Election Year Advocacy Data Process (November, 2008 - March, 2009)

Joseph Poirier

Election Year Advocacy Data Process (November, 2008 - March, 2009)

This document explains how the legislative data used within the Convio Advocacy product within Convio eCRM is affected after an election. We will cover what happens within the Convio Advocacy product immediately after the election, between the election and the start of the new year, and once the new year begins and new officeholders are sworn into office. Federal and state committee assignments will also be explained.

Overview of the 2008 election and 2008-2009 transition

It is important to remember that the November 4, 2008 election was to elect legislators to terms that will commence in early 2009.

Thus, between November 5, 2008 and the end of 2008, your legislators will not change. President George Bush will still be President, your current federal Senators and Representatives will still be the legislators that represent you, and so forth.

President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden will take office on January 20, 2009. Federal Cabinet officials will officially take office when President-elect Obama is sworn in as the 44th U.S. President on January 20. At that time, if any federal Cabinet positions remain unappointed, they will be listed as Vacant and will be filled as soon as official appointments occur.

Federal Senators and Representatives will take office on January 6, 2009 when the 111th Congress convenes. At that time, the newly created non-voting U.S. House Delegate for Northern Mariana Islands will also be sworn into office.

State officials and legislators will take office at various dates during January, 2009 (a few states, such as California and Idaho, swear in legislators at various points in December that are largely ceremonial).

As federal and state legislators are sworn in during January, 2009, they will begin to be assigned to federal and state committees. Frequently, committee assignments may take up through February, 2009 to be fully assigned for all federal and state committees and subcommitees.

Overview of Convio's Legislative Data

Convio Advocacy contains the following legislators:

• Federal President, Vice-President and First Lady

• Federal Presidential Candidates

• Federal Cabinet Officials

• Federal Agencies

• Federal Senators and Representatives

• Federal Senate and House Committees

• State Governors and Lt. Governors

• State Secretaries, Attorneys General, Treasurer and Insurance Commissioners

• State Senators and Representatives

• State Senate and House Committees

Convio receives data about these legislators from a 3rd party data vendor. This data is then processed, validated, and incorporated into the Convio Advocacy product during frequent legislative data updates.

The Convio Advocacy product always lists your current legislators and elected officials. Thus, as explained above, Convio Advocacy legislative data will not change until early 2009 when newly-elected legislators actually take office.

Convio Advocacy Legislative Data Update Overview

The following sections describe Convio's plans for legislative data updates during the initial months of 2009.

Convio Advocacy legislative data through December 31, 2008

Convio will begin receiving data updates from our legislative data vendor during November and December. Much of this data will be preliminary. For example, Title, Name and Party fields may be present for a particular legislator, but Email Address or Fax Number fields may take until mid-January to determine.

Convio will work with our data vendor to ensure that all new legislators that will take office in 2009 are present and accurate.

However, during this time, the actual Convio Advocacy data will not change, since present legislators are generally still in office through the end of the year.

Within the Advocacy Target List, the Presidential Candidates folder has now changed to President-Elect. President-Elect Barack Obama's change.gov site is now listed within this new folder and can be added to action alerts as a target.

Convio does not plan to create advocacy data records for any newly elected legislators-elect other than President-Elect Obama.

Early weeks of January, 2009

During the first full week of January, 2009, Convio will install an updated set of legislative data to its systems. This update will contain all federal and state legislators that are known at that time, plus any committee assignments known at that time as well.

The new U.S. House of Representative non-voting Delegate for the Northern Mariana Islands will be added to the legislative data at this time, including appropriate records for zip-to-district mapping.

The data for U.S. President, Vice-President, First Lady and Federal Cabinet will not be updated during the first week of January. Instead, those records will be updated on January 20, 2009 when the new administration officially takes office.

Convio will keep the President-Elect target within our data until January 20, 2009.

Finally, at the same time we install the early January legislative data update, we will also switch over our daily processes that gather Congressional Votes in Vote Center to refer to the 111th Congress instead of the 110th.

Mid-January, 2009 through early March, 2009

Convio will be updating our legislative data on a weekly basis during this period as new data becomes available. Since we expect all legislator records themselves to be present by early January, 2009, these data updates will primarily be to update legislative Capitol and District Room Numbers and Addresses, Phone Numbers, Fax Numbers, Email Addresses, Web Site Addresses, Webform Addresses.

When possible, Convio will update Phone Numbers, Fax Numbers, Email Addresses, Web Site Addresses, and Webform Addresses on a daily basis as well.

Further Committee assignments will also be updated on a weekly basis through this period, as Committee assignment data becomes available through our data vendor. Note that it may take several weeks in January and even into early February for all state committee memberships to be determined by the states.

March, 2009 and beyond

We will continue to update legislator Phone Numbers, Fax Numbers, Email Addresses, Web Site Addresses, and Webform Addresses on a daily basis.

Legislator data for other legislator fields (Office Numbers and Addresses, Party Affiliation, Marital Status, etc) will return to a monthly update frequency. This includes adding new legislators to our Advocacy data.

Zip-to-district data will be updated quarterly.

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Communication of Data Updates

Convio will communicate new data updates to the Advocacy community on community.convio.com when they occur.

Additionally, exact dates for the most recent data update can be found on the Convio Customer Center at:

http://customer.convio.com/site/PageServer?pagename=advo_scorecard

Joseph Poirier

Convio eCRM Advocacy data has now been updated for 2009 legislators and officials. More details can be found here:

http://community.customer.convio.com/thread/2253

Joseph Poirier

Convio Advocacy data has been updated to reflect the new President and Vice-President.

Details can be found in this discussion:

http://community.customer.convio.com/message/3905

rorris

When will you be updating the newly confirmed cabinet members?

Joseph Poirier

We have been updating them weekly as new Cabinet members are confirmed for their positions. In the meantime, prior to official confirmation, we are listing the "acting" executive.