge of this technology, can my right honorable friend guarantee he will not promote this scheme but retrofitting like companies can do and do well to reduce our carbon footprint? >> mr. speaker, she's absolutely right. the scheme will help 125,000 households and is already showing that it is popular and will cut carbon emissions. the retrofitting measures such as insulation will play an increasingly important role and i would draw people's attention cold weather payments are being made to those people who are affected by the cold weather right across the country in many areas including london from january the fourth and 6.9 million payments have already been made of 25 pounds a week. we are doing our best to help people through the difficult winter weather and we will continue to do what we can to ensure that elderly people in particular will turn up their heating and not allow themselves to suffer from the cold.

>> with the severe weather that's predicted to continue for the next five days which has hit my constituency so badly, what action is the government taking now to make sure that supplies of salt and grit are going to get to where they're needed most including the stockpiles that are held by the agency? >> she's absolutely right. i think the whole house wants to be assured that in this difficult period of weather where some areas are being more hit than others, than those areas that will need to grit the roads will have the salt to do so and all the support that other local authorities who are not so affected and central government can give them. and i could assure her first of all that salt supplies have been built up as a result of what we discovered and what we did last year. at the same time, i can announce that there will be greater coordination of the distribution of salt so that those areas who need that salt will not be denied it. and i hope i will be able to

reassure her constituents that they will get the salt and the grit that is necessary. >> the leader of the house has written to the house of other parties on this issue the government is keen to proceed on a consensual basis. >> you say politics is ever more the private playground of governments and media and it's a backdrop with little independence. will the prime minister take the pours that he has to bring forward for our agenda not for debate but for decision the proposals to reform this house? will he please do that in the next few weeks? >> it's in all our interest to say both the standard of debate in this house and what is discussed in this house should reflect what are the views and the values of the people of this whole country. and all of us want in this new year to make sure that the house is discussing the issues that matter to people.

as far as the issue of the select committee report, we welcome the select committee report. i know he's a long-standing -- taken a long-standing issue on these reforms and the back-bench of the committee party ballots all of these have been looked at in detail and the leader of the house has made clear that we have an opportunity to make a debate in these due course. >> mr. speaker, in due course we've been waiting now for weeks. isn't it typical of this government and this prime minister? he makes a big announcement on june the 10th last year that we're going to have urgent reform in the house of commons when it comes to action, the government acts with all dispatch with a particularly arthritic slug on its way to a funeral. will he tell us is he still -- is he still committed to urgent action to this ineffective and incompetent house or are there people on his own bench stopping it happening? >> he gives me a great deal of

home that the approach is going to work. mr. speaker, i think he is part of the talks. the talks are taking place. the issues -- the issues about the creation of a business committee, party ballots for select committee membership and ballots of the chairmanship. these are issues that were recommended by the committee that was chaired by the chairman of the public administration committee. these are issues that we're now discussing. they will form the subject of a debate and decisions by this house. >> presentation of bills, mr. andrew -- >> from london, you've been watching prime minister's question time from the british house of commons. aired live every wednesday while parliament is in session at 7:00 ama ameastern on c-span2. you can see this again sunday night at 9:00 pm eastern and pacific on c-span. for more information go to c-span.org. at the top of the home page, click on c-span series. for prime minister's questions, british parliament and

legislatures around the world and you can watch videos dealing with other international issues. >> american icons, three original documentaries from c-span now available on dvd. a unique journey through the iconic homes of the three branches of the american government. see the exquisite detail of the supreme court. go beyond the velvet ropes of public tours of the white house, america's most famous home. and explore the history, art and architecture of the capitol. american icons, a three disk dvd set. it's $24.95 plus shipping and handling. one of the many items available at c-span.org/store. >> next, a conversation on corporate lobbying and government relations. we'll hear from a microsoft lobbyist at this hour and 20 minute event hosted by american university's public affairs and advocacy institute.

>> oh, welcome back to the public affairs advocacy institute. i want to say members of this class are becoming famous on c-span. we're getting all kinds of emails about some of you but i won't tell you which ones. i'm getting some positive emails about the class and a lot of people are enjoying it. and i like that very much. it's sometimes hard for our speakers to do c-span 'cause they leave out all the good jokes. but with ed ingle, i don't think that's going to be a problem. he's always entertaining. >> i'm a big joke in and of itself. [laughter] >> he's always entertaining and wise. ed ingle managing director of government affairs. microsoft is our next speaker. he's spoken in the program many times. and how you build credibility and capital and how you use it

and how you manage around certain issues that might come up before a corporation, in this case, microsoft. and as you know, and he'll talk a little bit about it, microsoft for a while did not have washington representation. i found that amazing because bill gates was an intern on capitol hill for a while. he should have known better that you can't have a business model without having some relationship with the government with such a large corporation. he's been in this position since 2003. prior to that, he was a deputy assistant to the president for cabinet affairs and that's described in the biography that's handed out to you. and before that, he worked -- for 12 years at wexler & walker and for a while it was ann wexler's firm while there he was and you know about wexler walker because we had joe molina talking about coalition-building. it's widely respected.

he searched in the george h.w. bush's re-election campaign. he's been in the white house in other positions. and he has a publication that i've uploaded to blackboard for you. i recommend it for you on government relations. some of -- how many of you have read it. oh, good, so most of you have read it. [laughter] >> they are on top of this. they are very busy. we're going nine days on this. he's a graduate of university of tennessee. and most importantly, he has a degree in public policy from indiana university where i got my ph.d. and i'm very proud of the fact that he's a distinguished alum. and he was a pmi. it's a presidential management intern. now it's pmf, presidential management fellow. i recommend to all of you to think about applying for this because you come in at a very high position, you at omb, and you're on the fast track if you

don't screw up, you didn't screw up, you've done very well. welcome. >> thanks, jim. good afternoon. i'll start the session off by giving you a piece of good news that i just got. you know the geico commercials, not the geckos i got some good news. i was told i was going to have to pay for parking and when i pulled in, it's free day, it's complimentary day at the parking lot. you know, you have to take every little thing you can get and in washington, free parking that's a big deal. i always enjoy speaking to this class and frankly i speak to a number of different classes. i'm also -- i don't think jim mentioned. i'm also an adjunct for nyu and i go once a year and teach sort of a condensed government relations course in their government communications program. i very much enjoy that.

