As seen in The Wall Street Journal – August 12, 2015
Candidates and Their Lobbyist Piñatas
The right to petition the government is vital to democracy, yet politicians love to run against it.
BY JOEL JANKOWSKY
If it’s the presidential-campaign season, then it’s time to ramp up the attacks on lobbyists. From Bernie Sanders, kicking off his presidential candidacy in May by promising to take government back from “a handful of billionaires, their super PACs and their lobbyists,” to Donald Trump in a July interview bemoaning a GOP field that is “controlled by lobbyists, controlled by their donors, by special interests,” knocking lobbyists is a favorite campaign theme. President Obama’s rise to the White House was accompanied by frequent blasts at Washington lobbying, criticism that has continued during his time in office.
Yet lobbyists play a vital role in democracy. They provide a channel through which citizens, businesses, nonprofits and organizations of all kinds can address government. And lobbyists help inform the nation’s leaders on a staggering array of subjects that can have a substantial impact on the citizens whom they represent.
The right to lobby stretches back to the Founding Fathers. The First Amendment guarantees the people’s right “to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” The Supreme Court in a 2002 case said: “The right to petition is one of the most precious liberties safeguarded by the Bill of Rights.”
Despite lobbying’s constitutional protections, presidential candidates and others reliably decry the influence of lobbyists—even though their number includes many former members of Congress, all of whom have dutifully identified themselves as professional advocates, as required by the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995.
Those who vow to impose new restrictions on lobbyists would continue the work undertaken by President Obama in the first six months of his presidency. Denouncing “entrenched lobbyists,” he used a series of executive orders, presidential directives and other actions to systematically impede this entirely legal activity. Mr. Obama’s rhetoric suggested political purity, but the effect was to deny the administration the counsel of people with insight informed by experience.
Stigmatizing the lobbying industry has had other unintended consequences. To avoid being tarred with what has become a political epithet, for example, some lobbyists now limit their activities so that they don’t need to register. This promotes opaqueness instead of openness and is inconsistent with a transparent government.
As a lobbyist, I note with interest that many candidates who rail against lobbying and so-called special interests don’t hesitate to establish—in addition to their political-action committees and super PACs—501(c)(4) nonprofit “social welfare groups,” which engage in a variety of political activities.
Contributions to this last group are unlimited and anonymous. That’s fine, but it strikes me as a bit hypocritical to wink at the influence of these groups while decrying lobbyists, who are among the most-scrutinized and well-documented participants in the political process. To demonize them during this presidential campaign does a disservice to lobbyists and to the millions of Americans, businesses and organizations they represent.
Mr. Jankowsky, a partner at Akin Gump, has been a lawyer and lobbyist in Washington, D.C., for four decades.
