Brian Malte is a Wellstone Action member and graduate of Camp Wellstone.  He serves as the Outreach Director of the Brady campaign.  Here he describes the Brady Campaign's successful fight to stop the NRA in its tracks on a policy issue. 

THE ISSUE

Last year, the National Rifle Association and other extremists in the gun lobby urged Congress to enact sweeping, unprecedented immunity legislation that would deny innocent victims of gun violence their day in court, give the most reckless gun sellers an "escape all responsibility" card that exempts them from common law principles of negligence, and throw out pending cases that have been held legitimate by the courts.

But this awful legislation was defeated last year in the 108th Congress through a combination of grassroots lobbying, targeting, media outreach, and a strong legislative strategy. Although the media and the gun lobby were stunned at our victory we knew that leveraging our support and focusing on key areas to maximize our efforts could pay off. We overcame the biggest challenge we've ever faced by defeating the NRA's top priority. This is the story of how the Brady Campaign united with the Million Mom March, and the gun violence prevention movement, outsmarted the NRA and beat them at their own game through an intense and multi-pronged issue campaign.

GETTING ORGANIZED

Early on, we took stock of our friends and allies on the national level and in the states. We began educating our Million Mom March chapters and our state allies on our strategy and urged them to engage their local membership on the importance of protecting the rights of gun violence victims. Our field staff worked closely with those activists in key states where we needed Senate votes. Field staff, Million Mom March chapters, and allied state organizations worked to put on press conferences and attract local allies outside of the gun violence prevention movement to join us to put pressure on the key Senators.

We also engaged volunteers in non-targeted states in phone-banking our members in key states. Activists wanted to feel a part of the fight, even if their elected officials were voting with us.

In states where we did not have Million Mom March chapters or a core of activists, we relied on paid phone calling to our member list to ensure that calls from our side were getting into key Senate offices. Our members were educated on the issue, and then asked if they wanted to be passed through to their Senator. This was particularly effective in smaller states where a few phone calls can really make an impact.

All along we kept our Million Mom March chapters and allies updated on the latest from Capitol Hill. Keeping our best activists plugged-in allowed them to have more buy-in into the process. We used multiple vehicles for our communications including: Our yearly activist conference and lobby day, weekly newsletters, live conference calls with chapter leaders, and in-person meetings with national, allied organizations.

Using a coalition model, we also set out to educate and urge our allied partners outside the gun violence prevention arena to sign on to oppose the NRA's Immunity legislation and to urge them to send out alerts and e-mails to their members to do the same.

COMMUNICATE WITH YOUR REPRESENTATIVES

We used a combination of national activist call-in days to Capitol Hill along with e-mail alerts to our activists and to our e-advocates on our StoptheNRA.com web site. To make the greatest impact on our key Senator, we worked with other e-advocacy groups such as Act For Change, our own StoptheNRA.com, our Million Mom March chapters, and our other allies to time the calls and e-mails so that they all hit at the same time. Otherwise, we would have severely diluted our effectiveness if calls and e-mails only "trickled" in to Capitol Hill offices.

FACE TO FACE MEETINGS

Face-to-face meetings with key Senators also played an important role. On Capitol Hill, our Legal Action Project and our federal lobbyists accompanied gun violence victims to talk to key Senators.

We also worked with our activists in key states to visit Senate offices in their own states either with the Senator and/or his or her staff to let them know where we stood on the issue.

LESSONS FROM OUR VICTORY