Bryce Harlow Foundation

Today’s post comes from National Retail Federation president and CEO, and Bryce Harlow board member, Matthew Shay.

This week, hundreds of Washington, D.C. professionals, including Members of Congress and association presidents came together to honor a great man and D.C. legend, Bryce Harlow.

During the 32nd Annual Bryce Harlow Foundation Awards Dinner, which I had the honor and pleasure to chair, hundreds of lobbyists, government affairs representatives, corporate executives and communicators gathered to remember this great man, his legacy, and commitment to public service and professional advocacy.

At the dinner, we took time to honor the extraordinary class of 2012-2013 Bryce Harlow Fellows – 20 in all – and presented awards to two most-distinguished recipients, Mr. Charlie Black and U.S. Senator Mark Warner.

Senator Mark Warner was the proud recipient of the 2013 Bryce Harlow Award for his contributions to the business-government relationship. Serving with honor as both as the 69th governor and now senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia (my home state), Sen. Warner has fought tirelessly to incorporate free market principles into government, and has reached out to business, trade associations and even Republicans (it happens) to focus the nation’s attention on our deficit and debt.

Senator Warner is an exceptional politician and leader, and most deserving of this
distinguished award.

Charlie Black of Prime Policy Group received the 2013 Business-Government Relations Award for his active contributions to advocacy and public policy. Black has been a trusted advisor and counsel to numerous corporations, clients, presidents and candidates alike – from Barry Goldwater to Mitt Romney. His dedication, trustworthiness and loyalty to his beliefs and his clients have been at the cornerstone of his 30-year career and his laudable success in both public and private service.

Charlie is truly the embodiment of this noble distinction.

The 32nd Annual Bryce Harlow Foundation Awards Dinner is more than just another dinner; it is a time to honor those who dedicated their lives and careers to public service and a moment to welcome a new class of government relations professionals and advocates.

I would like to personally thank Foundation Chairman Juanita Duggan, Foundation President Linda Dooley, U.S. Senate Chaplain Dr. Barry C. Black and U.S. Senators John McCain and Jerry Moran for their time, service and commitment and those who sponsored the 2013 awards dinner. Thank you for keeping Bryce’s legacy alive.

Today’s post comes from Prof. Thomas Merrill, who will be presenting at tomorrow’s Bryce Harlow Ethics and Lobbying Workshop.

Discussions of the moral responsibilities of lobbyists often start and end with legal obligations. Yet the law may well be problematic in many different ways: it may be the product of “regulatory capture,” short-sighted reform efforts, or even outright manipulation by interest groups. To navigate professional life successfully, then, we need to cultivate some sense of ethical virtues that go beyond merely “following the letter of the law.”

In this session we will discuss the U.S. Constitution and the political theory of the Federalist Papers as one example of how to think about that broader sense of ethical virtue. The Federalist Papers are based on a steely realism about the power of self-interest to lead to tyranny and an optimism that institutions can be designed to channel interests into the service of the public good. A good constitution recognizes that interests and interest groups will always be with us but can be made to check or restrain each other: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.”  One way the Constitution uses ambition to check ambition is by multiplying the number and kinds of interests and allowing them to compete with each other.

On this view, lobbying plays an important and necessary role in the constitutional order. The Federalist invites us, not to deny the reality of interests, but to elevate them and see them from the perspective of the overall constitutional order and the overall public good.  It invites us to see lobbying, not as the crass pursuit of self-interest, but as a kind of statesmanship requiring virtues such as prudence, intelligence, and integrity.

Today’s post comes from Bryce Harlow alumni fellow, Sarah McDonald.

When I first applied for the Bryce Harlow Fellowship, I knew that I had a passion for public affairs and the desire to make a difference in the advocacy world, but had not considered lobbying itself as a profession, having always worked on and enjoyed the administrative and grassroots side of advocacy.  However, through the networking opportunities I engaged in as a fellow, including “People You Should Know” luncheons, the interaction with the board of the foundation, and the peer to peer relationships with the other fellows, I began not only to learn more about lobbying, but also to realize that my strengths and education would be well-suited for a career in this other, very interconnected but different, aspect of advocacy.

I was incredibly fortunate to be offered the Bryce Harlow Fellowship for two years, and felt comfortable setting up one-on-one meetings with my mentors and candidly expressing my plan for career growth in the influence industry.  I also found that the content, organization, and scheduling of Bryce Harlow events made attendance not only possible, but a very beneficial use of the limited extra time available to working professionals who are also studying for their Masters’ degrees.

The Bryce Harlow Fellowship is invaluable to any student and professional studying and working in the advocacy field, and I am proud and grateful that I can say the fellowship has directly helped me in my career.  In January of this year, I was promoted to Manager, Government Relations to be a federal lobbyist.  While I know I earned this promotion through hard work and dedication, one of the first emails I sent after learning of the promotion was to thank Linda Dooley, president of the Bryce Harlow Foundation, for allowing me to be a fellow and giving me the ability to take on my new role with confidence.

