InsideSources

Editor’s Note: Please see Part One of this article here.

Richard Berman has fought for issues important to the business community with a fieriness that has attracted hatred from the left. InsideSources continues our discussion with Berman as he details his advocacy campaigns and what is behind them.

Berman over his career has established a network of groups with each covering a particular policy area like employment. His public affairs firm, Berman and Company, ties these groups together by providing services like staffing. The setup has helped lead to political victories in several policy realms.

“I know some people but I certainly don’t know as many as someone who is lobbying for a living,” Berman told InsideSources. “But we have what I would consider to be a lot of intellectual strength. I like our guys to always use as a North Star when we’re talking about issues, at meetings, coalitions, or wherever they might be, I always like to say, be the smartest person in the room, and if you’re the smartest person in the room it means you did your homework.”

Washington D.C. was a very different place back in the 1970s. Berman recalls how there was only a handful of good restaurants and the only business interests in the city were mostly government contractors. The trade associations and other business groups were primarily located in New York City and Chicago.

The federal government and its influence have grown significantly in the decades since. The business community had an ever-increasing reason to get involved in politics as lawmakers and activists pursued policies that impacted them. Trade associations moved to the city and started doing more in the political sphere.

“The business community tends to be on defense because they’re not looking for anything from the government,” Berman said. “It’s just when the government starts to do stuff that people say we have to stop that because they have already adjusted to the status quo so they just as soon keep the status quo.”

Berman adds that the left, in contrast, is always trying to accomplish a new part of their world vision – which means they have to be more aggressive. But he notes that within the business community there are people who want to be more aggressive in fighting back against progressive causes.

“There are always people who are unhappy with the trade association position, which tends to be a compromise position because their board requires them to somehow keep the peace,” Berman said. “But some people on the board aren’t happy with that, they wanted a more aggressive posture, and that’s who we tend to represent. So we say we’re involved on this union issue, and there are people who will say I want you guys to go after this with a knife in your teeth.”

Berman adds that people have to be aggressive to get anything done in politics. He points to labor unions who he says threaten lawmakers with money or losing elections to get what they want. But his philosophy on being politically tough would become a point of controversy when a New York Times reporter released a tape of him talking at a meeting with energy company executives.

“I was criticized. I don’t know why, but I was criticized by a reporter from The New York Times who had got their hands on a tape when I had given a speech out west,” Berman said. “I had said the same thing I have said a hundred times in public forums, they just happen to have it on tape. But I said in this town you can either win ugly or lose pretty. And the fact is people who get something done in this town, generally, do it with a no-holds-barred approach.”

Berman approaches politics with the lesson he learned about being forward-looking. He notes the people who are ahead on issues get to decide the rules and language before they become bigger policy fights. Berman and Co. and its associated groups have used that approach in how they handle political issues.

“There are some people who can look at the situation and say, I see the train down the tracks and you’re right. I see it coming this way. It’s a long way off, but I think you’re right. We should do something about it now,” Berman said. “There are other people that will wait for it to run over their foot.”

The Employment Policies Institute has been consistently in opposition to increasing the minimum wage whether the issue is in the news or not. They have released reports and launched media campaigns warning that the policy could result in severe consequences like fewer employment opportunities and businesses being forced to close.

Democrats and progressive activist groups in recent years have focused on raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour – at about double the current federal minimum wage. The Fight for $15 movement has seen victories in localities across the country since Seattle first passed the policy in June 2014.

Berman was already involved in the battle, fighting back against the idea. Time Magazine came to him around then to do an interview on the minimum wage. He thought he would be one of several prospective the publication would include – but to his surprise, the resulting article ended up focusing on him.

“The story comes out and it’s a two-page color spread of me,” Berman said. “So I called the reporter up and said I don’t get it, I’m flattered, but I don’t get why you did that. And she said, well I went around and talked to a bunch of people and talked to the trade associations and etc. and she said, I have to be honest, no one was doing anything. They said they were but they weren’t doing anything.”

Berman notes that what his groups have been able to do isn’t anything profoundly new like creating cold fusion. They are simply communicating their position and changing opinions. He adds that a huge part of that is to create common knowledge. He points to how everyone knows that driving is more dangerous than flying, but don’t know by how much, or where they first heard that. He describes it as: “When you know something but don’t know why you know it.”

“What I’m trying to do on so many of our issues is to convince people of a point of view that gets so deep into their head that it becomes common knowledge that point of view is the legitimate point of view,” Berman said.

