Shadow Lobbyists

Previous posts have noted that many people in the government affairs world do not have to register as federal lobbyists.  And some of these "stealth lobbyists" are former lawmakers such as Newt Gingrich and Anthony Weiner.

At The Monkey Cage, Tim LaPira writes:

Cases like these motivate pundits to write opinion pieces condemning the revolving door and shadow lobbyists by pointing out what is often referred to as the “Daschle Loophole” in the LDA. They can elude the law’s registration requirement by simply interpreting the strict statutory definition of “lobbyist” as not applying to them. That is, so long as they are not spending 20% of their time—think one full day in a normal work week—on behalf of any single client for an entire quarter, then they do not need to register or report their lobbying activities. Think about that: do you ever spend one full day per week for three months straight working on any one project at work? As law professor William V. Luneberg, Jr. notes, “You can do a hell of a lot of lobbying for somebody when you’re only doing 19 percent of your time for the client.”

So the LDA loophole is not new. In fact, OpenSecrets.org has shown that under-the-radar lobbyists are on the rise. But stealth lobbying and the revolving door tend to get the media’s attention only with high profile cases like Gingrich and Weiner. When it does, the reporting tends to beg two key questions: how common is it for lobbyists to have gone through the revolving door? And just how many unregistered lobbyists are there in the “influence industry?” My co-author Herschel (Trey) Thomas and I have some relevant (hopefully not too relevant) research on this here and here.

Based on our sample of about 1,600 registered lobbyists, we find that 52% had once worked in the federal government, mostly in Congress. These revolving door lobbyists tend to have a more diverse clientele and to work on a much wider range of issues than others, suggesting that they are more likely selling “access” to former employers in government than they are using highly specialized policy expertise (which would instead lead them to attract clients from one or a few economic sectors, and to work on a single policy area). Only about 1% of them are former members of Congress (though, it’s likely that one in two former lawmakers become lobbyists after leaving office).

Our second study is based on a random sample of “policy advocates” drawn from Lobbyists.info, the leading commercial directory of government affairs professionals. This sample includes both registered and unregistered (shadow) lobbyists. We find that shadow lobbyists actually outnumbered registered lobbyists in 2012. That is, there are now more stealth lobbyists—roughly 13,000 by our conservative estimate—than there are those who register under the LDA. Registered or not, still only about 1% served in Congress. So, though Gingrich, Daschle, and Weiner tend to be the most notable examples of what’s wrong with lobbying transparency, they are far from alone.

Leave of Absence

Representative Anthony Weiner has announced that he will seek a "leave of absence" from the House to undergo psychological treatment. What does the term mean? The House GOP Cloakroom explains:

If a Member is absent and misses votes for a substantial period of time, the Member or his staff may request a Leave of Absence from the House. Upon request, the Cloakroom staff will complete a Leave of Absence form which states the dates of the Member’s absence and the reason for his/her absence. The form is signed by the Republican Leader and laid before the House at the conclusion of legislative business for the day.

Decades ago, an absent Member was fined by the House. That is no longer the case. But a Leave of Absence is printed in the Congressional Record and announces the reason for one’s absence. Members may choose reasons that are general, such as “official business” or “illness,” or something more specific such as “having my appendix removed” or “inspecting damage in the district from Hurricane Katrina.” Members may not use political reasons for an absence. Members may choose not to request a Leave of Absence if he/she believes it would draw unnecessary attention to his/her absence.

Whether or not one chooses to request a Leave of Absence, a Member may wish to prepare a statement on how he/she would have voted on the votes that were missed. These statements, like any statement for the Congressional Record, must bear an original signature of the Member. If a statement is submitted to the Cloakroom within a few hours of the missed vote, it will be printed in the Record immediately following that vote. A typical statement would be:

Mr. Speaker, on Roll Call #____ on the ______ amendment on HR 12234, I am not recorded (because I was absent due to illness.) Had I been present, I would have voted (Aye/nay.)

Minority Leader Pelosi and other top Democrats have asked Weiner to resign, but they cannot force him to do so. A few months ago, House Speaker John Boehner "persuaded" a Republican to resign in the wake of a sex scandal, but the majority leadership has much more leverage than the minority leadership. By a two-thirds vote, the House may expel a member, but has done so only five times in its history.

Weiner, Media and Scandal

In our chapter on the mass media, we quote Rogers Ailes: "Let's face it, there are three things that the media are interested in: pictures, mistakes, and attacks." Representative Anthony Weiner of New York unintentionally reinforced this point when he went on camera in response to a perceived scandal and attacked one of his questioners as a "jackass." If he wanted to reduce press attention to the incident, he made a mistake.

At Politico, James Hohmann and Alexander Burns write:

New York Rep. Anthony Weiner dodged a series of straightforward questions Tuesday about his claim that someone hacked his Facebook and Twitter accounts and sent out a lewd photo to a college student. And for perhaps the first time ever, Weiner said that talking to the media is not an essential part of his job. CNN reports on the worst media appearance since Mark Sanford admitted his affair: “Weiner told reporters … he already issued statements over the Memorial Day weekend after news of the photo of the lower body of a man wearing underwear turned up on his Twitter account on Friday night. When asked if the photo was of him, he deflected the question … Asked several questions about the Twitter situation, Weiner stuck to his message. ‘I understand you're doing your job, but I'm going to go back to work now.’” http://bit.ly/jdXsSZ Must-see video: http://bit.ly/jIXTAI

Also at Politico, Ben Smith writes:

Trying to put last weekend’s ambiguous online mini-scandal behind him, Rep. Anthony Weiner told reporters outside his office Tuesday that he’s “not going to talk about this anymore.”

But Weiner, a veteran and champion of New York City’s media scrum, may be the single worst-placed congressman to hunker down and wait for a flap to fade.

The Queens congressman is a combative MSNBC star with a corresponding conservative target on his back. He is also viewed as the frontrunner in what is already shaping up as an intensely competitive Democratic primary for the 2013 election to replace Mayor Michael Bloomberg. He’s a media favorite, a source par excellence and a magnet for cable news cameras - on full display in two interviews broadcast by CNN Tuesday.

At National Journal, Ray Gustini writes:

Hypothetical pie throwing or not, even sympathetic political observers trashed Weiner's performance. Salon's Steve Kornacki said it was a "totally and completely out of character" effort from the usually press savvy congressman. "This evasiveness was notable," Kornacki continued, "as was the lack of Weiner's trademark swagger. It was an uncharacteristically defensive performance that seemed to go on and on, with forced attempts at humor and awkward efforts to change the subject to ... Clarence Thomas." At the Washington Post's The Fix blog, Chris Cillizza and Aaron Blake called Weiner's conduct "odd."