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The Illogic Of The Lobbyist Ban

By Big Tent Democrat

Much discussion on Obama's lobbyist ban and the troubles caused by it (see Kagro, Yglesias and Sirota. I always thought Candidates Obama and Edwards were engaging in mindless populism with this issue and Sirota's post in particular really illustrates this point. David writes:

The idea that lobbyists are the only or the primary source of good talent to fill an administration is ridiculous . . .

I doubt anyone is saying that and it really misses the point in my opinion. The point is the lobbyist ban excludes a pool of good talent for no tangible benefit. Consider the illogic of Sirota's proposed "fix:"

I absolutely agree with Yglesias that Obama's lobbyist ban probably goes too far in preventing lobbyists who lobby for non-profit institutions, entities and campaigns from serving in government . . . If Obama is to modify the lobbying guidelines, he could easily modify them to apply only to lobbyists who lobby for for-profit entities . . .

The theory underlying the lobbyist ban is that people who lobby are "tainted" by the fact that they received compensation for advocating a certain viewpoint. This "taint" theory would apply to "non-profit" lobbyists as well as "for profit" lobbyist. What Sirota wants to establish is a system of "good" lobbyists (who advocate for things I agree with) from "bad" lobbyists (who advocate for things I disagree with.) This is, in a word, ridiculous. If getting paid to lobby is the issue, then the problem applies to anyone who got paid to lobby, no matter what they got paid to lobby for.

Finally, Sirota writes:

[T]he idea that this ban, even in a slightly flawed state, is "creating more harm than good," as Yglesias insists, only makes sense if you somehow believe (as many in D.C. do) that the primary talent pool for the best people to serve in government are lobbyists . . . Even in an imperfect construction, the ban sets an important principle, and (aside from the smarmy waivers that have been issued) Obama has shown commendable courage in enforcing it.

Sirota assumes that the "principle" is good and therefore the tangible harm in shrinking the talent pool could not possibly outweigh the benefit. I challenge him to identify the principle and the "good" it provides.

This war against lobbyists is one of the silliest of "progressive" causes. The reason is simple - there is no ban on people who work for entities that HIRE lobbyists. There is no ban on people who advocate for these entities in other capacities.

The "taint" of being a lobbyist is who you represented creating at least the appearance of a conflict of interest. A ban of the "lobbyist" does not address the situation when you allow other types of advocates who were paid by the entities, or indeed, persons from the entities themselves, into government.

The same reasoning applies to the silly "not taking money from lobbyists" policies we heard about during the campaign. If you take money from other individuals compensated by the entities (or the spouses, friends or relatives of such people) or from the entities themselves, how exactly have you upheld any principle at all?

At bottom, bans on lobbyists and contributions from lobbyists are merely a sideshow to the actual problem that this is supposed to address - the power of interested money in politics. Of course, every dollar contributed to a political campaign is "interested" (a certain policy outcome is desired), but I can accept in theory that some contributions are more pernicious than others (the individual donor acting on his own principles vs. the corporate "bundler" who acts on behalf of corporate interests), but attempting to identify which is which is virtually impossible.

There has always only been one solution to this problem, one solution that upholds the "principle" Sirota thinks he is espousing - complete public financing of political campaigns at sufficient levels to avoid "incumbent protection." Since the era of Nixon, "fix" after "fix" has been attempted and merely perpetuated the problem.

I think Obama had a good point when he said he had created a form of public financing by his unprecedented, individual, small donor non-bundling base. That idea, first forwarded by Howard Dean in 2003, certainly opens up the political process. The "ban" on lobbyists was a cheap political stunt that has done no good, was disingenuous and now does harm.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 07, 2009 (boomark / email).