Obama and lobbyists: are they friends or foes?

                                                             By Dave Stancliff
     I don’t know about you, but I am getting mixed signals from the Obama camp about lobbyists.
During the presidential campaign “lobbyists” was a dirty word, and Obama took every opportunity to accuse Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of being in bed with them.

One year ago, Barack Obama told the Chicago Tribune, “I’m running to tell the lobbyists in Washington, D.C., that the day of setting the agenda is over. They have not funded my campaign.”
 The problem with this quote is that it’s not true. Anyone who wants to see how much the Obama campaign got from lobbyists can easily Google numerous watchdog and government sites. This is public record, so we’ll move on to an article published in The New York Times on Nov 23rd.
  The Times produced a list of 38 people who were working on Obama’s transition team who have accepted jobs in the White House and are either former lobbyists or have close ties to lobbyists.

  I won’t list them all here for lack of space. For starters, there’s John Podesta, recently named to head the transition team. Podesta lobbied for The Center for American Progress until 2006, and is currently the CEO of that organization, on leave to work with Obama.
 Mark Gitenstein, named as an advisory board member, lobbied for Merrill Lynch, KPMG, and Ernst & Young until this fall. Tom Donilon, member of the State Department review team, lobbied for Fannie Mae in 2005.
 Michael Strautmanis, senior staff member, lobbied for the American Association of Justice, a trial lawyers group, until 2005.  Sally Katzen, agency review member, lobbied for Amgen until 2007. Cassandra Butts, senior staff member, lobbied for 1199 SEIU United Healthcare Workers East until just recently.
 You get the idea. Lobbyists are popping out of the woodwork and its payoff time. I admit to a sense of disillusionment as Obama packed his staff with them. Some experts say lobbyists are here to stay and it’s just the price of doing business.
Lobbying is protected under the First Amendment that says we may petition the government for a “redress of grievances.” It appears that lobbying is a necessary evil. It’s also absurdly out-of-control.
          According to Congressional historians, lawmakers rarely became lobbyists until the early 1980s. Lobbyists jobs were considered tainted and unworthy of once-elected officials. It was beneath their dignity.
  That all changed with the increased demand for lobbyists, huge salaries, a greater turnover in Congress, and a change in the control of the House (during Clinton’s term) when the Republican Party held a majority for the first time since 1954.
  Congressional historians pointed out that the Democratic Party was plagued by a series of scandals. Since a 2000 Congressional report, the number of registered lobbyists has grown to 34,750.
 Lobbyists can be seen as good or bad depending on who they represent. What the Constitution failed to cover is how can every American exercise that right when understanding how Congress operates can baffle anyone from a CEO to Joe the Plumber?
Lobbying and political corruption often go hand-in-hand when done on behalf of corporations that make huge contributions to political parties. Obama has come up with a list of new rules that some analysts say could benefit non profits.
    * Lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.
   * Lobbyists cannot lobby while they work with the transition.
  *  If someone has lobbied in the last 12 months, they cannot work in the fields of policy in which they lobbied.
   * If someone becomes a lobbyist after working with the transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.
    * Finally, a ban on gifts to reduce the influence of special interests.
   I clearly remember Obama’s pledge to change the way Washington works and to curb the influence of lobbyists. It sounded good. These new rules don’t strike me as reducing the influence of professional lobbyists. It’s going to be business as usual.
As It Stands, I find it hypocritical, and sad, that our form of “transparent” democracy is so dependent upon this corrupt practice.