The American League of Lobbyists (note: not as superhero-ish as the name would imply) is peeved with President Obama's perceived attacks against their line of work. This has resulted in, as is the case with most things political,
writing a public letter saying so. Here are some excerpts from
the letter (PDF):
The Honorable Barak H. Obama
All right, let's stop right there. When you're writing a letter to someone asking for a bit more mutual respect, probably the most important first step is to spell their name correctly. (The league corrected the spelling for the version they
later posted to their website.) This is not an absolute requirement, of course, just a general rule-of-thumb. It would be like me writing a letter to the "American Leak of Lobbyists." It just starts things off on the wrong foot.
For some time, the American League of Lobbyists (ALL) has been extremely critical of your words and policies affecting lobbyists. You have attacked lobbyists as being a primary source of political dysfunction, yet you have embraced those lobbyists who chose to call themselves consultants, advisors, or any other name besides a lobbyist.
As the national professional association of many thousands of people who represent interests from nonprofits to associations and corporations, we are especially troubled that the positions you have taken have encouraged many lobbyists to deregister and have thus limited free speech of those of us who remain registered. Given loopholes in the Lobbying Disclosure Act, some of these de-registrants are acting within the bounds of law to do so. Those who are not registered are protected from discovery by the lack of an effective enforcement mechanism.
And so on. The theme is that Obama ought to stop picking on lobbyists, because that just makes people pull a Newt Gingrich and go off lobbying without calling themselves lobbyists, because let's face it: We're all just horrible people around here, and are going to whore ourselves out to the highest bidder no matter what name you attach to it.
They've got a point about the ease with which "lobbyists" can become "not lobbyists." At the moment, it's a complete sham. ALL proposes in their letter that a few loopholes be closed, with the general intention of requiring more people to register themselves as lobbyists (any incidental benefits to an organization that represents lobbyists is, of course, strictly coincidental).
While we may have significant differences with you about the role of lobbyists in our representative system of government, we would like to work with your Administration. Common ground exists to reduce the rhetoric and find ways to work together and develop a way to close the statutory loopholes which have justifiably created so much recent attention in the media.
I'd like to see more lobbyists called lobbyists too, but that doesn't change the more fundamental problem. Meaningful access to Congress is at this point almost the exclusive realm of for-profit advocates whose only stake in the outcome is that some organization or corporation has paid them to try to get the "correct" one. This includes being able to meet with members of Congress,
fundraising for them, holding suspiciously vacation-like "seminars" for them, writing the actual legislation they work on, and threatening appropriate punishments to legislators who vote the wrong way. Even waiting in lines to meet with Congress members is a for-profit gig these days.
That's democracy, defenders would say. Money equals access, access equals power, power equals law. It seems logical to assume, however, whether the rapidly widening chasm between the rich and everyone else over the last decades is at least in part the result of this pay-for-access scheme. I don't care if we call them lobbyists or toaster ovens, the net problem is the same.
So yes, I think the lobbyists have a point here. We need to tighten the rules so that lobbyist-like behavior is more properly called lobbying, and can't quite so easily dodged as now. Let's do that. Then we can get back to explaining why that behavior is wrecking the country, and the lobbyist lobby will have a new letter to write.
Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:
San Francisco Supervisor Chris Daly has a blog. While most elected officials are loath to blog, lest they provide oppo material for their opponents in the next election, it would be great if more politicians would blog while governing.
Well, the SF Chronicle has a problem with it, writing a story with multiple references to Daly's blogging on the "city's dime". In fact, the piece's first headline (since toned down) was "Public picks up tab for Daly blog - District 6 supervisor first official to keep diary on city's dime".
Now, Daly has a running f[eu]d with the Chronicle. And Daly is using his blog to bash it.
But there is a deeper significance to Daly's blogging -- he's using the technology to get around the media filter to communicate directly with his constituents. No need to call a press conference, hope reporters show up, hope they write the story, and hope they don't editorialize or lose your original point in a quest for "balance".
If politicians no longer need the local rags and pathetic local stations to get the word out to their constituents, it changes the balance of power significantly. Hence, you have the Chronicle wailing about blogging on the city's "dime" rather than celebrating the efforts of an elected official to open up a direct line to his constituents.
Tweet of the Day:
Mitt Romney loves America. As a matter of fact he is very good friends with the 1% who own the country.
— @tbogg via web
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