i teach a number, you know, guest lecturers in town. i sincerely like this course because frankly the level and caliber and the astuteness of the -- of the students in the class because so many of you, as jim just pointed out, are working right now real time in some of the, you know, jobs in town that, you know, are impacted by public policy, politics, government affairs and that really makes for a much more robust conversation. so, you know, so with that i want to make sure that it's an open dialog. stop me anytime. ask me questions, challenge me on something but let's have a good discussion today. >> something i didn't mention nyu, it would be like mentioning google to you. i mean, it's really -- >> it's in their program. it's not a competitor -- that's the only reason i brought it up. anyway. but we can talk about google if you want. [laughter] >> okay. we've covered it. okay.

just a level set. i know you've been at this, what, a week what a lobbying, what is government relations? what we're going to talk about corporate governance and what we do on a weekly basis is lobby. and lobbying if you'd read the chapter, i think there was one person who did, at least my definition and there are a number of definitions but at the heart of it lobbying is the practice of advocating one's policy position to a government official with the hopes of influencing legislation regulation, or government action. and i put in the government action, you know, because you can lobby on something, you can lobby to get the president to put something on a presidential address and legislation that may not be regulation but you're trying to affect government action. nevertheless, that influencing

or that attempt to influence public policy is lobbying and lobbying can come in direct or indirect forms. direct forms are meeting with a member of congress and having that conversation and trying to directly influence public policy. another -- writing a letter to your congressman is trying to directly influence public policy. that is direct lobbying, you know, emails that's direct lobbying. indirect lobbying is -- and you probably -- joel would have talked about this, you know, grassroots lobbying. it's trying to get others on your behalf or at least express or weigh in with government officials to express a policy position that you care about. so it's like the coalition work. it's the grassroots work. that's indirect lobbying. it is lobbying nonetheless. again, because you're trying to influence your whole goal is trying to influence that particular piece of policy. now, the broader world of government relation encompasses lobbying in addition to other things. does anybody want to take a stab what would fall outside of the bounds of lobbying but would

still be in the government relations bucket. let me help you. [laughter] >> for example, a political action committee which we'll talk about. a company or a trade association or a -- or a labor union having a political action committee is a very important part of a government relations portfolio but it is not lobbying per se because you're not -- you're not exactly using that for a particular piece of legislation or regulation. providing strategic counsel. let's say, you know, it's very common for me on a weekly/monthly basis to provide counsel or advice and counsel to my management or if i'm a consultant -- you probably heard from consultants already or you will provide counsel to their clients on, you know, what you should or should not do. it is not directly or indirectly trying to influence legislation.

but it may be in the broad sense sort of government relations counsel. so that falls outside of lobbying per se but it is very important on -- you know, in the whole government relations field. and also just advertising or running an editorial in the "washington post" where you're expressing either a position. it pay not even impact a piece of legislation. that can fall -- that government relations communications falls outside of lobbying per se but it is also considered government relations. okay. here's what i wanted to cover today. and again, as we go along, feel free to raise questions or make points that you may have or raise points that maybe other speakers have brought up so we can have a good conversation. number one, why have a corporate government relations function? we'll talk about.

how would you -- if you've decided as a company you need one, how would you go about organizing it? then what i call sort of the corporate g.r., the corporate government relations and the tools the company can bring when it comes to government relations and then sort of the basic fundamentals of government relations, you know, from a corporate -- and then reputation management. why reputation management on there? why is that a part of this? well, unless you're paying attention to your companies or your clients' reputation then all the other ones are being moot. if you're not doing a good job of putting together good government relations campaign and if you're not dealing good job of protecting your company, your client's reputation, then frankly your whole government relation strategy really becomes moot. okay. why have of a corporate

government relations functions? well, first and foremost to build those relationships before you need them. you know, in any walk of life, whether it's, you know -- your next door neighbor, whether it's your professor, it's always best to sort of introduce yourself, build a relationship with someone before you actually god forbid actually need them. need them to help on you legislation, need you to potentially stop legislation. so, you know, that's why we advise -- you know, i advise people all the time, particularly companies if -- let's say they are a fortune 1,000 company and they are considering opening a washington office, it's important to build these relationships before you may actually need them. because it becomes a much more effective if you're trying to again influence policy if you've already gone on and introduced yourself, here's what our company is and here's what we do and here's, you know, how we employ folks in your state.

here's how we help with the economy. it's again having -- just like you would have, you know, with your neighbor, i mean, if your cable goes out and you need -- you know, you need cable or fios, if you've already introduced yourself and you became good friends you have a better shot at their fios. it's being smart in that way. defend against bad legislation or regulation. this is defense. this is playing good defense. it's not unusual at all for a company to find themselves, you know, facing some legislation. i mean, you can just throw a stick at anything that's going on in congress now. you've got the healthcare debate. you've got the energy debate. you've got the tax debate. any number of which can present problem areas for companies. and so you need to be able to go in -- if you've got the -- if you've got the government relations function, you can go

in and represent your company and go in and explain to them why this particular piece of legislation or regulation would be bad for your company. here's why and here's how we can possibly make it better to accomplish the same goal. by the same token that's playing defense. same token there's the offense. that's seeking advantage through the legislative or regulatory process. a lot of people, you know, react on the defense side but, frankly, if you're running a fairly sophisticated government relations operation in town, again, you know, today my conversation would focus on companies but this would apply frankly to a nonprofit. it would apply -- it would apply to a labor union. there's also a lot of opportunities sometimes to go in and get on the ground floor of a proposed legislation or if you find out that a senator or a member of congress or a