Berman considers his fight against a union-backed card check bill around 2008 as one of his biggest victories. Democratic icon and 1972 presidential nominee George McGovern did a video for him warning against the policy. He argued the policy robs employees of their right to keep their vote a secret during union elections. Berman believes the video helped sway some Democratic lawmakers away from supporting the bill because McGovern is such an important figure on the left.

Berman notes that most of his victories aren’t huge like fighting back a federal minimum wage proposal or upending card check. Instead, he would rather fight a political issue before it has time to actually evolve into something bigger. His goal isn’t necessarily to win big victories but stop issues from ever getting big to begin with.

“The big victories like the minimum wage on the federal level or beating card check, those don’t happen that often,” Berman said. “If I can stop it from ever really getting any traction, if you can kill it in the crib, so to speak, well that’s a victory.”

Berman describes the information platform that his groups deploy as fairly basic. They are less interested in releasing 20-page whitepapers, and instead gear their informational campaigns to the public. The goal, after all, is to influence the public debate by providing research and a new perspective on political matters.

“When we put our messages out we use a lot of humor,” Berman said. “We use an information vehicle that’s pretty basic. We don’t put out 20-page white papers that no one is going to read anyways. So we’ll put out videos; we’ll put out full-page ads that have a pretty plain message.”

Berman adds that where the complexity comes into play is having everything well researched. The video might have a basic message but the information behind it would be reliable and footnoted. He says his groups are able to do this by relying on data that comes from nonpartisan sources like universities and government agencies – such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“If I quote the Harvard School of Public Health, it doesn’t matter who paid me to say that because I’m not saying what they said, I’m saying what the Harvard School of Public Health said,” Berman said. “All they did was pay me to echo what some research had already said out of some university that isn’t publicizing their own research. I’m being paid to find the good information and put that out in front of the public.”

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Editor’s Note: Please see Part Two of this article here.

Richard Berman is not a name too many people outside the realm of politics have heard, but his influence spans across many issues that impact people across the country. InsideSources sat down with Berman to discuss his approach to persuading public opinion, his business philosophy, and the criticisms he has faced over the years.

Berman is best known for his work fighting for issues important to the business community. His work and network of associated nonprofits have earned praise for their effectiveness, and also scorn from many on the left. But a lot of what he does simply comes down to changing how people view policy issues.

“I appreciate the praise, so when someone says good job, that was interesting, or I never thought of it that way before, I feel it legitimizes what I am up to,” Berman told InsideSources. “When I see the criticism, what I say to myself, and what I say to my staff, is if we weren’t being effective, no one would even pay any attention to us. So I take every attack as a metric for effectiveness.”

Berman started as a labor law attorney before eventually moving onto lobbying where he represented the interests of the business community. His experience would eventually lead him to become the founder of Berman and Company – a Washington, D.C., based public affairs firm specializing in research, communications, and creative advertising.

Berman and Co. would become the centerpiece of a network of nonprofits after it was founded in 1987. Each of the nonprofits covers a particular policy area with informational and educational campaigns aimed at influencing the public debate. They have launched media campaigns and publish research on issues like energy policy, the minimum wage, alcohol, government regulations, and consumer rights.

Berman developed his network of groups around lessons he learned while lobbying. He noticed in the preceeding years that business interests weren’t keeping pace with activists on the left when it came to using new forms of communication politically. He also saw they weren’t doing a lot to anticipate future political issues.

“I was doing exactly what everybody else does, running up to the Hill, talking to members, talking to staff, and after a while, I just didn’t find that to be totally rewarding as I had first found it to be,” Berman said. “It was about the time when the Internet came along that I thought I’d rather lobby the public than lobby the Hill.”

Berman recalls that at the time activists on the left were really the only ones using the Internet politically. They raised money, organized themselves, and got a bigger footprint for their groups. The business community and other groups on the right just weren’t doing the same.

“The Internet was not a tool being used by business interests and I thought that didn’t make any sense,” Berman said. “What was happening here was the public was getting a very different and broader perspective on issues, but it was all coming from the left because those were the people who were using this new form of communication.”

Berman notes that a lot of the problem came down to how the business community interacts with politics. While liberal and progressive activist groups were turning to government to impose their worldview, the business community only really got involved when those progressive ideas started to threaten them. This put the business community in a defensive position. Berman adds it also meant they weren’t anticipating future political fights.

