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A lobbying and influence finale for the reform-minded

- October 23, 2009

(this is post #6 of 6 in a series on money and influence in politics)

Over the course of this week, I have been writing about money and influence in politics.

Today, I want to conclude by offering a few ideas on how we might improve the policymaking process and reduce any potentially distorting impact that lobbyists have.

As I see it, there are two factors that could potentially distort policymaking.
1) Government is very dependent on private lobbyists for information and expertise; and
2) Lobbyists overwhelmingly represent business, and there is a shortage of vigorous pluralist competition in Washington

So far, none of the recent lobbying reforms have addressed this.

The shortcoming of gift bans (a key part of the reforms adopted in 2007, in the wake of Jack Abramoff) is that they assume that quid pro quo corruption is the main problem. I see no problem with gift bans (as they help to create a slightly more arms-length relationship between government and lobbyists). But very few lobbyists these days rely on this kind of crude quid pro quo.

The shortcoming of lobbyist bans of the kind the Obama administration has adopted (preventing former lobbyists from joining the administration and limiting contact with lobbyists on certain issues) is that it stigmatizes lobbying and doesn’t value contributions that both former and current lobbyists actually can make.

I fear that attempts to stigmatize lobbying will only make it less transparent.

Stigmatizing lobbying also misses the point: There is nothing inherently evil about petitioning the government for redress of grievances. Most lobbyists are actually good, honest people. Some of them even represent causes I support.

What should we do, then?

First, we might wish to address the fact that increasingly, the preponderance of expertise and information on policy issues is coming from the private sector. I would argue there are three main ways to counter this:

1. Make it more attractive to build a career in government by improving pay and hours for Congressional staffers. Working on the Hill should be a desirable career goal, not a launching pad for a career in lobbying.

2. Increase funding for independent sources of expertise on Capitol Hill, including such organizations at the GAO, the CRS, and the CBO. The more resources these independent organizations have to develop expertise on a variety of topics, the less important private lobbying will be.

3. Create a National Organization of Experts. I’m envisioning here a loose network of academics who also serve as on-call experts on a variety of subjects. Here, also, is an opportunity to make social science a bit more relevant to the concerns of government (will this satisfy you, Senator Coburn? (probably not)). Members of Congress could put in requests for areas where they would like more expertise, and academics could compete for grant money in these areas, should they want to.

The second potentially troubling situation is the bias in the pressure system. There are simply more organizations representing business than potentially countervailing forces. This is a systemic problem. It has historically always been the case, and will likely to continue to be so (There are a many reasons why it will be easier for businesses to raise money for political action.)

My idea here is to develop some sort of public defender lobbying system – a federally-funded corps of well-trained lobbyists who can assist public interest organizations who can demonstrate that they are horribly outmatched on a given issue.

The rules of this obviously need to be worked out. (e.g. What would the threshold be for getting a public lobbyist? What kind of resources would be available?)

But just as public defenders help justice by ensuring that defendants who can’t furnish their own representation at least get professional help telling their side of the story, so public interest groups who are dwarfed by business groups (or can’t even get into the fight) ought to have some extra support to amplify their voice a little. If business lobbyists are confident they are acting in the public good, then surely they should not be worried about a little more competition?

These reform solutions are still admittedly inchoate, and so I’d particularly love some feedback.

Otherwise, this pretty much concludes my little guest-blogging series here at The Monkey Cage. Thanks for reading.