committee has taken up an issue, you can go in and offer up some help and solutions that would advantage -- potentially advantage you in a way that you would otherwise be disadvantaged. so again it's playing smart offense. now, this only applies to companies, private organizations. fiduciary responsibility to the shareholders. it's -- this is when i tell again friends or people who ask me should we open up a washington, d.c., office. i say if for no other reason you owe it to your shareholders to have someone here monitoring the issues of the company so that they can respond whether in a defensive way, or an offensive way or monitor issues that somehow could impact that company. you just owe it to your shareholders to do so. just as you owe it to your shareholders to have a good corporate p.r. plan. you owe it to your shareholders to have good tax attorneys. you owe it to your shareholders

to have a smart and capable board of directors. likewise, you owe it to your shareholders to have a smart and strategic government relations plan and a presence in washington particularly these days -- a presence in washington where you can monitor activity in washington. defend against bad legislation and potentially look for opportunities to take advantage of other legislative or regulatory situation. -- situations. okay, speak in your own voice separate from an industry trade association. it's very common. you may have heard from someone from a trade association. they play an important roles of a company like ours. we are a member of a number of trade associations and they help -- trade associations help companies speak in a broader voice. but there are going to be times when an issue is just company-specific or there are going to be times when you may have members of trade associations who are on

different sides of issues and they're going to have to speak in their own voice. and so albeit if you're a fortune 1,000 company and you just don't have a budget to have both a government relations office in washington, d.c., or a government -- a dedicated person to handle these issues plus pay trade associations dues, you may opt to be part of a trade association and in your case, that budget decision -- that may -- that may make some sense if you're fairly aligned with other members of your trade associations on issues that are important to your company. with that said, there are going to be times when you'll need to speak in your own voice and this is critically important. and there's times when microsoft needs to speak in it's own voice -- 85% of a time we may be in alignment with a lot of technology companies but that 15% -- it's important to say we represent, i'm from microsoft and here where we are on this issue. i think that's critically important.

and then finally just show respect for the political process. and this frankly gets lost, i think, in other companies and businesses who come to town and they know that, well, this is something we should do. they go through the motions of doing it. and then they really forget at the heart of it is that what this is all about -- it's a public policy and political process. and if you're engaged in it, if you're showing up, you know, who was who said half of it is showing up, it really is in washington. if you're engaged in it, you hired people specifically for this task, you're spending time educating members of congress and decision-makers and executive branch officials, you're part of that process. then that shows you have a certain level of respect for that. and that's important. if -- and i've been on the other side. if i'm a government official and you're coming in and you're lobbying me and i know you don't have a washington presence. i know maybe some of your competitors do, and maybe you've made public comments about why

you don't think you need a washington presence or washington is just sort of a pain in your rear end, that's not really showing a lot of respect for the process. and so for me as a government official i'm going to be less inclined probably to give you a fair hearing. you know, as part of that conversation. whether i'm a member of congress or executive branch official so again i think it's showing a lot of respect for the political process. questions so far? okay. how to organize it. just touch on this briefly but there are questions you would ask okay, if you're going to start your own -- if you're going to have your own government relations office, how would you organize it? where would you locate it? where would it be in the company? you know, at microsoft, the government relations, government affairs is all part of the legal department. and that's not uncommon. however, you'll find that other companies it could be part of the communications department. it could be part a of -- let's say you're a heavily regulated industry.

maybe a electric utility and one of the subsidiaries could be more heavily regulated than others and you could potential put the government relations department there. so there's no one place that it fits in any company. so as a company you need to decide well, where does it make sure where it is in our company. where to physically locate it. that may seem like an odd question. but there may be situations where a company has more state government exposure and certain state capitals, let's say they are california-based. they have a lot of issues before the state of california and they're going to decide we're going to run our government relations operations actually out of sacramento. we'll have somebody that will monitor what's going on in d.c. but we care more what's going on to the state level can to the extent they spill over to the federal level they want to monitor it. that is not out of the question. so but that would be the reason you would ask where to locate it. by and large, you're typically going to locate in washington,

d.c. and you'll have your state people spread around the country or back at headquarters or potentially working from washington, d.c. who to head the organization? well, do we want, you know, a former member of congress? do we want a former cabinet second? do we want a big name in the political and policy circles or do we want -- do we want someone that's much more policy-grounded that's more of the policy wonk who can monitor these issues? it really depends on the company and the set of issues and it depends the personalities on the company and all the above. it depends what's going on at the time. you could have just walked in and, you know, before the xm sirius merger that went before the fcc a couple of years ago you could have walked in and you immediately had to ramp operations and you may opt -- err on the side of throwing a lot more horses at it than you would otherwise than if you're a fortune 1,000 company that's testing the waters and getting

into the government relations game, you may start with, you know, fairly low-level staffer who is just policy smart and just following your issues so it really depends on the situation. and, of course, there's always the -- how much budget do i have? in this day and age with a lot of scrutiny over budgets, a lot of concern over the economy, you know, these are real questions that companies -- all companies are asking. >> structurally, what about your counterparts and other parts of the world? for a company like the size of microsoft, is there a similar reporting line or are they totally separate from like the u.s. policy? >> we do our u.s. government affairs out of washington, d.c. i have counterparts that sit in a lot of the foreign capitals that i work closely with and we all report up to the general counsel. but compare that to a general electric who they run everything out of the washington -- they run all the of the government affairs out of the washington, d.c. office so i compare notes of friends, you know, over there forecast.

