Jan Witold Baran takes to the op-ed pages of the WaPo to defend lobbyists, and does a pretty good job:
Perhaps this scandal will eventually be called the Abramoff affair, but for now it is a lobbying scandal. If Shakespeare lived today, perhaps he would write, “First shoot all the lobbyists.” Yet in the midst of the current furor, reports do not mention that there are thousands of lobbyists in Washington who are honorable and honest people and who render a service that is both critical to a democratic society and enshrined in our Constitution.
There is irony here. The same constitutional provision that ensures the press may proclaim a lobbyist’s guilty plea also protects the act of lobbying. The First Amendment is well-known for guaranteeing freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of assembly and freedom of religion. Often overlooked in its litany of fundamental civil liberties is the right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” It is this distinct clause that prevents Congress and the president from enacting a law that bans lobbying. It is a right that should not be taken lightly and that should not be eroded by the fraudulent acts of a single lobbyist.
read the whole thing. I don’t think anyone is thinking about banning lobbying (well- McCain and Feingold and their friends probably are- they know what is best for America, and don’t want to hear from any of us to begin with), but this served as an initial defense.
Skip
The law favors the congresman and the lobbyist. There almost has to be an overt act captured to pass muster.
But we’ll see what happens when a Ohio congressman takes money from faraway casinos and then acts in the their behalf.
I liked the part where DeLay took the House Floor to congratulate the Choctaws for “hiring such good lobbyists.” (Abramoff)
The Disenfranchised Voter
Speak for yourself. While I fully believe in citizens lobbying on their own behalf or on behalf of the business that they own, but you better believe I think professional lobbyists who do the service for others should be banned.
I think the problem here is the stupid Supreme Court decision that granted a corporation the same rights as a person.
Talk about judicial activism.
Zifnab
The act of lobbying itself – going to congress, seeking out politicial figures, and airing one’s grievences/making suggestions/pleading one’s case – is not the problem here. If a coal mine in WV wants to lobby the US Congress to deregulate mining, they have every right under the First Amendment to do it. If the KKK wants to lobby Congress to revoke the 13-15th Amendments, they have an equal right to do the same.
The problem with lobbyists isn’t the lobbying, it’s the bribery. Nowhere in the Constitution is the right to “Take your Senator out to a $5,000 dinner and load him up with coke and hookers” enshrined. Nor is the right to “Buy your local Congressman a yaht” or “Give your local Governor’s son a job in management at a major corporation.”
If lobbying is such an inalienable right, it seems the current atmosphere of lobbyists inhibits rather than expands those First Amendment freedoms. If I wanted to write a letter or have a personal meeting with Tom DeLay, my local Congressman, I can garantee you I’d be lucky for him to hear my grievences ten years after he retired from Congress. I, personally, have no such lobbying rights under the current system. The only people I do know who have such rights were forced to purchase them. And the price wasn’t cheap.
So before we start talking about the “right to lobbying enshrined in the First Amendment”, someone please tell me if and how you have ever exercised that right. Freedom of Speech does you very little good if no one hears you.
mikef
I have no problem with lobbyists appealing to Congress to support their interests. I don’t care whether they’re Big Oil, or Earth First. I have a problem with them writing checks to Congressmen. I have a problem with the pay-to-play system that’s been growing rapidly over time. I have a problem with legislators allowing lobbyists to write legislation. Private citizens don’t often have easy access to their representatives. Wealthy businesses always do.
Bob In Pacifica
In my life I’ve gone to visit congressional offices on behalf of my union, and it would be nice to think that representatives respect and honor the opinions and concerns of the 700,000 postal employees, but my guess that they also like the money that comes from our PAC.
docG
The article is a very good defense of the current lobbying system. It begs the question, however, of why citizens who are seeking a redress of grievances cannot routinely get such a hearing without paying large amounts of “access fees” to the legislative and executive branches. To get a hearing with those that can redress grievances, one must hire a lobbyist who has suffeciently greased the wheels through campaign contributions, freeby trips, sporting events tickets, etc. to government officials. Do we want a system that is “of the people, for the people, by the people (well, just the people that have a lot of money)”?
