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A generation ago, rare was the public policy issue that brought with it an assault of TV advertising, tons of direct mail, dinnertime "robo calls", or the other features associated with modern "grassroots lobbying". Now such campaigns are commonplace.

The first amendment affirms the right of citizens to speak freely and to petition the government to redress grievances. And the public policy debates of today are high stakes affairs. So "grassroots campaigns " will be a permanent fixture in American politics and government.

But questions arise: How can the honesty of such campaigns be assured, if at all? Should the public know who is paying for them? Do "town hall meetings" have to turn ugly and near violent to be effective? Are the institutions within our representative democracy strong enough to endure and survive these barrages?

These questions---and others---are being debated every day in Congressional offices, in newsrooms and on the web, in consultants' quarters and in think tank conference rooms. The Graduate School of Political Management at George Washington University believes that is high time that the discussion needs to take place in public, with all sides represented.

Mark your calendar today and plan to be there on January 27. The topic is timely, the argument will be fierce, and the outcome will be important.

(Scroll down the page to see the draft of our Code of Ethics)

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And here is our draft of a Code of Ethics!

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Ethical and Effectiveness Practices for Grassroots Advocacy Practitioners

• Legitimacy: The communications sent as a result of any advocacy campaign should always be delivered either directly from the citizen or with the express permission of the citizen. The role of the grassroots advocacy practitioner should be to provide citizens with the tools they need to deliver their own communications (whether based on sample messages or not) to policymakers.

• Authenticity: Messages delivered from citizens to policymakers should be authentic representations of that individual's views on a specific policy issue. In circumstances where communications are being sent based on templates and talking points, practitioners should always provide tools for personalizing the message. At a minimum, grassroots advocacy practitioners should ensure that citizens sending the communications agree, without coercion, with each specific message as developed by the organizer.

• Relevance: Grassroots advocacy practitioners have a responsibility to ensure that the communications coming from citizens are relevant to policymakers. This means that tools should be in place to establish a constituency relationship between the citizens and the policymaker. Note that this does not apply to circumstances where a citizen has a personal, non-constituent relationship with a legislator's office.

• Transparency: Grassroots advocacy practitioners working on behalf of organizations should not take steps to hide that organization's involvement in an advocacy effort. Likewise, communications from citizens that are generated as a result of an advocacy campaign should not be given less weight than those developed spontaneously.

• Civility: Grassroots advocacy practitioners should encourage civility in communications between citizens and policymakers. At a minimum, template communications and talking points should be drafted to reflect the opinions of the writer without resorting to excessive negativity or misrepresentations of the other side.

• Honesty: Grassroots advocacy practitioners should never knowingly provide false, misleading, inflammatory or inaccurate information in an effort to persuade citizens. At a minimum, practitioners should have due diligence programs in place to check the veracity of template messages developed for use in a campaign.

This document was drafted by Stephanie Vance, the Advocacy Guru at Advocacy Associates, in consultation with Anne Darconte, Les Francis, Chris Arterton (GWU Graduate School of Political Management), Tim Hysom (Congressional Management Foundation) and others.

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