Today’s post comes from James A. Thurber, whose latest publication Rivals for Power examines the ongoing power struggle between the president and Congress.

President Obama has fought the influence of lobbyists since the inception of his political career, beginning as the ethics and lobbying reform leader in the Senate in 2006-07 and continuing through his candidacy and eventual presidency. The combination of rising campaign spending and lobbying expenditures, public malevolence toward lobbying, and a general resentment toward Congress have created the perfect political environment for reform.

The president has only fueled these feelings by publicly and repeatedly calling for transparency in the lobbying industry. Chapter 7 from my most recent publication, Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations, analyzes whether the president has been successful in his attempts to change the way both Congress and Washington work.

The president has found it difficult however to tame lobbying because of its
size, adaptability, and integral part it plays in America’s pluralist democracy.
Although the number of registered lobbyists has decreased since January 2009, it is
estimated the number of people in DC who are either lobbyists or associated with
the advocacy industry is more than 100,000. And although President Obama has
decried lobbyists for hindering or stopping his policy agenda, undermining
democracy and the public interest, he has publicly praised his stakeholders from
organizations such as the AARP, pharmaceutical industry, and the health insurance
industry in passing his health care reform legislation.

The only difference between lobbyists and these non-registered stakeholders
lies in President Obama’s rhetoric; both cite the first amendment as the cornerstone
of their industry. Throughout my publication, I use examples from President Obama’s
presidency and political career as a whole to draw my final conclusion: that he has
tried to reform lobbying and Congress as a senator, candidate and president, but he
has failed to meet the high expectations of the American public to change the role of
lobbyists and specialized interests in congressional policy making.

When I tell  people who live outside of Washington, DC  that I am a lobbyist,  I get a mixture of reactions ranging from deep respect to choleric anger and everything in between.  Regardless of the reaction, I am always struck by how little the public understands about the role of lobbying and the lobbyist in creating public policy.

Most people think that there is something mysterious, magical, and secret about lobbying as if the lobbyist is a form of Harry Potter and the Congress a grown-up Hogwarts. The most misunderstood part of the process is the most basic and least mysterious  — the fact that lawmakers lack information and without lobbyists, lawmakers do not have the information they need to make good public policy decisions.

The public assumes, particularly in the age of the Internet, that a Member of Congress need only push a button and all the relevant information is revealed.  This is a false assumption. The only information lawmakers have is information that is provided by people who will  be affected by a public policy decision. Every public policy decision creates intended and unintended consequences, winners and losers. It is the responsibility of the people whose lives and/or livelihood will be affected to tell the Congress about those consequences, so that public policy is well-informed.

Lobbyists are professional information-gatherers and professional  information-communicators and, without the data they provide, the Congress literally could not conduct the nation’s business. Lobbyists spend most of their time providing data and information to people on Capitol Hill who lack subject-matter expertise and doing it in a way that will cut through the competing “noise” of the other thousands of lobbyists whose issues have equal merit.  It is very hard, important work and there is nothing mysterious about it!

The First Amendment guarantees the right “to petition the government for redress of grievances,” a right vital to a free society. But I believe that the right to petition — the right to lobby – is more than a right – it is a fundamental responsibility and duty, in particular for the business community. Good public policy cannot exist without vigorous engagement by stakeholders, especially those from corporate America. Yet we can all agree that this right is under attack and is poorly understood by the American public. These attitudes go hand in hand with the public’s growing distrust of its political institutions. So what is to be done to protect the right to petition and to protect the business community’s right to affect public policy? The best way is to ensure that future generations of lobbyists are trained in the values of Bryce Harlow. The BHF takes on this challenge directly by providing scholarships to young professionals who are working full-time in advocacy and going to graduate school at night (as did Bryce Harlow) in order to earn the credentials to be the next generation of leaders who will carry this profession in the future. Along the way we expose them to best-in-class practitioners and teach them the importance of honesty, ethics, and integrity in the profession. BH fellows receive a mentor from our Board who transfers years of experience and practical advice to help them manage their careers. They understand that the best way to be successful in advocacy is to follow the example and values of Bryce Harlow’s storied career.

Former BHF Board member David Rehr, a Professor at the GW Graduate School of Political Management, last year published some ground-breaking research, based on 3,000 surveys, of attitudes of Congressional staffers and lobbyists. The research confirms that the two things that are most valued on Capitol Hill by staff and Members of Congress are 1) the quality and honesty of the information, and 2) the integrity of the person providing it. Honesty and integrity still have more influence than what often passes as “power” in DC. This is very good news, because these are the principles on which the BHF was founded.