-- for example. it's not unusual for a fortune 500 company to do their global government relations out of washington, d.c. you're still going to have people, of course, in the local regions in this foreign state capitals. in our case, we still do u.s. government affairs out of, you know -- and that's both state and federal out of d.c. but we have country managers and a lot of government relations folks in beijing, tokyo, brussels, et cetera, et cetera. >> i should mention that microsoft has been supportive of the brussels program and they've always treated us very well and given great presentations. >> we ramped up -- look, a lot of this is not rocket science if you just read the papers, read "the wall street journal," the "new york times," the financial times. you'll read that, you know, particularly last several years the european commission has really been after -- you know,

it's been nipping at our heels for a number of reasons. in light of that, we tend to ramp up sort of government affairs operations in these countries and now you're seeing -- you know, now they are doing the same thing on intel. and so where you have a lot of activity, you know, whether it's regulatory, whether it's potential legislation, and it may pop in brazil, it could pop in tokyo, you know, a lot of emphasis on china, you're going to naturally ramp up activities there. and assets. and this gets a little bit into the question that we had earlier. but in terms of -- there's different office models, you know. there's the office model -- you may have -- there are a handful of fortune 50 companies who are very large. they may be 50, 60, $70 billion companies. they may only have one person in town. it really depends on the company. how they're regulated. how exposed they are to various legislation.

and whether or not that they decide to have 20 people, 40 people or 1 person in town and how they're structured. particularly if you're a fortune fortune dn unusual to have one or two people in a washington office, and they may be -- and we'll touch on consultants later, they may be sort of supplemented by some d.c. basis but in terms of companies working in the company they may have one or two people. and one day you may be up in the hill lobbying tax and the next day you may be talking education, the department of education so on and so forth. so you're really covering the waterfront. and enthere are those organizations that are the issue lobbyists. and this is a very classic models for the fortune 100 types. where you may have 4 or 6,000 lobbyists in towns. they own baskets of interests

where they get fairly deep on these issues. who has a tax and national portfolio. you may have someone who does, you know, the work force education sort of issues. and so on and so forth. this is a very common model and they lobby those issues all around town. whether it's, you know, going to department of commerce. whether it's going to the house energy and commerce. w.. whether it's going to the senate and transportation. whether it's going to republican or democrats. they are lobbying the issues all over town. that's there set of issues. very common model. another common for the very big and highly regulate the. let's say the telecoms, energy companies,ing they may have the legislative and regulatory side. they may have, okay, we have our congressional lobbyist and regulatory. in the case, they may have the regulatory. their big focus is the fcc.

the fcc. a light goes on there a lot goes on the impacts their company. and their business. at the same time they have a .eparate set of congressional offices before the house and egulte. fairly common on those fairly regulated companies. egcrosoft is a little bit of a hybrid much closer to the third legislative regulatory, because we are not heavily regulated, we set it up as political legislative lobbyists who lobby the hill. and we have a policy specialist and they came up with our legislative lobbyists to lobby on any given issue all around town. if there is a pass reform legislation before the house and senate, if the bill was moving

in the senate side and on that particular day you are lobbying the majority staff on the senate judiciary committee the majority staff would be the democratic side, we have four lobbyists in the quadrants. we have senate democrat, senate republican, house democrat and republican, they work with their policy colleagues and patent reform attorney and they would go in and lobby these issues. this allows us in microsoft to walk in and show that political respect for the process, walking in with someone who has experience having worked in the senate and having worked on the democratic side, or has lobbied the senate democrats for long period of time and has built

relationships and is responsible for understanding and lobbying across the waterfront of issues but if they are trying to really refine legislative language or really be a policy resources, go in and hopefully be fairly effective that way. we can take this approach much like the large regulating companies can take this approach because we have dedicated a fairly sizable amount of money and resources toward our public-relations efforts. we have 20 plus people in our office and when you have two or three people you can't take this approach. it makes sense for our company to take this approach, the have subject matter experts work with the relationship and house of senate lobby experts, people who have really -- having worked in those areas, and this has served us well. we think at the end of the day

for as we don't try to say if i were you at this company or that company you should take this approach. it comes down to the issues your company is facing, the history of your company, the type of product and if your company has potential government action exposure. okay. there was one slide here that would be your take away. it was this. on any given day, if you want to manage a successful corporate government relations function in washington d.c. and a lot of this would apply in state and international, but if you want to manage a successful government relations function,

there are various things you can work with. some of these require -- a lot would depend on how big the budget is but if you are a fortune 100 company and you have a fairly reasonable sized budget to work with these are the tools at your disposal that should be on a monthly and annual basis leverageing and depending on what is going on, you may use these tools more than you will use other ones. but these tools are things that on a daily weekly basis that we turn to to help promote our government relations, government actions and policies that we care about. at the top of the list is how we use insults. one of the best ways that you

can influence policy in town is -- i think a consultant is an extension of your own government relations operation. a consultant can provide you dependent on what issue is hot for you that year or that month or those couple years that you are working on, these consultants can bring you a lot more intelligence gathering capabilities, they can provide strategic counsel, may bring on a former member of congress who could have been chairman of that committee or a ranking member of that committee who can really put you in the head of what a member of congress is thinking when you approach these issues or when we reauthorize this bill five years ago this is what happened. as good as your own inside staff maybe it cannot replicate some of the consultants you can hire

to give you that sort of potential relationship that they may have based on their own credibility on certain issues so the consultants can be critically important. if you are fighting major issues they can provide boots on the ground. if you have three people inside on your own staff and you hire some consultants you can cover more ground on the hill if in a short period look how fast things are moving, if you are working in health care things are moving at rocket speed, relevant terms, so you have to cover a lot of ground and consultants can help you do that. we touched on trade association, how a company utilizes a trade association can make or break how successful they are. like i said before there are

going to be issues where the company will need to speak in its own voice. the vast majority of issues will be issues that other members of the trade association, other members of that trade will also agree on. it is always better, as of person from the trade association told you, it is better to speak with a broader voice. if you can speak on behalf of the entire trade or the entire industry will have a bigger impact than if you are saying this company feels this way or this company feels this way. trade associations can be important. how accompany utilizes and works with them and manages their relationships with them can make or break your government relations effort. i always like to talk about this. action committees, there are few

companies. if you look at -- i haven't looked in the last couple years. when you look at the fortune 100 companies you will find a handful. maybe 10% or less but in that neighborhood will who do not have that. most companies this side are going to have a political action committee. some will be a lot bigger than others depending on how much attention they give it within their company, but pacs in my estimation, where i come from, political action committees can be an important part of your portfolio. it is not the only thing, but it can definitely add in what i think shows the best value. remember the slide i said you have to show respect for the political process. if you have pac, represented in washington and you have issues before congress and the

