Policy Wins

When a crisis hits, the worst time to build your response plan is during the crisis itself. In this episode, Tommy Zei walks through the "Break In Case of Emergency" framework — from identifying your top political risks to mapping sign-off processes and activating allies — so your team moves from scrambling to responding in under 72 hours.

Summer is usually considered a slow season in public affairs, but high-performing teams know it's the secret weapon for getting ahead. In this episode, Tommy Zei breaks down how to audit your past session, build lawmaker relationships early, and prep your grassroots advocates so you aren't caught flat-footed when the 2026 midterms hit.

A one-person public affairs team with five hundred engaged advocates isn't a small team. It's a force multiplier. In the final episode of the Small Team, Big Impact series, Tommy Zei brings in fresh research from the Beekeeper Group — a study of over one thousand constituents — to show why lean teams are sitting on more influence than they realize. Learn why waiting until a critical vote to build...

For small public affairs teams, reporting isn't just about the quarterly deck — it's about making sure leadership never learns something important before you do. In this episode of Policy Wins, Tommy Zei explains how lean teams can build a communication rhythm that keeps executives informed, demonstrates impact continuously, and turns reporting from a dreaded task into a natural byproduct of good...

We're taking a quick break from our Small Teams, Big Impact series to bring you this one — and trust us, it's worth it. Patrick Kalie, Quorum's senior engagement & event marketing manager, spent time on the ground at two of the Public Affairs Council's biggest events this year: the Advocacy Conference and the National PAC Conference. He talked to a lot of people. He took notes. And now he's sh...

Most public affairs teams know who their power players are: the committee chair, the agency contact, the coalition partner who can actually move things. The real problem is everyone else. The staffers doing the actual drafting. The mid-level regulator who doesn't matter yet. The aligned group you've met twice and never followed up with. Those relationships don't disappear — they accumulate into a...

Most small public affairs teams don't have a tracking problem — they have a prioritization problem . In the kickoff of our "Small Team, Big Impact" series, Quorum onboarding consultant Tommy Zei explains why lean teams often feel buried by alerts and how to fix it by separating passive monitoring from active tracking. Learn how to build a two-tier framework that automates a broad "awareness layer"...

Your leadership doesn't want a link to 500 bills. They want to know what it means and what to do about it. Yet most public affairs teams spend the majority of their time gathering data and almost none of it communicating why it matters. In the final episode of this six-part series, onboarding consultant Tommy Zei breaks down how to turn your tracking, tagging, and monitoring into executive-ready r...

If you only track official bills, you’re missing the "why" and "when" of policy. In this episode, Tommy Zei explores "upstream" monitoring — tracking the press releases, caucuses, and social media posts where the early warning signs actually live. Learn how to conduct a "digital audit" on new committee faces and why silence from a veteran legislator is often a strategic signal you can’t afford to...

Your value to your organization isn't your ability to skim thousands of bills. It's your judgment about what those bills mean. So why are you still spending all your time on the first pass? In this episode, Tommy Zei breaks down how to automate your policy review process without losing the human judgment that makes your work valuable. Learn how AI-powered bill summaries can be filtered through you...

Every session, someone is frantically digging through old emails trying to prove they worked a bill. Don't be that person. In this episode, onboarding consultant Tommy Zei breaks down why issue management isn't just an admin task — it's the foundation of your entire legislative strategy. Learn how to build a clean, reportable issue map with 5–10 primary pillars, why multi-tagging creates a paper t...

More information doesn't always lead to better decisions — often, it just creates more noise. In this episode of Policy Wins , Tommy Zei explains why the real job of public affairs isn't passing along updates, but translating complex signals into decision-ready insight. Learn the three "buckets" every signal should fall into , the single question that prevents internal bottlenecks , and how to use...

Most public affairs teams don’t lose because they lack information — they lose because they’re drowning in noise. In this episode of Policy Wins , Tommy Zei explains why "early warning" isn’t about how fast you get an alert, but how much lead time you have to make a decision. Learn how to separate broad awareness from your "decision list" and why the most important data point in Washington is ofte...

In this episode of Policy Wins, host Patrick Kalie sits down with Micaela Isler, President & CEO of the National Association of Business Political Action Committees (NABPAC), to explore how she led the organization through a pivotal transformation. Micaela took NABPAC from quiet industry convener to outspoken advocate for the role of business PACs in American politics. She shares how she repos...

In the premiere of Policy Wins , host Patrick Kalie sits down with Sean Kennedy, Executive Vice President of Public Affairs at the National Restaurant Association, to unpack one of the most significant grassroots victories of the past year: defeating a Massachusetts ballot measure to eliminate the tip credit. Sean walks us through how his team activated servers and restaurant operators across the...

Policy Wins is a show about how real change happens in government affairs. Hosted by Quorum, each episode pulls back the curtain on the strategies, relationships, and decisions driving policy outcomes across the country. You’ll hear candid conversations with leaders from advocacy organizations, trade associations, PACs, and policy teams who are doing the work — building coalitions, influencing leg...