PERSPECTIVE ON REPRESENTATION AND LOBBYING IN THE U.S.

President Barak Obama has argued that the major problems with Congress stem from interest groups and lobbyists. This was revealed in 2008 when Candidate Obama made this promise to the public: " I intend to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days in setting the agenda in Washington are over, that they had not funded my campaigns, and from my first day as president, I will launch the most sweeping ethics reform in U.S. history. We will make the government more open, more accountable and more responsive to the problems of the American people." Obama also addressed the destructive power of lobbyists in a town hall meeting in Bristol, Virginia: "We are going to change how Washington works. They will not run our party. They will not run our White House. They will not drown out the views of the American people". He continued his tough attack on lobbyists and special interest money on August 8, 2008: "I suffer from the same original sin of all politicians, which is we've got to raise money. But my argument has been and will continue to be that the disproportionate influence of lobbyists and special interests is a problem in washington and state capitals.

Lobbyists and the massive amount from special interests in campaigns are certainly part of the problem with Congress, however, even after President Obama's historic lobbying and ethics reform in 2009, he has found that lobbyists have little to do with the problems of deadlock, extreme partisanship and the hostility the public sees in Congress today. However, lobbying for local, partisan and private special interests too often prevails over the national interests and the real question is whether this stems from the need of each member to collect and spend vast amounts of campaign money, or corrupt lobbyists. Lobbying is inappropriately linked to campaign finance. Nevertheless, lobbying can be an essential part of congressional policy making, as when lobbyists provide expertise that would not be available to the members, but its influence on Congress gives rise to concerns about conflict of interest and whether the advent of massive lobbying campaigns wrinkles rather than levels the playing field.

The number of registered lobbyists soared from 16,342 in 2000 to 34,785 in 2005, but dropped to around 13,000 in 2010 after the 2007 lobbying reforms. The drop in the number of lobbyists does not mean there is less lobbying in Washington. The decline in registered lobbyists is due at least in part to failure to register by sliding in under the requirements of the letter but not the spirit of the reforms.

In 1998, registered lobbyists reported spending US$ 1,427 billion; in 2004 lobbyists spent at least US$ 2,128 billion on reported activities; and in 2010 that grew to US$ 3.5 billion, but there is probably three to four times more spent in 'grassroots lobbying' and other unregulated efforts. Spending by registered lobbyists has grown 62% in the last five years. This astonishingly averages out to over US$ 9.7 in lobbying expenditures each day Congress was in sessiobn in 2008 or over US$ 6.5 million per year for every Member of Congress. This does not include money spent for strategy, public relations, grassroots, coalition building, issue advertising on television ads, and in the print media, and advocacy on the Internet.

New rules are needed to achieve transparency on the access of lobbyists to Members of Congress. There needs to be a new threshold of what is considered lobbying since most advocacy work in Washington is not covered by the 1995 Legislative Disclosure Act (LDA) and the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA). For example, today a lobbying firm is exempt from having to register unless it employs a lobbyist for whom lobbying activities constitute twenty percent or more of the time that he or she spends in working for a particular client. The definition of lobbyists is much too narrow and it fails to capture most of the advocacy in Washington.

One of the first gestures of the Obama administration back in 2008 was to issue an executive order and memoranda with the intention of dramatically and drastically lowering the prestige, access and influence of lobbyists. This initiative was one element of a broader wave of anti-lobbying enactments and proposals that have emerged in recent years at both the federal and state levels. These measures have grown out of a conviction- widely shared in the media, by political figures in both major parties, and by the public that 'special interests' have come to dominate and distort the processes of government. The result it is thought, is that few important issues are decided rationally and deliberately on their merits, and the people's work does not get done. And the agents and conduits of this nefarious influence are said to be the lobbyists. What is frequently overlooked by this sort of criticism, and by the accompanying urge to somehow make lobbyists disappear from the political scene, is an inescapable reality. Lobbying and therefore lobbyists are indispensable to the functioning of government, and they embody a constitutional right of the highest order, enshrined in the First Amendment "the right of people... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances".

The government- whether it be the executive or the legislative branch- simply cannot know the intricate details of the myriad aspects of national life that its actions might affect unless it has access to the expert contributions of the persons and interests involved. One cannot readily imagine legislators and administrators diligent and expert enough to learn on their own all they need to know to make the laws and draft the rules and apply them in a way that accomplishes whatever good they seek. And even if one could, those affected by government have the constitutional right to make their contribution to the process, to make their views known, and to head off intended and unintended effects. The First Amendment says they may do this in the press and in public gatherings and the petition clause says that the people may do this only by spreading their views broadcast bu also by seeking to address their governors directly.

To be sure, the Constitution only gives the people a right to write and seek to call on those who govern them, whether officers and legislators must listen, asnwer their mail, return their phone calls is another matter. The anti-lobbying measures of our day do not usually gainsay the right of lobbyists to ring the officials' bell, but some of them come quite close to decreeing that no one in the executive branch may come to the door. And this comes perilously close to infringing the very right the First Amendment establishes. Quite apart from that, some of these initiatives express a disdain for a whole class of persons, many of whom perform a useful and important function.