Nowadays lobbyists are an important actor of American political system, but their influence is exaggerated by the public. There were some scandals concerning the activity of some lobbyists that had a very negative impact on the overall reputation of lobbyists. Nevertheless, they work in accordance with American laws and have the right “to petition the government for a redress of grievances” written in the First Amendment of the Constitution (Cited in Roos, n.d.). Therefore they are one of the many special interest groups that are able to communicate with politicians and persuade them to pass or defeat new legislation.
Lobbying has always been present in the countries with representative democracy. The word “lobby” came from the House of Commons in Great Britain. In the 1640s the public could petition its representatives and usually communication happened in the lobbies of the British Parliament (Roos, n.d.). In the XIX century there were many lobbyists in the USA, but they mainly represented interests of large companies that wanted to get subsidies from the government (Roos, n.d.). Unfortunately, there have always been many people that would like to get around the law. For example, Jack Abramoff used to be an influential lobbyist in the 1990s, but he had to spend more than 3 years in prison because of fraud, conspiracy to bribe politicians and tax evasion (Stahl, 2011). In the interview to Lesley Stahl, he admits that he infringed the law and used different illegal methods to influence politicians. He also states that there are many other lobbyists that work similarly even though new regulations came into force not long ago (Stahl, 2011).
Nevertheless, one should not stigmatize the whole system because of one or several corrupt people. Many times in the history we could see that lobbyists had a very large influence on the politicians, but under the pressure of the public and mass-media there were vital legal changes that address unethical activity of lobbyist organizations and bribery of politicians or civil servants. For example, in 1872 there was a huge scandal that involved the Credit Mobilier of America that specialized in building transcontinental roads (Roos, n.d.). In the 2000s Jack Abramoff’s activity was probably one of the greatest scandals that involved many politicians and workers in Washington, DC. These two cases show that public and state have access to the information that lets them identify violations of law. Now there are several laws that regulate lobbying industry – they are Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 and Open Government Act of 2007 (Roos, n.d.). Lobbyists are allowed to meet with politicians and push their client’s political agenda. The scope of issues for lobbying may be very different and it is not only the large corporations that cooperate with the lobbying organizations. Greenpeace, Girl Scouts of America, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Hospital Association, and American Medical Association also need lobbyists to represent their interests in Washington, DC (Roos, n.d.).
In conclusion, lobbyists are experts on the legislative issues that influence client’s performance. They have extensive network of contacts and know how to communicate with policy makers. They work in accordance with 2 pieces of legislation that were mentioned above. More importantly there are laws that help to fight corruption and make work of the politicians and civil servants transparent. There may be concerns that former politicians often become lobbyists, but there is no any conflict of interests, because they use their experience and expertise for assisting individuals, private companies, NGOs, etc. to influence decision making on the national level. Otherwise, politicians would have to make biased decisions due to their prejudices or lack of knowledge. Lobbyists are a vital institution in the representative democracy. They carry out research and improve the quality of new bills. In the meantime, Jack Abramoff states that “Human beings are weak” and this is why there are many unethical practices in lobbying industry. In order to improve the situation, there should be more transparency and accountability. Hopefully, in recent years the public had enough tools to monitor activity of lobbyists and politicians.
References
Roos, D. (n.d.). How Lobbying Works. Retrieved from http://people.howstuffworks.com/
lobbying.htm/printable
Stahl, L. (6 November 2011). Jack Abramoff: The lobbyist's playbook. CBS News. Retrieved