Real reform would include elimination of lobbyists’ ability to provide anything of value to those they lobby. Anything less is just a form of influence pedaling. If lobbyists are providing a real service to Congress and the executive branch, they should not have to pay an admission charge to make such services available.
ppGaz
Exactly right. Lobbying is not the problem, it’s influence peddling by moneyed interests that is the problem. And it’s influence peddling that lobbying needs defending from, not unspecific criticism.
You are now witnessing government by influence peddlers. How are you liking it?
p.lukasiak
The problem with lobbyists isn’t the lobbying, it’s the bribery.
precisely. The problem isn’t that there are professionals that “petition the government for redress of grievances”, the problem is that these professionals also control vast sums of money that are available to public officials who act on behalf of the lobbyist’s clients.
The “right to petition” is not the right to bribe with campaign donations, or extort with the threat of campaign donations to a public official’s political opponents. Its the right to ask the government to do something — and it is a right that should be shared equally by all americans.
The Other Steve
Actually, I thought Matt Yglesias made a good point, that the only people who it is in their best interests to promote a law which bans lobbyist bribery, is… The GOP. As a smokescreen to cover their trail of corruption.
Yes, I decry the impact of lobbyists on Washington. But I’d rather have it out in the open where I can kick the congresscritter in the balls over it, then hiding it behind the scenes like Delay has tried to do.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Can someone Constitutionally defend the practice of professional paid lobbyists petitioning the government on a corporation’s behalf without using the bogus case that says a corporation is entitled to the same rights as a person?
p.lukasiak
Actually, I thought Matt Yglesias made a good point, that the only people who it is in their best interests to promote a law which bans lobbyist bribery, is… The GOP. As a smokescreen to cover their trail of corruption.
and just to drive home this point, here is how the author of the Post piece is described by the paper….
Lobbyists aren’t hired because of their debating skills, their product isn’t “argument” but “access”, and the raw materials that go into this product are campaign cash and jobs and other legal forms of bribery.
The supply of government officials is far exceeded by the demand for access to them. The result is an access market, in which access is granted to those who can afford to pay for access.
Paul L.
It may be the same logic that you would use to justify the taxing of corporate profits in addition to the income taxes paid by the executives, employees and shareholders of the corporation.
Adina Levin
Another problem is access to legislation that citizens don’t have. Here in Texas, industry lobbyists draft bills and hand them to staffers (really, no joke). Industry lobbyists are at the table negotiating the bills’ content before public hearings, and after public hearings when bills are revised. There is a website where bills are supposed to be posted for public access, but the website can be out of date.
In Congress, bills often aren’t available to opposing party Congressional staff until shortly before the vote.
Lobbyists know what’s in the bills. Citizens don’t. The opposing party doesn’t.
That has to be fixed.
Zifnab
A corporation having the same rights as a person seems a bit redundant. After all, the corporation doesn’t have an opinion, but the people within the corporation do. So a CEO who wants to voice his complaints can voice it as the CEO or he can voice it as the “corporation” but stripping said company’s right to petition is basically just splitting hairs. The difference between “Exxon” and “the managers of Exxon” is neglegable.
Whether or not a corporation is an individual doesn’t really enter into the debate.
Andrei
If only it were bogus.
As long as corporations enjoy the rights and legal definition of a “person” in the eyes of our judicial system, then it’s basically legitimate, no matter how awful and destructive the practice may be to overall health of our democracy.
The Disenfranchised Voter
That isn’t what I am arguing for though. I think the CEO should still have the ability to petition the government. I just don’t think he should be able to pay someone to do that for him.
If he wants to lobby, he should have to do it himself. Not pay some guy to “lobby” on his behalf.
The Disenfranchised Voter
But what actual decision makes them legitimate a “person”. Apparently there is some dispute as to whether the Supreme Court actually ruled this or not.
The Disenfranchised Voter
** Correction
That should read on his company’s behalf.
Andrei
And interesting bit on the subject then.
