Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 912, Working as a Lobbyist.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 912.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
Go there and download a learning guide for this episode.
This episode is a dialogue between Cody and Jada about someone who works to try to influence public policy.
Let's get started.
You're not the kind of person I would expect to work as a lobbyist.
Why not?
I picture lobbyists as being kind of pushy and corrupt, using underhanded tactics.
So what do you do exactly?
I meet with legislators and try to sway them to support laws that are favorable to the people and companies i represent and to discourage them from voting for laws that aren't.
You're a spokesperson for your clients, then I'm more than that.
I work for clients in the private sector and in corporations, as well as for special interest groups.
I advocate for what would benefit my clients in a way that they can't do themselves directly.
Isn't there sometimes a conflict of interest?
Let's say your client this month wants a law passed and your client next month doesn't.
What happens then?
I'm glad to hear you say that.
I could use the services of a good lobbyist.
I've been trying to get my wife to agree to buy a new boat...
Stop right there.
In this case, there is a conflict of interest.
Your wife talked to me last week and wants me to have a little talk with you about that new boat.
Cody begins by saying you're not the kind of person i would expect to work as a lobbyist.
A lobbyist, l o b b y i s t, is someone who works with government officials usually elected government officials and and tries to get them to vote a certain way on some law or some regulation.
Lobbyists work to try to influence what we call public policy, the government's policy or the government's actions about a certain topic.
Cody is saying to Jada that he did not expect her to work as a lobbyist.
I should mention also the verb is to lobby, L-O-B-B-Y.
That means to try to influence a government official.
Jada says, why not?
Why didn't you expect me to work as a lobbyist?
Cody says, I picture lobbyists as being kind of pushy and corrupt using underhanded tactics.
The verb to picture P-I-C-T-U-R-E means to imagine something in a certain way to have an image or picture of something in your head.
Cody says that he pictures lobbyists as being kind of or sort of or somewhat pushy and corrupt.
To be pushy, P-U-S-H-Y, means to be very assertive, we might say, aggressive, forceful.
Someone who insists on getting their way, insists that everyone agree with them.
That would be a pushy person.
Corrupt, C-O-R-R-U-P-T, means that you are doing something wrong.
You are lying.
You are cheating.
You are doing something to get influence, usually with a government official, although not always.
Cody says that he pictures lobbyists as being pushy and corrupt and using underhanded tactics.
A tactic, T-A-C-T-I-C, is an approach, a method or a strategy, roughly speaking.
Underhanded means dishonest, unfair.
We might also use the word sneaky, S-N-E-A-K-Y.
Underhanded tactics would be doing something in an unfair or dishonest way.
Jada says it's not like that at all, at least not for me.
This phrase, powers of persuasion, refers to your ability to change other people's opinions or decisions by saying, telling them information that will change their mind, or giving them another option, another way of doing whatever they're trying to do.
Cody says, so what do you do exactly?
The word exactly means here precisely, in detail.
Tell me what you do from this moment to this moment or this day to this day.
Jada says I meet with legislators and try to sway them to support laws that are favorable to the people and companies I represent.
Legislators, L-E-G-I-S-L-A-T-O-R-S, are people who are elected as representatives of the people.
Representatives in a state government or representatives in our national government can both be called legislators.
The verb to legislate means to make a law.
So legislators are people who make laws.
Jada says that I meet with legislators regularly. and try to sway them.
To sway, S-W-A-Y, means to persuade, to convince, to change someone's opinion about something.
Jada tries to persuade or sway these legislators to support laws or to vote for laws that are favorable to the people and society companies she represents.
Favorable, F-A-V-O-R-A-B-L-E, means useful, beneficial, helping.
We might also use the word advantageous, something positive for a certain person or group.
Jada wants the laws to be favorable to the people she represents.
To represent typically means to go in the place of someone else.
So, instead of you going and talking to the legislator, you send a representative who will represent you.
The lobbyist represents and works for the people who give her money to talk to legislators.
Jada says she also works to discourage legislators from voting for laws that are not favorable.
To discourage means to get them to not do something.
Cody says you're a spokesperson for your clients then.
A spokesperson is a general term for someone who speaks for another person, who speaks in public for another person.
Someone who might speak to newspaper reporters representing some person or company.