administration particularly at 11 involved congress and their reelection but if you are lobbying them and saying this is what microsoft thinks or what caterpillar thinks or what this company thinks and you are making that case, but that member of congress thinks i happen to know that this company doesn't even have pac, it is not because -- is a big company, they could have pac if they want to but they have chosen not to. it may say to that member of congress that they don't respect the process in of to respect the fact that i am up for reelection. i am pretty much in the same place as this company may be on their issues. they are asking me to support a certain position. they don't have enough respect for the process to have a

political action committee. a political action committee is not -- from the outside it looks like the company's political action committee and it is to a certain extent but by law it is the employees of that company's political action committee because it is voluntary. employees voluntarily give to the pac. i am the treasurer at microsoft. we spent a lot of time educating employees on why it is important and one of the key questions we get is if i give to the pac, they are going to support members of congress who i don't support who are on the other side of issues that i don't agree with. that is all well and good but think of it like a mutual fund. you should continue to get personal donations to those members of congress, those people running for office in support your issues but the pac is all about supporting those

candidates running for office who support issues that the company cares about. these are business decisions the same way that you are going to have -- you are going to decide to have an advertising department and run tv ads. the same way you are going to use this much on this tv program or this much on online advertising. these are business decisions. pac is a business decision. allowing employees to voluntarily contribute to that and directing those dollars to members and candidates who support your issues is a smart thing. for no other reason it shows respect for the process. >> in the introduction you are treasurer of the microsoft pack and you are also chair of the executive committee and the committee makes determinations as to where the money should go. you are right in the middle of

it. >> we get a lot of questions. i give you money for the pac and we take it -- if you are an employee with our pac what we really want is the payroll deduction. once you sign up for that we have got it until you tell us to quit. otherwise you can write a onetime check for that year. where is my money going to go? who makes those decisions? we have a bipartisan committee of public affairs professionals making those decisions and it is -- as i tell our employees, you want those decisions made by professionals who are closest to these issues. i want our tax attorneys working on our tax issues. i don't want to monkey around on these tax issues if it is an accounting issue or tax legal

issue. it is bipartisan, three democrats, three republicans, federal and state, in our case our pac support our federal candidates and state candidates. so many states have taken a page from the federal playbook and totally banned corporate dollars. microsoft can't write a big check to the dnc. we can never write a big check to a candidate. until 2002 we could write a check to the political parties. in some states you can do that. corporate money. the political action committee what they call hard money, you can write those checks and a political action committee not just to candidates but up to $15,000 you can read them to the rnc or dnc. or the triple c. the house democratic campaign committee. we can use the pac for that.

we can no longer use corporate dollars. government affairs related pr. as i tell the students i talked to, i am in the communications business. on a daily basis by job is communicating public policy positions to government officials. my audience happens to the government officials. the government audience. the audience is typically the public at large. we work very closely with our corporate public relations counterparts. they are part of the government relations toolbox. we make decisions in the washington post. do we want to run what we call an editorial that supports a particular policy at a time when the policy has been debated

before congress? do we want to have someone from our company do an op-ed? these become corporate pr related decisions that have very much a government relations implication. remember the graphic early on? it is not direct lobbying but it is very important to overall government relations. how do we use corporate executives? you have obviously witnessed the financial crisis, the economic situation, you have seen a lot of execs particularly in the industries that are hurting come to town and testify before congress. spent a lot of time with the administration. out accompany utilizes and leverages those execs can be an important way of dealing with how successful they are at government relations. you can overuse and neglect.

the only reason to have lobbyists in town is to do that. from time to time you need to be able to amplify to your government audience whether it is the cabinet secretary or a member of congress that you are lobbying. this is so important for us we brought in our company executive, our ceo, president of a division, we brought them in to help us talk about this issue and its impact on our company or our industry. the execs can be an important part of the toolbox. not just execs but employees at large. at microsoft we have 90,000 employees now. two thirds of those are still in the united states. surprising to a lot of people, even people in this town, it is incumbent on us to educate members of congress that we are

not just a washington-based company. that is where we are headquarter but the majority of our employees are there but we have a large number of employees in many parts of the country. he probably have 1500 in north dakota, over a thousand in charlotte, over a thousand in texas, over a thousand in silicon valley. and then we have five or 600, almost a thousand in washington d.c. area. lot of those are employees who work with the government in the mid-atlantic business. when we walked into a member of congress's office, they are new york based, we have 800 employees in new york city, to leverage those employees from time to time who are not only speaking on behalf -- it is the

magic word constituent. when you are speaking -- this is what you are talking about, grass roots. if you come at it from all angles to influence policy, here is where microsoft or my company is on this issue, you have your employee who references that company but there also a constituent of there's, that becomes very critical and can make a big difference in your lobbying campaign. these are the things you can't rule out every day but there may be issues and there will be issue on an annual basis that rise to the level where you want to go to your employee base and will you call your member of congress, when you send an e-mail or twitter or go on facebook or come to washington and help us lobby on this issue so they can put that constituent hat on.

>> i have a question with regards to leveraging your executives and employees to help you with your efforts. you said that a lot of your jobs in your capacity at microsoft has to do with p r. i was wondering in terms of increasing the overall effectiveness of that contribution, how much public speaking coaching goes into helping them better advocate what you want them to advocate. >> employees and execs -- we coach every exact from the top down. you are going to go before this member or this committee, obviously coaching them on testifying before a hearing on a 1-on-1 meeting but definitely coach them. here is what you can expect based on our experience.