How can a corporation be legally considered a person?
Andrei
And I know I’ve plugged this movie before, so my apologies and I won’t again, but go rent and watch The Corporation.
I found it very interesting, and while I didn’t agree with a lot of its solutions presented by some of the subjects interviewed. If anything, watch it with some politically minded friends and bring up the topic of lobbying after watching to see what you all think. Would be an interesting conversation nonetheless.
AkaDad
“to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Maybe I’m wrong (its happened once or twice before), but to me, this means being able to sue someone in Government courts, if they are wronged, as opposed to lobbying for tax subsidies.
ppGaz
Here’s a lobbyist-related video that answers the question, why do real Dems love Howard Dean? This is why.
Dean destroys Blitzer’s Bullshit
This fact-bombing of the bonehead Wolf Blitzer, water-carrier for the GOP, is classic Dean. It’s why we is where he is.
ppGaz
“Why he is where he is”
Zifnab
This Constitutional Right gave rise to the right of petitions, referendums, and recall elections during the 19th and 20th century if I remember my US History correctly.
That said, I’m sure you’re aware of what a petition is in practice. I believe this is what it is refering to. Namely, the right for a person or collection of people to bring a formal statement or complaint to the ears of an elected offical.
Btw, nice link ppGaz. But I’m saying that mostly cause I love to see Dean whip it out and throw it down, scaring small women and children with his giant sack of Truth! Go Dean! :)
ChristieS
Ouch, Wolfie…looks like you got hurt on that one. It’s the sudden look of “oh, my God…what do I do now…” on Blitzer’s face that amused me.
ppGaz
I’ll tell you what, that shrug and sigh by Wolf at the end of this clip is just ….. better than a Christmas present. It makes me smile every time I play it.
Gold.
Pooh
Dis-Vote,
I’d probably start by analogizing lobbying to lawyering. People have a right to legal representation, why not a right for an advocate to their political representatives?
Consider for a moment the situation where one is not allowed to hire an advocate. First the corporations still have an edge over John Q. Citizen, because they can hire someone who’s responsibilities are essentially lobbying. You or I have to, you know, work for a living so wouldn’t have the time.
In the legal system, those that spend the time, money and effort to represent themselves in non-criminal, non-divorce proceedings tend to be the cranks and the crusaders. I think allowing access by more moderate interests is good and neccesary.
Now, if you really want to talk about what should change, it’s “money = speech.”
Matt
While watching the Abramoff coverage on one of those CSPAN (or CSPAN2) call-in shows, I can tell you that several people called to say that lobbyists should be banned. If you’ve ever watched those shows, you’ll know that the callers are an odd bunch, but it at least indicates that the idea is out there.
p.lukasiak
But what actual decision makes them legitimate a “person”.
I don’t know.
What I do know is that Congress recognises corporations as “persons” in the statutes it passes — as anyone who is familiar with the illegal wiretaps controversy, and the relevant FISA statutes, can attest to.
demimondian
OK, Pooh. Let’s take as a given that money $\not\subset$ speech. If speech is speech, and I have the right to petition my government, then is an advertisement in support of that petition speech? Does the government have the right to regulate that expenditure?
Skip
Lobbying can be as much an expression of opinion as playing music– but who would argue that payola was protected by the 1st amendment.
One cannot always prove quid pro quo, but once in a while something is so obvious that it is actionable.
demimondian
Corporate persons have always been “persons” for the purposes of the law. The question is whether they have the full spectrum of civil rights accorded to an “individual person” or a citizen.
Obviously, they don’t have the right to vote, or to hold public office. Similarly, they don’t appear to have the right to keep and bear arms. In fact, when you get right down to it, they have very few of the rights accorded to an individual person.
On the other hand, they clearly aren’t without some civil rights — forfeiture should require repayment, whether the owner is an individual or a corporation.
Lobbying, though, clearly is not anywhere near a grey area, because it isn’t the corporation’s rights that are important here. It’s the lobbyist who has the right to petition and speak, not the corporation.
