Not All Lobbyists Are Jerks
One of Obama's campaign pledges was to “wrest the federal government out of the hands of lobbyists.” And granted, most talk of lobbyists conjures images like this and this. But, c'mon, not all lobbyists are greed-driven parasitic rodents — some actually work to protect citizens.
For instance, organizations like The American Cancer Society, AARP, and The National Federation of Independent Business (to mention a few) all have robust lobbying outfits in Washington.
In a column today at HuffPo, Lanny Davis tried to redirect lobbyist discourse, hitting the issue on its head.
"What is negative about lobbying is the absence of transparency — when the powerful and the wealthy have secret influence on members of Congress or the executive branch."
Davis continues:
"With total transparency, lobbyists and the officials they try to influence will have to ask themselves the question "would I mind if this lobbying meeting is fully reported in all respects in tomorrow's newspaper?"
The Jack Abramoffs of lobbying will continue to sprinkle their corruption and egregious fraud in big DC firms, but if Obama puts a few former lobbyists in his administration, don't be so fast to make the jump to corporate corruption.
2:56 pm
AARP is a bad example of a "good" lobbying firm. They put out a lot of misleading advertisements and their plans put an undue burden on younger generations to keep older generations at a living standard they were never promised.
4:12 pm
AARP receives much of its operational funding by selling its name and/or membership list to insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It is ostensibly a membership organization, but cannot be counted on to represent member interests regarding insurance and health policy issues.
I'm sure you know that AARP stands for ... AARP. See http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2007/09/21/271/
5:11 pm
Definition of an evil lobbying firm/association/group: Anyone someone disagrees with.
The whole fracas about lobbying corruption is overblow and is simply red meat for the masses.
5:41 pm
Yeah, AARP sucks -- or at least they're not noncontroversially good.
And it's Lanny Davis, yo. Not Larry Davis.
6:16 pm
Ryan, thanks for pointing that out. Correction made.