here is who this senator will have in the room with her. this cabinet secretary, here is how he will approach this most likely. here are the three main points you would probably make right up front because they will take over the community. we do a lot of coaching. that is part of our job. you have got to get the message down. that is part of the fundamentals. knowing the issues is key but communicating that is half of the equation. you can have the greatest message in the world but if you are not going in understanding the environment, understanding the audience, understanding the time limitation, we are meeting -- he could get pulled off of the floor so you only have five minutes with her. let's make the points right up front. eight times out of ten you get

the full half-hour or 15 minutes or whatever time was allotted. we coach them and put them in that environment. you can only do that if they had that experience. hopefully we will have time for questions about all of the scrutiny on lobbyists and registered lobbyists and the profession at large. if you are a shareholder or you are in the company you want to know that you have professionals who know how washington works working on your behalf. you have corporate pr professionals who understand the pr business working on your behalf. you want to know you have tax specialists working on your behalf and lawyers representing your company. other questions? >> in terms of your interaction with the home office especially

microsoft, their primary business has nothing to do with politics. do you find yourself someone who is executing from the top down policy, people you report to have determined or are you personally acting as the eyes and ears and interpreting on your own what microsoft is on different issues or where microsoft should be involved in taking that people -- >> all of the above. we have high corporate priorities. a major corporate priority hasn't changed, high skilled integration. unless companies like ours get access to the world's best and brightest students pleaded sylvester's and phd students who are getting educated here, unless we get access to those through our visa program, unless we get access to those, we will not continue to be the leaders in technology.

is that simple. we need to make our own education process better and grow right here at home. there are fewer and fewer americans going into the subject areas. if we want to compete, the best and largest software company to the american base, we need to have companies like ours to have access to this. it is a key business imperative. we get that from our ceo and we lobby on that issue of integration reform. there may be other issues you are alluding to as well. they are not on our business radar screen but these are issues we are monitoring from washington d.c. and we take back to our executives. this has come in this environment. wasn't on our radar screen because it could impact our company in this way. it is really both. we need to be vigilant on both

sides of that. >> you talk a little bit about utilizing trade association, but do you ever find yourself competing with the likes of apple, google and other companies for influence on capitol hill? >> if there are issues we are in a different place on that will be the case but 90% of the time we are on the same issues. technology companies, what do they care about? immigration is key for us. the patent reform issue is key. we need the patent system to the 20 first century so that we can -- companies can continue to get returned on that. issues like trade. large u.s. companies and even smaller and medium-sized businesses, free trade is important. trade is a big issue for us.

on all the issues i just named, all of the tech companies you just name a car on the same page. there may be situations where one week microsoft is announcing a merger on this one that runs counter to what google wants. those are business decisions. we will lobby the hole on those regulatory agencies on those issues. but by and large we are on the same page with a lot of the tech guys you just mentioned. intellectual property, access to the best -- free-trade, tax issues, the tax structure of the given company. marshall employees, leveraging coalitions, people came in to talk about grassroots, trade association is sort of a formalized group of members of companies that make up a given

trade or industry. coalitions can take that step further. typically they are in formal. they may only exist for certain period of time to pass a certain free trade agreement. they may represent not just an industry but different industries. if you are speaking from many different industry voices they can have a lot of impact. working with the think tanks. there are scores and scores of think tanks in town from all spectrums working on any given issue from every difference in the political spectrum and there could be think tanks that are working on issues that you care about that you may want to support by supporting these think tanks supported by individuals, corporations, these are non-profit. you may want to go in and partner with -- if it is doing

work on high skilled immigration and the need for reform we may do a panel and bring in some experts. that is another part of that. it is not lobbying but it is part of the government relations function and toolbox. here is the fundamental that i touched on and alluded to earlier. some of this you will go that is not rocket science. when you want to promote your business or your company's issue or position on an issue, sounds crazy but you need to know what you are talking about. you need to have done your homework and you would be surprised. some of you may work on capitol hill. you may be a recipient of -- lobbyists like me say i want to talk to you about this issue. some people come in and there is

a little sliver of information. it is very evident that they have not done their homework. do your homework, anticipate questions, know your own issues and walk in and tell your opponent's side of the story. if i am being lobbied, if they don't tell me -- i will ask -- who is your opponent? 5 and figured it, what are they going to tell me? if you do a good job of a public official you will welcome the opponent to talk about that issue as well. if you are being a stand-up credible representative of your company. here is our answer to that.

do your homework. it is really not before the sec. is it the house energy commerce committee or the senate judiciary committee, where is the audience side issue? that will dictate the strategy. if it is an issue the house is not paying attention to but the senate -- there is a subcommittee on senate judiciary that is paying attention, focus is on that committee. you will focus attention on what experience you have on that committee or members of the committee, it is a very different set of strategies that you are going to have for that. the audience could be all of the above if it is up big piece of legislation. this is important. ownership. it gets to the trade association and coalition question. who owned this issue? if this is a merger issue, if

this is a merger issue is this one that only affect the company and not the industry at large? that is microsoft. we own that issue. this only impacts us so it will be up to us to lobby. most likely it may be bigger than at one company. it may be the entire industry or a set of companies within the technology community may be in line on that issue so they become the owners. how you determine who the owner is built dictate the stratewilld the game plan. the environment changes, politics change. the white house changes. you need to change your game

plan at every step along the way. there is the relationship building that is key at the heart of government relations. going in and introducing yourself to explain your company, educating them on your issues, offering to be a resource to them. i wanted to talk about political management. companies fall a lot of times fall short. they need to do all of these quite well. when it becomes political management, part of that is respecting the process. they can do a better job treating this aspect as a key piece of how they do their overall government relations. in terms of -- we talked about the respect.

the emigrate fluency in the political process. if i am being lobbied and you talk about the process and you may know your issue, but i can't quit doing that, you don't even know how the bill is made. you don't even understand that. we may do it this way in the house or senate. you don't understand there is a conference with that or how it will work. you need to be fluent in half of the political process works. do your homework and -- that comes back to the conversation we had earlier. leave it up to professionals. if we are dropping the ball on this we may not be in this business very long. my employers will find somebody else who is fluent in the political process who knows the issues and how to build strategies'. it is important to be fluent in this process. how to engage the process. we talked about political action

and how to use that and leverage that. it says to that candidate we respect the process. there has been a lot of attention on pacs coming out of the last couple rounds with the campaign finance law but the whole concept of pac back in 1974, there has been a lot of additional transparency added to the process but they continue to survive. if we can wave the wand and say tomorrow that no money in campaigns, no pacs are needed, that would not be a bad thing but as long as campaigns cost money, pacs are one of the big old outs, the best way to fund them as long as it is transparent. it is very transparent now.