That person is called a spokesperson.
The traditional words were spokesman and spokeswomen.
But a more general term used sometimes now is spokesperson.
Jada says I'm more, than that meaning I do more than just speak for my clients or the people I work for.
I work for clients in the private sector and in corporations as well as for special interest groups.
The private sector.
S-E-C-T-O-R refers to businesses and corporations, something that is not the government.
We call the government the public sector.
The private sector is everyone who is not in or part of the government.
Jada says she works for clients in the public sector and in corporations although corporations are really part of the private sector as well as for special interest groups.
A special interest group is an organization usually that represents a whole group of companies or group of people who have some common interest.
For example, there may be many different companies that grow corn in the United States, many different individual farmers who grow corn.
They might have a group that gets together and sends a lobbyist to Washington to try to get laws that will favor those companies and those farmers.
That group would be called a special interest group, because they all have the same interest, the same concern.
Jada says that she advocates for what would benefit her clients.
To advocate A-D-V-O-C-A-T-E means to speak on behalf of a group of people and say what should be done.
To speak for a group of people, trying to get changes in the way something works.
Cody says, isn't there sometimes a conflict of interest?
A conflict of interest is a situation where what you say publicly or what you do publicly may disagree with or cause problems with things you do privately.
For example, if I own a bunch of land, a lot of land in a certain area...
And I am also a government representative.
For me to pass laws about how that land is going to be used would be a conflict of interest.
I have two different things that I'm responsible for.
I'm responsible as a government official, but I'm also responsible as a person who owns the land.
So my interests... will perhaps conflict or not agree.
Cody says, let's say your client this month wants a law passed and your client next month doesn't.
Cody is saying that if Jada has one company she's working for that wants a law in a certain way or written in a certain way, and then the next month she has a new company who wants the law written in a different way, isn't this a conflict of interest?
Notice Cody uses the expression, let's say.
Let's say means, for example.
Jada said, I'm a gun for hire.
This expression I'm a gun G-U-N for hire H-I-R-E means literally that you are a person who is given money to go and kill someone.
But that's not what Jada is talking about.
We use this expression more generally to mean someone who is given money, who is hired to solve a certain problem.
And this person will work for anyone who wants that problem solved, even people who have different interests, even when there's a conflict of interest.
Jada says, I do the best for my client, whichever that client is at that moment or at that time.
Cody says, I'm glad to hear you say that.
I could use the services of a good lobbyist.
I've been trying to get my wife to agree to buy a new boat.
Cody is making a joke, of course.
You don't send someone else, like a lobbyist, to change your wife's mind.
The way you do that is by going to the jewelry store.
Cody needs to learn a little about marriage here.
Jada says, stop right there, meaning stop talking.
In this case, there is a conflict of interest, she says.
Your wife talked to me last week and wants me to have a little talk or conversation with you about that new boat.
What she's saying is that Cody's wife talked to her yesterday.
And has already asked her to influence Cody, so she can't represent both parties or both people at the same time.
Of course she's making a joke also because lobbyist isn't a word we would use to describe someone in this situation.
We use lobbyist only to describe someone who is trying to influence a government official, not your wife.
Now let's listen to the dialogue this time at a normal speed.
You're not the kind of person I would expect to work as a lobbyist.
Why not?
I picture lobbyists as being kind of pushy and corrupt, using underhanded tactics.
So what do you do exactly?
I meet with legislators and try to sway them to support laws that are favorable to the people and companies I represent and to discourage them from voting for laws that aren't.
You're a spokesperson for your clients, then?
And more than that.
I work for clients in the private sector and in corporations, as well as for special interest groups.
I advocate for what would benefit my clients in a way that they can't do themselves directly.
Isn't there sometimes a conflict of interest?
Let's say your client this month wants a law passed and your client next month doesn't.
What happens then?
I'm a gun for hire.
I do my best for my client, whichever that client is, at that moment.
I'm glad to hear you say that.
I could use the services of a good lobbyist.
I've been trying to get my wife to agree to buy a new boat.
Stop right there.
In this case, there is a conflict of interest.
Your wife talked to me last week and wants me to have a little talk with you about that new boat.
Our scriptwriter is not a gun for hire.
She only works for us here at ESL Podcast.
I speak, of course, of the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
