One of the dominant themes of Barack Obama’s campaign for President last year was the need to reduce the influence of lobbyists on politics and policy. So it has been no surprise that as President he has issued a number of rules that follow through on that same theme – sometimes reinforcing the public’s (unfair) image of all lobbyists as the lowest and most reviled form of life on the planet.
On March 20, President Obama issued yet another directive, this time to “The Heads of Executive Departments and Agencies” about keeping their distance from lobbyists when considering how stimulus funds should be allocated.
Under a section entitled “Ensuring Transparency of Registered Lobbyist Communications”, President Obama’s March 20 memo says that “an executive department or agency official shall not consider the view of a [registered] lobbyist… concerning particular projects, applications, or applicants for funding under the Recovery Act unless such views are in writing” – not by phone or in-person. All such written lobbyist communications must be posted on a public Web site within three days of their receipt.
Moreover, if said government officials should communicate orally with said lobbyists (in Washington, believe it or not, government officials and lobbyists are real people, living in the same neighborhoods, standing together on the sidelines of their kids’ sporting events or even being married to one another), “such oral communications shall not extend to or touch upon particular projects, applications, or applicants for funding, and further that the official must contemporaneously or immediately thereafter document in writing: (i) the date and time of the contact on policy issues; (ii) the names of the registered lobbyists and the official(s) between whom the contact took place; and (iii) a short description of the substance of the communication.”
Predictably, this has produced some Sturm und Drang here in Washington, but not only among the aggrieved lobbying community.
Sure, there are people like Daryl Owen, a Washington lobbyist, who wrote in this morning’s Washington Post, “Let me see if I have this straight: The Obama administration can talk to Iran and North Korea but not to lobbyists? It does not intend to review the interrogation practices of the previous administration but it will require all written communications from lobbyists to be posted on agency Web sites? It’s dispensing with the term ‘enemy combatant’ so as not to deprive individuals of access to the criminal justice system but those classified as ‘registered lobbyists’ will be deprived of their right to petition their government?”
But in an unusual turn of events, typically strange bedfellows — Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a group that is typically blowing the whistle on lobbying improprieties, the American League of Lobbyists and the American Civil Liberties Union — weighed in this week with a letter to the White House saying that the March 20 memo unfairly singles out registered lobbyists and quite likely violates their Constitutionally guaranteed free speech rights.
“The directive is both over-inclusive and under-inclusive,” the letter reasons. “It limits the free speech rights of certain registered lobbyists with absolutely no pecuniary or other improper interest in Recovery Act projects, applications or applicants. It fails to restrain non-registered lobbyists who have substantial pecuniary interests in the Recovery Act. The purposes of the directive can be achieved in a far more effective fashion, while at the same time preserving the speech rights of the maximum number of Americans.”
It’s not clear exactly how this difference of perspective, shall we say, between the President and the lobbying community will turn out, though, as I pointed out in this post a few weeks ago, lobbyists hardly have a vast and deep constituency to come to their political aid.
There’s no doubt that we need to find ways of curbing corrupting influences on government and that it’s admirable that this Administration is trying to do something about it. But knowing firsthand that many lobbyists make the policy making process more rational and efficient and play by rules of decency, however one may define that, I think that critics of this latest Administration directive are right to question if it will do more harm than good. This will be interesting to watch.
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