The Democratic Value of Lobbying by Dirk Salowsky
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it. -Mark Twain
January 4, 2006. Jack Abramoff is in the newspapers. A lobbyist out of thousands (actually tens of thousands!) who will unveil his professional secrets and pleads guilty to charges of tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy. In a very cynical way one might ask: So, isn’t this what lobbyism is all about? Arguing with the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, lobbyism officially is only a more sophisticated kind of petitioning. Sounds honorable indeed.
I will not deny that lobbyism, as such, is a democratic way of advertising public interests – by U.S. law, anyone can send out a lobbyist and have him registered, as provided in the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (the most recent modification of a lobbying regulation). And as J.W.Baran pointed out in the Washington Post on January 8, “there are now more than 27,000 registered lobbyists petitioning“. Lobbyism is regulated, usually well documented and said to not usually be prone to fraud and conspiracy. Very well. In favor of honorable lobbyists I have to admit that with so many “grievance petitioners” around it is hard to see why Members of Congress would require overly extravagant tokens of sympathy at all – they should already be drowning in a regular flood of all kinds of support-enhancing commodities. And even though the value of a gift (this includes invitations, dinners etc.) must not exceed certain limits, the abundance of donors will certainly not have any member of the House suffer from a shortage of little somethings. Of course there are not only the gifts, but also profitable contacts. Those tend to last longer than a gourmet dinner.
Indeed, who will ever be able to tell which decision in favor of a lobby was legally influenced by righteous lobbyists and supported by righteous politicians? Who knows whether all gifts, invitations, donations are acknowledged by uninvolved eyes? Who knows what remains hidden or happens “in private”? Secrecy is a useful ingredient in all kinds of influencing – albeit to keep other parties from counteracting. And obviously also a considerable number of elected legislators is pretty well aware of the benefits of secrecy. It is only useful that their circles are exclusive – in several meanings of that word.
Exclusiveness is, when not a matter of status (and if so even the more) connected to money. You pay money to your lobbyist or rather to your lobbying firm. You do need money to prepare and undermine the petition. And you will need money to get attention and indebt someone to favors. In order to achieve anything you simply can’t be “anyone” hiring a lobbyist. This is the first drawback as far as democracy is concerned. It is a democracy of the rich. Well-known drawback number two: many lobbyists are hired by companies and associations. (Let anyone trying to argue that companies feed and feed on working citizens be reminded of the terms “globalization” and “outsourcing”.) But I am not aiming at the (dis)advantages of a liberal economy for the people. My point is influence.
The original democratic idea of grievance petitioners was certainly not to enable affluent persons or entities to ensure that their assets be protected and more easily amounted, as seen in the most prominent cases of lobbying. There is another drawback: let’s call it the “Halliburton Factor”. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO, and after the second invasion to Iraq in 2003 his former company benefited from several contracts related to the war (troop’s food supply, restoration of infrastructure). If we allow common sense to draw the obvious conclusions from officially still unproven implications, in this case a lobbyist wasn’t even needed to influence decisions in favor of a legal entity. The best lobbyist is definitely someone from inside the system. But not only a former CEO is a useful lobbyist. According to Public Citizen there has been a clear trend among former lawmakers, i.e. former members of Congress, to enter the lobbying business. The advantages for a former member are too obvious to be recounted.
So where are the people in this rule of theirs – democracy? You do not need an Abramoff to find that influence on legislation is hardly where it belongs, that it is hardly with the people. But even without lobbyism as it is, in a country of over 200 million a truly representative democracy is an illusion. Europe could face a similar fate in a globalizing Union. I caught myself asking: if citizens are underrepresented anyway, why do I care for politics at all?
January 8, 2006. Tom DeLay steps down as House majority leader due to connections with Jack Abramoff. No doubt it would have been better if this whole affair had never happened. But would it ever have become a scandal if citizens didn’t care?
January 4, 2006. Jack Abramoff is in the newspapers. A lobbyist out of thousands (actually tens of thousands!) who will unveil his professional secrets and pleads guilty to charges of tax evasion, fraud and conspiracy. In a very cynical way one might ask: So, isn’t this what lobbyism is all about? Arguing with the first amendment to the U.S. constitution, lobbyism officially is only a more sophisticated kind of petitioning. Sounds honorable indeed.
I will not deny that lobbyism, as such, is a democratic way of advertising public interests – by U.S. law, anyone can send out a lobbyist and have him registered, as provided in the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (the most recent modification of a lobbying regulation). And as J.W.Baran pointed out in the Washington Post on January 8, “there are now more than 27,000 registered lobbyists petitioning“. Lobbyism is regulated, usually well documented and said to not usually be prone to fraud and conspiracy. Very well. In favor of honorable lobbyists I have to admit that with so many “grievance petitioners” around it is hard to see why Members of Congress would require overly extravagant tokens of sympathy at all – they should already be drowning in a regular flood of all kinds of support-enhancing commodities. And even though the value of a gift (this includes invitations, dinners etc.) must not exceed certain limits, the abundance of donors will certainly not have any member of the House suffer from a shortage of little somethings. Of course there are not only the gifts, but also profitable contacts. Those tend to last longer than a gourmet dinner.
Indeed, who will ever be able to tell which decision in favor of a lobby was legally influenced by righteous lobbyists and supported by righteous politicians? Who knows whether all gifts, invitations, donations are acknowledged by uninvolved eyes? Who knows what remains hidden or happens “in private”? Secrecy is a useful ingredient in all kinds of influencing – albeit to keep other parties from counteracting. And obviously also a considerable number of elected legislators is pretty well aware of the benefits of secrecy. It is only useful that their circles are exclusive – in several meanings of that word.
Exclusiveness is, when not a matter of status (and if so even the more) connected to money. You pay money to your lobbyist or rather to your lobbying firm. You do need money to prepare and undermine the petition. And you will need money to get attention and indebt someone to favors. In order to achieve anything you simply can’t be “anyone” hiring a lobbyist. This is the first drawback as far as democracy is concerned. It is a democracy of the rich. Well-known drawback number two: many lobbyists are hired by companies and associations. (Let anyone trying to argue that companies feed and feed on working citizens be reminded of the terms “globalization” and “outsourcing”.) But I am not aiming at the (dis)advantages of a liberal economy for the people. My point is influence.
The original democratic idea of grievance petitioners was certainly not to enable affluent persons or entities to ensure that their assets be protected and more easily amounted, as seen in the most prominent cases of lobbying. There is another drawback: let’s call it the “Halliburton Factor”. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was Halliburton’s CEO, and after the second invasion to Iraq in 2003 his former company benefited from several contracts related to the war (troop’s food supply, restoration of infrastructure). If we allow common sense to draw the obvious conclusions from officially still unproven implications, in this case a lobbyist wasn’t even needed to influence decisions in favor of a legal entity. The best lobbyist is definitely someone from inside the system. But not only a former CEO is a useful lobbyist. According to Public Citizen there has been a clear trend among former lawmakers, i.e. former members of Congress, to enter the lobbying business. The advantages for a former member are too obvious to be recounted.
So where are the people in this rule of theirs – democracy? You do not need an Abramoff to find that influence on legislation is hardly where it belongs, that it is hardly with the people. But even without lobbyism as it is, in a country of over 200 million a truly representative democracy is an illusion. Europe could face a similar fate in a globalizing Union. I caught myself asking: if citizens are underrepresented anyway, why do I care for politics at all?
January 8, 2006. Tom DeLay steps down as House majority leader due to connections with Jack Abramoff. No doubt it would have been better if this whole affair had never happened. But would it ever have become a scandal if citizens didn’t care?
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