Pooh
demi, as to the advertisement question, it’s hard to answer that without a specific regulation. So, yes I guess some regulation is ok – Time, Place, Manner; truthfullness, what have you. That’s very abstract, and I tend to take a fairly narrow view of what TPM should encompass. But there is empirical evidence to support a suggestion that certain kinds of political money cause real harm.
Moreso than the advertising angle, I feel that the idea that political contributions are “speech” has an insidious and deleterious effect. As we’ve seen.
BTW, and I never thought I’d be saying this, but GO HOWIE DEAN – he absolutely bitch slapped Wolf Blitzer re: possible democratic involvement in Abramoff
The Other Steve
Corporations will always lobby the government, as long as their are government laws, in particular regulations and taxes which impact corporations.
To make an argument and disregard that basic point is so utterly stupid as to not be worth responding to.
The Other Steve
The Abramhoff is a bipartisan thing is dead. Even McLaughlin group this morning recognized that, not even Tony Blankely would try to sell taht story.
Zifnab
No one doubts that. So long as governments meddle with business, then business can and should meddle in government. But there’s recognizing that lobbying exists and then there’s kowtowing to whatever bullshit a corporation or special interest group pulls. We need to criminalize money in politics hard core. Cap maximum expenditures on running a political campaign. Cut out all soft dollar donations. We need to put judges on the bench who recognize Swift-Boating as the political monetary contribution as it is – and go the extra mile to find a candidate willing to sue for libel and slander when people decide to air that shit.
They need to do alot of things. *sigh*
Perry Como
Vote Plutocratic in ’08!
ppGaz
Got it. In fact, I’m voting straight Disney. Mickey for VP and Scrooge McDuck for Secretary of the Treasury.
(Sorry, some straight lines can’t be passed up).
Actually, it was Joseph Heller who said that he never voted since the people with the money ended up being in charge one way or the other. Now THAT’S plutocracy!
Skip
” not even Tony Blankely would try to sell that story.”
Where DO all these Brit carpetbaggers come from? Blankley’s entire repertoire is made up of:
1) “When I was with Newt I always told him . . .”
2) “Time will prove Bush (and me) right.”
MAX HATS
Except that it wouldn’t make any sense at all. Corporations can be subject to federal tax because of the interstate commerce clause. That has absolutely nothing to do with what D.V. asked.
Sirkowski
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
…
Wait, he’s serious?
Justin Faulkner
You’re right to point out that lobbying is inherently just a form of political petition, but I think you’re mischaracterizing Sens. McCain and Feingold a bit; the problem they were trying to address with campaign finance reform was one that other commenters, I see, have already pointed to. Money buys access in Washington, and more often than not access translates into favorable legislation. Regardless of whether you agree in various cases that votes have been “bought” (and from Abramoff we now know that in the case of many Republican members of Congress, they were), it must be admitted that there is at least the *appearance* of impropriety.
And that appearance can be just as damaging as anything because it reinforces the idea that our government is not “of the people, by the people and for the people.” Why even bother to vote if the outcome is out of your hands? The culture of influence peddling in Washington deprives us of our active liberty; that is, the right to take part in the process of government.
Cyrus
Let me play Devil’s Advocate here… voting and the right to bear arms are not human rights, just rights afforded to American citizens. Yes, it seems complicated if not contradictory for corporations to be legally people but not legally American, but that’s pretty much where we are. And as for public office, everything like that (despite what those who whine about affirmative action would tell you) is contingent on your ability to perform the duties of the office. A blind man does not have a Constitutional right to be a fireman, and it’s not unlawful discrimination to refuse to hire him. To the extent that corporations can fulfill the duties of a government job, they often do – it’s called outsourcing and contracting. And IANAL, but I imagine there are a lot of duties of elected offices that corporations would be incapable of, just because they are only capable of acting through surrogates.
So if it’s true that corporations have fewer rights than humans, your examples don’t show it.
The lobbyist has a right to speak on his own behalf, but the corporation does not necessarily have the right to hire him to speak for them. Prostitution metaphors come to mind whenever we’re talking about lobbyists. You have a right to have sex with whoever you want, (thank you, Lawrence V. Texas :-)!) as long as you’re not taking money for it.
