1.   Buttonholing various legislators, the lobbyists are working to redefine the issue from a western Massachusetts concern to one with implications around the country.

2.   Company employees were bused in from its Waltham and Andover plants to the Hampshire House or Omni Parker House before descending on the State House to buttonhole legislators.

3.   Lobbyists, lawyers, ministers, business leaders and regular citizens have buttonholed legislators and pressed them with memos and glossy brochures.

4.   Lobbyists from the AFL-CIO, acknowledging that the bill could help other municipal labor unions, joined PBA officials in buttonholing legislators in hallways.

5.   Lobbyists and special-interest groups still occasionally drag their constituents up to the Capitol to buttonhole legislators, because they have always done it.

6.   Others began making weekly trips to Albany to buttonhole legislators.

7.   So organizers are bringing school-aged children into state capitols in several states to buttonhole legislators for stronger laws on adults.