“So about the time I was talking about the Internet, I was also talking to my clients and saying I don’t understand why, if we know issues are coming, why we don’t anticipate them and start to put in place the academic support for the position we’re going to have to take,” Berman said. “That made sense for some of the people who I was lobbying for. And so we set up a fund, and the fund was for the Employment Policies Institute.”

Berman and Co. was to be different in how it was setup and approached political issues. The company provided services to the nonprofits – like staff – while each group could function independently in their policy area. The model also allowed Berman to ensure donor money was going to the issues they cared the most about.

The Employment Policies Institute focused on workforce issues so donors to the group would know their money was going to that policy area. That model would soon lead to other nonprofits like the Center for Consumer Freedom and the Center for Union Facts.

“But there’s no crossover except for that fact that we got to the point where there were several organizations, I could then hire far more sophisticated staff who could migrate from one issue or one organization to another,” Berman said. “And we didn’t have to hire an individual with that kind of talent for each one of those organizations. Some people share a Xerox machine, while I was sharing a vice president of public affairs.”

The nonprofits were also setup with separate boards of directors, separate bank accounts, and each one was designed to function as if were an individual trade association or think-tank. Berman and Co. united them all by getting them started and providing services like staffing.

“Separate organizations but a common resource and that was called Berman and Co.,” Berman said. “So while Berman and Co. does have some direct clients, and we do work for people directly, at least half of our business comes through these nonprofit organizations that Berman and Co. services. And that’s the business model.”

Berman also wanted the nonprofits to have longevity to them so they could be working on issues whether they were important at the time or not. This allowed the groups to anticipate incoming political fights – and prepare early by continuing to communicate their position to the public.

“As opposed to the law firm that might setup a little coalition that is here today and gone tomorrow, I setup organizations that were working on issues that weren’t evergreen, but they were never-ending,” Berman said. “And that then made it even more logical to have something that had longevity attached to it.”

The Berman and Co. business model itself has been attacked by critics who call it a scheme. The Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog, called the nonprofits front groups that release misleading reports, op-eds, and ads. The Guardian also referred to the nonprofits as front groups in a 2015 article.

“There is no front because there is total transparency,” Berman said. “Our tax returns are available, and Berman and Co. supplies services. And those services are paid for by those nonprofit groups, and that’s all on the tax returns. So there’s no front group like some group that has a name and you can’t figure out who is behind those people. Now what I don’t do is tell the people who are supplying money to those groups. But that’s not any different from any other nonprofit in town.”

ThinkProgress, a progressive news website, called him the “mastermind of the world’s most despicable PR campaigns.” Mother Jones, a progressive magazine, called him a “notorious AstroTurf pioneer.” Berman brushes off those attacks as a sign he is being effective – knowing if he wasn’t people wouldn’t spend time attacking him.

“But for the most part people know who we are,” Berman said. “They know I’m behind that group–I’m not behind it, I’m right in front of it. They say that group is hiding something–I’m there. I’m writing op-eds. I’m not getting some ghostwriter to write it. We’re writing them. So it’s one of these criticisms that as soon as you scratch the surface, you say that doesn’t make any sense. There’s no there-there.”

Berman notes that it wouldn’t be considered strange if a public relations firm setup a nonprofit because it happens all the time. He notes the only thing that’s different about his model is that he has done it multiple times and with greater efficiency.

The Berman and Co. network has become involved in issues like obesity, healthcare, food safety, labor law, alcohol, and government regulations. Berman notes he must already believe in a position before he starts fighting for it – for him, it’s about doing what he already has a passion for.

“That attitude informs a lot of what we do here because I’ve never worked on an issue I didn’t believe in,” Berman said. “One thing I have never done here is work on an issue that I didn’t believe in.”

Berman notes that one thing he is adamantly opposed to is charity groups misrepresenting what they do with donations – calling it a scam he would like to expose. He points to The Humane Society which runs well-known television spots of disregarded cats and dogs to raise money. He argues the group is more focused on stopping people from eating meat.

“They collect like $130 million a year. One percent goes to shelters,” Berman said. “I think that’s a huge scam. You give money; you see these poor dogs and cats; you see the music on T.V. with those poor dogs. And then you find out these guys have $50 million stashed in the Caribbean in a hedge fund. You find out they put more money in their pensions each year than the shelters, and you think, I’m going to expose this.”

The Humane Society said they don’t consider Berman to be a serious or informed critic of their work when asked by InsideSources. The group points to informational webpages it published about Berman and the Center for Consumer Freedom which argue that he deploys underhanded schemes against legitimate organizations.

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