Of course, if corporations don’t have the right to lobby, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s forbidden. And I’m not commenting on prostitution, just taking our current legal framework for granted and going from there. My only point is, it’s not an unconstitutional infringement on freedom of speech to try to regulate when and how lobbyists speak for corporations.
I agree with you that the right for corporations to lobby isn’t in a gray area – in the other direction, though. They have it to the extent that we choose to give it.
LITBMueller
Here’s my $.02, as a former New Jersey lobbyist:
1) When people I knew would give me crap about being a lobbyist, I would often put my arm on their should and say, “Well, you know what? The people that we all keep voting back into office really…just aren’t that smart. They have no clue about the industries my firm represents. Many of them have no idea about the law in general! Do you really want these morons making all the decisions without any input? I didn’t think so!”
2) Why paid lobbyists/lobbying firms are necessary: the whole “they have no clue” thing cuts both ways. Just as elected representatives have very little knowledge outside of their individual expertise (if they have any), corporations have no clue about the workings of government, how to contact the legislators (effectively), and how to get their point across. Lobbyists have this info at their fingertips, and they specialize in it. Plus, they have personal connections to many people in government that CEOs and other corporate officers often don’t.
One final point: the problem isn’t the lobbyists. And the problem isn’t the money. It is the people we choose as our elected representatives. Not only that, the problem is: we keep voting them right back into office, and they will do anything to stay in power.
There is an element at play that makes the whole System work: GREED
Cyrus
In one sense you’re right, of course. The only cure for the problem is to change human nature by getting rid of greed. (The problem is people in general. Some individuals might be worse than others, but anyone willing and able to get elected in the first place would probably be pretty bad, and exposure to that money and power would inevitably make things worse.)
However, given that doing so would be impossible if not just a cure worse than the disease, we’ll have to table discussion of how to cure the problem, and instead look for treatment. Aspirin instead of antibiotics, so to speak. With that in mind, possibilities arise. The problem isn’t the fact that lobbyists exist, the problem is that at the moment there’s almost no difference between them contributing $1,000 to a Congressman’s re-election fund because his job before Congress was in their client’s industry, and them taking him to Las Vegas for a week followed by a wink, a nod, and a friendly vote on some deregulation. What to do about that? Well, if it were simple and obvious it would already be done. But there has to be something.
CJ
A proposal:
1. Corporations shall continue to be treated as persons for the purposes of donating money to campaigns.
2. No person shall contribute more than $1500 (or whatever the limit is) to any political campaign or movement.
3. Every campaign or political movement shall be registered as such (no ‘issue’ ads by ‘concerned citizens’ anymore).
4. No person shall contribute money to any campaign or political movement that is outside of their home jurisdiction.
5. Any person is free to spend as much time chatting up politicians as they would like to.
6. If a person is paid to chat up a politician, that person (and the person paying him) cannot give any money to campaigns or political movements aligned with that politician. The only exception to this rule is where the amount paid to the lobbyist is lower than the $1500 limit.
7. Political movements/parties registered in more than say 30 states may recieve contributions of no more than $50K (or whatever is reasonable as a national party or movement should be able to maintain a headquarters/staff).
8. Political movements/parties can give no more than $1500 to any campaign or movement in any given district or state.
9. In the 30 day period leading up to an election, newspapers, TV and radio stations must devote a significant amount of space to political campaign ads sold at a state mandated rate.
10. Any person or group that wants to put out issue or campaign ads must be registered. (BTW, there are no requirements other than 100% identification of group membership and accounting practices).
11. It shall be illegal for corporations to ‘request’ that employees donate to political campaigns or movements. Note that a corporation can only donate to a campaign or movement in the location of its headquarters. Delaware campaigns might be well funded, but others less so. Wholly controlled subs do not count for the purposes of figuring out whether money can be donated.
12. No politician’s campaign shall spend more than $50k of the politican’s personal money (or that of his family’s); see rule 2 for only exception.
