LOBBYING: HOW TO WEAKEN ITS INORDINATE INFLUENCE

Big companies and their wealthy executives and owners have inordinate influence on our supposedly democratic policy making. They wield their power through the cumulative impact of lobbying, campaign spending, and the revolving door of personnel going back and forth between the private and public sectors. This post presents some steps that can be taken to reduce the ability of lobbying to skew our public policies to the benefit of big business and the wealthy. (See my previous posts for background on lobbying and examples of how it works to thwart policies that benefit the public.)

Multiple proposals have been made for reining in lobbying. Senator Elizabeth Warren has probably made the most extensive and detailed proposal. [1] [2] It would:

• Require everyone who is paid to influence government decisions to register as a lobbyist
• Impose strict disclosure of whom lobbyists contact and what information is exchanged
• Prohibit lobbying on behalf of foreign governments
• Ban contributions to federal campaigns by federal lobbyists
• Shut the revolving door between government positions and lobbying jobs
• Tax any organization that spends more than $500,000 on lobbying in a year (see details below)

Senator Warren proposes a tax on companies spending over $500,000 in a year on lobbying. This would reduce the incentives for what she calls “excessive” lobbying and provide funding to counteract lobbying blitzes when they occur. Any organization that exceeded the $500,000 threshold would pay a 35% tax on lobbying expenditures from $500,000 to $1 million. For spending above $1 million, the tax would be 60% and it would increase to 75% for spending above $5 million.

Experts estimate that under this proposal, over the last ten years, 1,600 corporations and industry groups would have paid $10 billion in excessive lobbying taxes. Fifty-one of these organizations, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, fossil fuel-based Koch Industries, drug maker Pfizer, defense contractor Boeing, Microsoft, Walmart, and Exxon, would have paid the 75% rate every year due to lobbying expenditures of over $5 million in each of the last ten years.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the biggest spender on lobbying and would have paid an estimated $770 million in taxes on over $1 billion in lobbying expenditures over the last ten years. The National Association of Realtors, Blue Cross Blue Shield, the pharmaceutical industry association, and the American Hospital Association are the next four organizations on the list of the biggest spenders on lobbying, each having spent between $200 million to $425 million on lobbying over the last ten years. The five industries paying the most in lobbying taxes would have been the pharmaceutical, health insurance, oil and gas, financial, and electric utility industries.

Under Warren’s proposal, the funds raised from the excessive lobbying tax would go into a new Lobbying Defense Trust Fund, which would be dedicated to blunting the influence of excessive lobbying and strengthening the voice of the public interest in policy making. The funding would be used to: [3]

• Strengthen Congressional expertise so members aren’t relying on lobbyists for information and expertise. For example, the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (which was eliminated by Speaker Newt Gingrich) would be resurrected and the Congressional Budget Office would be strengthened.
• Support federal agencies that are facing an onslaught of lobbying. They would be provided funding, for example, to allow them to hire personnel to complete rule-making more quickly when being inundated by lobbyists’ comments, to which they are required to respond. When an organization goes over the $500,000 expenditure threshold (triggering the lobbying tax) and spends money lobbying against a proposed rule or regulation, the tax on the spending would go to the federal agency doing the rule-making to help it respond.
• Establish a new Office of the Public Advocate that would fight for the public interest in the rule-making process.

Senator Sanders also has a plan to reduce the influence of businesses and their lobbying in policy making. It would prohibit political contributions by federal lobbyists. It also calls for a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and senior Congressional staff. [4]

The ethics and election reform bill, H.R.1, the first bill introduced after Democrats took control of the House in 2016, would tighten lobbying regulations. It would reduce from 20% to 10% the amount of time an individual could spend on lobbying activities before having to register as a lobbyist. The American Bar Association, among others, has proposed eliminating the 20% threshold and replacing it with a less arbitrary and more enforceable criterion. Numerous calls for a lifetime ban on lobbying by former members of Congress have been put forth, but the effectiveness of such a law is questionable given the amount of shadow lobbying, i.e., lobbying activities by unregistered persons, that currently exists. [5]

Big companies and their wealthy executives and owners work relentlessly through lobbying, campaign spending, and the revolving door to block or weaken policy changes that would benefit workers and the public. They attack legislation as it goes through Congress. They work to get the President to oppose or veto proposed laws. Failing that, they work to block or weaken the implementation of laws, including the issuance of relevant rules and regulations. If they can’t block the issuing of rules or regulations, they sue in court to block their implementation. At best, this delays policy changes that would benefit workers and the public by years; often it succeeds in killing them completely.

I urge you to contact your elected officials at the federal level, and at the state and local levels too, and to ask them to pass laws that require full disclosure of paid lobbying activities. Ask them to ban campaign spending by lobbyists and to close the revolving door between public sector positions and related private sector jobs, including as lobbyists. Finally, ask them to use tax laws and other mechanisms to provide financial disincentives for excessive lobbying spending.

We need to take these steps to reduce the inordinate and undemocratic influence of companies and wealthy individuals in our policy making.

You can find contact information for your US Representative at  http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/ and for your US Senators at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm.

[1]      Warren, E., 10/2/19, “Excessive lobbying tax proposal,” Team Warren (https://medium.com/@teamwarren/excessive-lobbying-tax-fca7cc86a7e5)

[2]      Tusk, B., 10/14/19, “Lobbyists should embrace Warren’s anti-corruption plan,” The Boston Globe

[3]      Warren, E., 10/2/19, see above

[4]      Sanders, B., retrieved from the Internet on 10/15/19, “Get corporate money out of politics,” Sanders for President (https://berniesanders.com/issues/money-out-of-politics/)

[5]      Evers-Hillstrom, K., & Auble, D., 10/3/19, ‘Shadow lobbying’ in Trump’s Washington,” Open Secrets, Center for Responsive Politics (https://www.opensecrets.org/news/reports/shadow-lobbying-2019#reforms)