Editor’s note: This is the second part in a week-long series, “Secrets of the Hill: What you don’t know about Congress,” reported by Thomas Langhorne from Washington, D.C. It aims to give readers an inside look at Congress.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Their issues aren’t always the kind that grab headlines, but bipartisan coalitions inside Congress are packing powerful punches.

Some of the hundreds of advocacy caucuses meeting with policymakers and firing off letters – primarily on the House side – are widely known. Think the Congressional Black Caucus or the conservative House Freedom Caucus, which arguably help shape the most fundamental ideological priorities of Congress. Some – say, the Rugby Caucus – serve less serious purposes.

But largely outside of public view, other congressional caucuses also are massing large numbers of representatives to influence policy, some providing a forum for members who weren’t selected for congressional committees that shape the same policies. They can’t make law – unlike committees, which help shape legislation and conduct hearings.

But caucuses can and do help shape the debate.

“Last year (Tom Reed, a New York congressman) and I conducted an independent inquiry on insulin pricing – and we were able to get every interest group to meet with us,” said Colorado Congresswoman Diana DeGette, co-chair with Reed of The Congressional Caucus on Diabetes. “We’re getting ready to come out with a white paper on (insulin pricing), which we think will impact legislative in vestigations not just of insulin pricing but drug pricing in general.”

The Diabetes Caucus can command that much attention because it is the largest in Congress with some 290 members.

“I think it’s because everybody knows somebody with diabetes, either type 1 or type 2, and we’ve worked hard to get a big membership,” DeGette said. “The advantage of having a big caucus like this is that when we speak, people listen.”

The Senate has just one officially recognized caucus – the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, created in law in 1985.

DeGette, a Democrat, and Republican Reed each have personal reasons for throwing in with the Diabetes Caucus. Each has children with type 1 diabetes.

“Not only does it motivate us to advocate but it also gives us a level of knowledge about treatments and research that other people might not have,” DeGette said.

The Diabetes Caucus claims credit for helping push Congress to pass legislation to provide Medicare coverage for blood testing strips, glucose monitors and diabetes self-management education. The caucus pushed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to pony up coverage for insulin infusion pumps and helped persuade the U.S. Postal Service to create a diabetes awareness stamp.

The coalition’s most important claimed victory: reauthorization in February of the Special Diabetes Program, which supports research at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. A Special Diabetes Program for Indians funds treatment, education and preventionprograms for American Indian and Alaska Native communities heavily affected by type 2 diabetes.

In recent months the Diabetes Caucus has pressed CMS to investigate the accuracy of diabetes testing supplies.

Frivolous?

House rules no longer allow caucuses to maintain staff, operating budgets or offices, those benefits having been eliminated in a reorganization after Republicans took control of the lower chamber in January 1995.

But the opportunities for involvement and impact the organizations offer are likely behind a recent explosion in their numbers. A January 2017 report by the Congressional Research Service pegged the number of caucuses in Congress at that time at 800. Just a few years earlier, the number had been 350.

The official list is 106 pages long.

So there are about twice as many congressional caucuses as there are members of Congress themselves. Caucuses push issues that are regional, ideological, economic, ethnic and foreign policy- based. There’s a Congressional Caucus on Poland and a Congressional Caucus on the Deadliest Cancers.

With that many informal organizations of members performing legislative research and policy planning on their niche issues, some are bound to seem frivolous.

The Congressional Bike Caucus? That coalition not only has promoted bicycles as substitutes for automobiles but has sought funding for paths, trails and pedestrian facilities. It bills itself as, “the voice in our nation’s capital for millions of cyclists actively working for safer streets, pro-bike policies and livable communities.”

Even the Congressional Wine Caucus has some official business, including tax relief for vineyard owners, direct shipping of wine across state lines, excise tax increases and federal funding to fight diseases that ravage vineyards.

Rick Nolan, a Democratic House member from Minnesota, is a co-chairman of several congressional caucuses.

Nolan thinks their value is immense – although not widely recognized – in a Congress where members work in a whirlwind of meetings, hearings and floor votes.

“These organizations bring likeminded members of Congress together on a bipartisan basis to advocate for a cause, spread awareness among our colleagues and, in many cases, enlist the help of outside advocacy groups to assist with grassroots advocacy and media attention,” Nolan said via email.

“Caucus meetings also help us stay focused and in touch with one another as we are pulled in so many different directions at once every day.”
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