13. All political campaigns will be locally funded to whatever level the local electorate feels is suitable for their politicians to spend.
These rules would make politics very local and would preserve the rights of persons and corporations to petition their representatives. Given the reduced amount of money that would be flowing, I expect that there would be more grass roots (and hence cheaper) development of platforms and correspondingly fewer of these dialed in poll-based platforms that we see.
Any thoughts on whether these rules would solve the money problem and give us a political system that would be workable? Please be constructive here.
CJ
demimondian
Sorry, Cyrus, but this line:
is just stupid. It’s everything you want to say is bad about Robertson, but with a different point of view.
Here’s a simple statement: the nation does have the right to regulate political speech. (Sedition is, _ipso facto_, not political, and is hence regulable.) Here’s another simple statement: a corporation’s shareholders can hire a person to speak to their interests. (Notice, I’m not saying the corporation can do so, but rather that the shareholders can do so. That’s the “petition” clause of the First Amendment in action.)
Now, how do you think they can do that? Well, they should form a voluntary organization, and donate to it, right? That’s called a “Political Action Committee” in modern parlance, and is the primary mechanism through which companies lobby government.
Cyrus
I’m confused. What does Robertson have to do with this? I assume you mean Pat, right? I didn’t bring him up, and I honestly don’t see any connection between him and this.
First of all, I don’t know how you can say that sedition is not political. And a limited liability corporation is not just a group of people with a common interest. Legally, it’s an entity itself with at least some of the rights of an individual, and the people who own it or act on its behalf are freed from at least some of the responsibility they would normally bear for their decisions. But that’s just nitpicking.
Here’s a simple statement of my own: condominiums, yachts, and antique leaded glass cabinets (some of Randy Cunningham’s Christmas list) and even just cash contributions are not speech. At best, they are media or ways of getting attention (at worst they’re outright bribes), but neither of those are constitutionally guaranteed. You can write very nearly anything you want in a letter to the editor, but the editor is under no obligation whatsoever to print it. You can advocate nudism, but practicing it in public can still get you arrested. Freedom of speech applies to speech, not attention-getting efforts or how that speech is publicized or anything else.
I agree that what I was saying went too far. It’s not a gray area in the other direction as I said (I do still think it is a gray area, though.) But really, the right to freedom of speech is the less important problem with lobbying. At least part of what lobbyists do is not speech – the more troublesome part – and whether it’s actual buying and selling of legislators or it just creates the appearance of impropriety, it is harmful to our democracy.
demimondian
Quick answer to one question. Political speech is speech which attempts to change the government of the polis within the constraints of the current governmental structure. Sedition, by its nature, attempts to disrupt the current governmental structure. The former can be quite radical, and could advocate a complete replacement of the current government through legal means. (E.g. organizing to elect someone who would reconstitute the American polis on the basis of Sharia is protected political speech. Planning a violent uprising to impose Sharia is sedition. It isn’t protected.) The hard part is figuring out whether a certain utterance is political or seditious.
We’ve traditionally been extremely reluctant to label speech as seditious; for what it’s worth, I believe that’s correct.
demimondian
I tend to agree with you about campaign contributions, for what it is worth. You need to recognize the difference between bri…err, contributions…and speech, though.
I can’t imagine that you want to deny me the right to meet with Senator Cantwell (if only to say “I’m your constituent, Maria. Give it all back, Senator. I promise you *I’ll* remember in November.”) I can’t imagine you want to deny me the right to spend my own money to say the same thing in the _Seattle P-I_ or the _Seattle Times_, right? You just want to make sure that I don’t give her stemware as a reflection of my appreciation.
The difference is expressiveness. When I told Sen. Cantwell that I wouldn’t vote for her if she didn’t return the DeLay associated gifts, I expressed something. When Duke got the “use of a boat”, nobody said anything. There’s the key difference.
[The grey area gets into “pay for access”. Should I be able to give money to the Democratic Party of the State of Washington to get face time with Sen. Cantwell? That’s a slippery slope, and one we haven’t handled well over the years.)