on a monthly basis, the recipients on the receiving side, candidates have to report on a monthly basis and those of us on the giving side have to report. as long as they are there, i think every company, the fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, utilizing every tool in their toolbox as part of that. there are pacs, and an employee contributing to a company pac but there is personal giving too. i give to our pac and i give personal dollars -- there are a lot of situations when our pac will not support a candidate particularly where facts support incumbents. some of them will support challengers. in an open race some pacs will

not support one or the other because you don't want to be wrong. you don't want to support a person who ends up losing. to fill that void, employees can write personal checks and become involved in political giving as well as executives. it is all part of the toolbox, part of the government relations process showing respect for the process. as long as it costs money to run these campaigns we have got to find legal ways, credible way is to participate in that process. political giving pacs are part of that. corporate sponsorships. here's another one. it is not lobbying, is not direct lobbying. there are clauss in washington where certain federal officials may pay attention and microsoft is seen as a sponsor of that

cause we need to factor that into our equation. there are new reporting laws that involve specific members of congress or an elected official and that is fine. transparency is a great thing. there are a good causes that do good things that it is incumbent upon companies like ours and many others to decide how to use their dollars and in some cases it may mean sponsoring some heart association or diabetes or children's health benefit. the company being seen in a good light particularly as it relates to being a good citizen on an issue that government officials care about. campaign engagement. we ramped this up in the last several presidential elections.

there are a number of microsoft employees who voluntarily go and work on the obama campaign or the john mccain campaign, they do it on their own time because they want to. we are able to take advantage because they are there. it is personal to them but it is also they are seen as a microsoft person engaging in the process, showing respect to the process. i get questions all the time, every presidential cycle. should i volunteered? does the company care if i volunteered? if you want to do that, is not just the federal level. if you want to get active in your local community, if you want to get active in your state government or the federal elections, we are all for it. it is what you do in your personal time but a lot of that -- no matter who the candidate

is. a lot of that helps the company. we are aware of that. we like to see that citizenship, that political engagement. cultivate allies, neutralize opponents. you are not going to get very far on issues you care about that you want to influence if you are not cultivating allies. it could be trying to cultivate alleys who are decision makers but also allies in town to build that coalition of support. other companies or other interests, it is not unusual for us to reach out on the immigration issue and have conversations with the labor unions to try to find common ground that we can work out on these issues. cultivate allies to move it forward. it doesn't have to be a trade association. building those allies are important. neutralizing opponent to.

if your opponent is espousing one line of attack, if you are doing your job and lobbying and you think that line of attack doesn't hold water, point those out. they are trying to do the same with your approach. neutralize opponents, do your homework. bring it to the decisionmaker and let them make a decision. lend a hand on other issues. a company like ours learns over time that it is not just about what is on the top five issues. what is it that this company wants? it may be many times there is an issue that didn't make the top five but debated in town, has big implications. you are not going to change

that. you could go in and help on that because it is something -- healthcare is a good example. a lot of our friends in the health-care industry are working on an issue night and day before a company like ours who cares about our employees and we have a very good health care program for our employees, we care about all our partners we work with with thousands of small and medium-sized businesses we care about their ability to get health care and we engage in the health-care debate to seek reform. we are best supporting actor that most in this. we are not the leading actors in this bill we find even if it is not one of our top issues, at some point you need to engage -- that can be helpful in your overall government plan. on those occasions it may not

necessarily directly benefit yourself. it comes back to that respecting the process and rolling up your sleeves to help out. when it is all said and done, if you hammer through the course of this and telling your company's story and defending your company's position and building those allies and making your case, if you haven't done a good job protecting your reputation through all of that, it is all really moomoot. warren buffett said it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five years to ruin it. we can rattle off a bunch of names but we can think immediately. think for twenty-second of names of people who were the pinnacle of their careers and in an

instant, the rug was pulled out from under them. it could be from wrongdoing or perceived wrong doing. in an instant there reputation was whisked out from under them. same thing from a person -- a corporate reputation. you have got to know on a daily basis, if i am not seen as going in and shooting straight with my audience, they know me as a person who bends the truth or leave out facts or twist the story in away that is misleading, they will not get me an audience and that will get around. that will hurt my reputation and heard my company reputation. >> just to do with public relations in general, it seems to me that microsoft would have

to be more cognizant of how all the immediate and their constituents might interpret activities on capitol hill. i am curious if that is the case. a lot of the more typical corporations might be busy in d.c. a very diversified industrial conglomerate where their name is removed from the subsidiaries or products they sell. they are a little more free with what they are doing in d.c. but the brand name of microsoft prepares will be massive scope of your customer base is so much more unique. do you find in your job you worry about this more than industrial firms that are head quartered here. >> other companies have that same concern given their footprint, given their profile, given the nature of our company.

it is no secret. we have been under the bright lights with regulators in the past. on the antitrust issues we think we turned the corner and we face a lot of those, hopefully turned the corner with them. being in the throes of that, when you pile on top of that the company we are where we have a very high-profile chairman like bill gates, we are very cognizant on a daily basis. this is where it becomes important. because of what we just discussed i would say to anybody whether you are in the russell 2,000 company or company number 287, on a daily basis, we were a small business at one point. what you say and do it today, how long has google been around?

12 or 13 years? look how big and powerful they are now. they were not in town then. in a span of ten years a lot can happen. there are a lot of people who could still be in town. if you are not caring about your reputation ten years later you are a big powerful company, you need to know you are living by this in a daily basis because it will bite you at some point. even if it doesn't, if you do these things it is going to make you a more effective government affairs lobbyist. there's always pressure and you always want to say there's pressure to cut a quarter or bend the truth or leave that piece out but i can guarantee you if you are doing these things and you care about this, you are going to be more

successful government relations professional and it is not just government relations. we could be having this conversation about any number of professions but given the scrutiny over our profession at the moment i would say you'd do these things whether you are in microsoft corp. ge or intel or caterpillar. you need to be doing these things anyway. even in the short run it is going to pay off. >> how do you think the financial institutions and banking institutions of america are doing right now with respect to your good advice right here? >> their house has been on fire. we have been there to a certain extent, not to the extent that the black lights came our way in the 90s. their lives have been turned upside down. what this tells me, they have to

be doing this. if they were not doing these things two years ago or five years ago, those companies are paying for it right now. if you have been minding these sets of issues, building those relationships, when your house is on fire and you are talking to that government official even though that official may not have been there. if you were a good agent you will be in a better position to positively influence that policies and you would have been otherwise if you decide the lights are on and we had better start doing something. if that is the case, that will not pass the test and people get that. surprisingly as we have seen in town, there is a lot of recycling that goes on in washington d.c.. i have seen it in the 25 years i have been there.

i tell any upcoming government relations person it is a small town so be nice to everybody. you never know who that person may be tomorrow. >> what advice would you give to someone who is trying to build a coalition and bring a company like microsoft into that coalition? how would you go about approaching them? >> you would have to have done your homework. it realistically impact microsoft if it does, put your case together and meet with the right people and when i say the right people it is a coalition based in washington, it will be our office in washington. sit down and make your case. here is how it impacts microsoft. companies like microsoft and we have in the coalition, this is what you get by participating in the coalition. you get a seat at the table to determine what our decisions

will be. it is that sort of home work that you do to make your case and you would be lobbying microsoft about the coalition. >> you mentioned the role of the government relations office as one that plays defense in the policy process. @handles communications and that sort of thing along the communications side. i am interested to know your thoughts on the government relations office playing a revenue generating roll. in the government money is always being spent within the stimulus package alone, billions of dollars in health care, education, smart grid technology, what i want to ask, the revenue driving government market targeting roll, something that microsoft sees as a role for government relations office can play?

is that located somewhere else within the organization within a few other company structures to have that office? >> that is a good question. it is a question of companies like ours have been facing over the past year. we haven't built a skill set to develop money. some companies depend on their top business. they rely on government contracts. we work a lot with partners who rely on government contracts but historically we have not followed money. then all of a sudden you have this economic stimulus package. it has changed the dynamic to a certain extent that every company all of a sudden sat down starting with this washington d.c. office and looked at the package, brought in some consultants and made some determinations, there are folks in the state we should be

working with or partners in the state who are doing things we should work with to try to help identify pockets of money. they are dedicating a lot of money to own broadband. we have lobbied that issue on how we think that money should be deployed in the best way. we think a lot of that money should go to what we call the cornerstone institutions in communities like hospitals, universities. you put the broadband there and things will sort of drive from that. we have been lobbying from that regard. you raise a good question. it is instructive that most companies did not have any bills in apparatus to follow an economic stimulus. they had to create it pretty quickly to build the know how, the apparatus and some are doing better than others and some are not doing well at all.

a lot of it will depend less on what the operation has in d.c. and on what operations and personnel and consultants you may have in the state capitals. >> great question. i would argue a big aerospace industry from seattle, that markets the defense department should have those marketers as federal registered lobbyists. as much of the discretionary spending in the budget or the federal government, only 30%, the federal government buying things. large corporations selling things, which influences public policy. should they be federal registered lobbyists? >> that is a good question. at the present day they are not under most interpretations.

i raised that question too. should our colleagues -- cell to the government, should they in any way -- should they register as lobbyists? what our outside counsel is telling us is no. and to the rules of what constitutes lobbyist activity they should not be, it depends on how they file. if you're like most big companies you file in a certain way on your disclosure forms, they should not be. that doesn't answer your question -- what should be done. i don't have a strong opinion on that because 95% of business activity is not necessarily impacting policy. but i can't totally say, in some

cases the policy is impacted. it would open up a whole new realm. by and large i am on this side of transparency. what i don't like is when they segregate, if you are a registered lobbyist you shouldn't be in this meeting. everybody should be treated the same. whether you are in a company or labor union or interest group, it should be transparent. if they want to talk about a report on a certain issue, that is all well and good. they should not segregate -- you are a registered lobbyist. you can't go in this meeting but your counterpart to sell the government can't go in this meeting. they could be treated the same whether you're a company or labor union. >> thank you for your time. [applause]

the reason i brought up this last issue is the will be talking about that and other special reforms and unintended consequences of the attack on lobbyists. we will be talking about that a lot. >> i envy the class now having this conversation in a two week period against the backdrop of what is going on in washington. >> it has been. thank you for coming. >> you are welcome. >> we are going to take just a little while to talk about some of the things that went on today. i will answer any questions or your comments about today but also handing out our schedule for january 6th. we are going downtown. >> up next on c-span2, more from

american university. we will hear a washington lobbyist talk about the role of lobbying. new york governor david patterson delivers his state of the state address. he will focus on ethics issues including campaign finance law and term limits. watch live coverage at 1:00 p.m. eastern both. >> from wall street journal economics editor david wessel on ben bernanke and the economic collapse of 2008. he will discuss his book with the first director of the congressional budget office. afterwards bleaker still part of this weekend's booktv on c-span2. now available, abraham lincoln, great american historians on our sixteenth president. a great read for any history buff. it is a unique contemporary

perspective on abraham lincoln from journalists and writers from lincoln's early years to his life in the white house and is relevance today. abraham lincoln in hard cover at your favorite bookseller and in digital audio to listen to any time where digital audio download are sold. learn more at c-span.org/lincolnbook. >> next a conversation on corporate lobbying, from a former capitol hill staffer who works as a washington lobbyist. this event from american university is 1 hour and 10 minutes. >> welcome to dave 3 at american university. our first speaker today is mr. murphy. she is from the successful lobbying firm madigan and jones and is new to that organization.

she will talk about what it is like after 25 years on capitol hill working on the house and senate working for very prominent active members in the senate from senator tom-0 and senator durbin and others and what it is like to be at the other end of pennsylvania avenue and working as a lobbyist talking to some of her old friends and colleagues on the day to day basis. welcome, sheila. >> i hope everybody had fun reading on the scenarios and all that and have a good sense where you are going on your projects. i am up here without any paper because i put together a big outline