Tags: lobbying,

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Resolved: In the United States, organized political lobbying does more harm than good.

The February 2010 Public Forum topic introduces a very important issue in politics – what impact does organized political lobbying have on legislative outcomes and is that impact net desirable.  The arguments that students and coaches will confront when dealing with this topic are very interesting and relate to a contemporary political controversy that will not die off anytime soon.

That said, the resolution that is provided introduces the question in a way that is somewhat difficult to debate.

First, it only offers “organized political lobbying” as the subject of debate.  This is not a term of art, and it could potentially involve many different things.  Lobbying itself is as old as biblical civilization:

Nick Allard, law partner, Patton Boggs, Lobbying Is an Honorable Profession: The Right to Petition and the Competition to be Right,  Stanford Law Review, (23), (2008), http://slpr.stanford.edu/previous/Volume19/Allard_19slpr23.pdf 

Some wags trace lobbying back to the Garden of Eden and suggest that it is, in fact, the oldest profession. After all, the Serpent persuaded Eve to eat the forbidden fruit, by portraying knowledge gained from the apple as a virtue rather than a vice. The first lobbyist’s reward was to be punished by God by being forced to crawl on his belly in the dust for eternity

While such forms of lobbying are not likely to be included in “organized political lobbying” (at least in more proper circles), political lobbying itself does encompass many different things:

 Joel Jankowsky, Lobbying and Lobby Reform: A Practitioner’s Viewpoint, EXTENSIONS (Carl Albert Cong. Research & Studies Ctr., Norman, Okla.), Fall 2006, http://www.ou.edu/special/albertctr/extensions/fall2006/jankowsky.pdf

The term “lobbyist” encompasses the activities of a broad array of individuals involved with many institutions in both the public and private sectors. Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate, the president and his cabinet, governors and mayors all, at times, “lobby” — and are often, in fact, the most effective lobbyists. The more “traditional” notion of lobbyists, sometimes referred to as advocates for “special interests,” includes individuals who represent companies, trade associations, chambers of commerce and other business groups, unions, a broad array of so-called non-governmental organizations such as consumer or environmental groups, law firms, grassroots organizations, public relations and public affairs firms, polling firms, marketing organizations, accounting firms, and direct mail firms. These advocates represent issues and points of view unique to their organizations or constituencies and, in many cases, are essential to ensuring that government officials are presented with all the basic information and competing viewpoints of a given issue.

The widespread variance in what political lobbying can encompass makes it difficult to provide a general answer to the question.

Second, compared to what does organized political lobbying do no harm than good? Compared to no political lobbying at all?  That is obviously absurd since democracy in the U.S. would, outside of elections, basically seek to function if all lobbying was eliminated. 

Nick Allard, law partner, Patton Boggs, Lobbying Is an Honorable Profession: The Right to Petition and the Competition to be Right,  Stanford Law Review, (23), (2008), http://slpr.stanford.edu/previous/Volume19/Allard_19slpr23.pdf

 “[L]obbying has surely been around as long as there has been government itself.” The practice of lobbying within the United States, along with its shortcomings, is as old as our nation’s government. The specific term may well have its American roots in the early nineteenth century, as lobbyists are widely thought to be named for those who would wait in the lobby of Washington, D.C.’s Willard Hotel to smoke a cigar with President Ulysses S. Grant or to meet Congressmen.  No matter when the term lobbyist was coined, the role of the public policy advocate was understood and considered by the Founders. Professor Burdett Loomis, in Lobbying in Constitutional and Historical Contexts, explains that the Framers of the Constitution, “steeped in their knowledge of legislative politics from state assemblies and the Continental Congress” were well aware of the “pressures that particular interests, like farmers, merchants, and churches, could put upon them.” In writing Federalist No. 10, undoubtedly the most famous statement on organized interests in the American republic, James Madison “did not view special interests, or ‘factions’ as he also called them, as an evil to be eradicated.”38 On the contrary, Madison explained that “the causes of faction” are “sown in the nature of man,” removable only by “destroying the liberty which is essential to its existence.”

Compared to “disorganized political lobbying? It’s not clear to me why an additional lawyer of chaos would be good for politics.

Third, it isn’t consistent with the literature. None of the literature approaches the question from whether or not organized political lobbying is generally good or bad. All of the literature approaches it from the question of what, if anything, is wrong with lobbying and what can be done to address those externalities. Not a single advocate of lobby reforms argue that lobbying should be abolished – it is an essential aspect of our democracy:

Dorie Apollonio, Bruce E. Cain, and Lee Drutmanmm, political science professor, pharmacy professor, PHd  Candidate in Political Science,  Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly, Fall, 2008, Access and Lobbying: Looking Beyond the Corruption Paradigm, p. 1

As a regulatory problem, there are important similarities between campaign finance and lobbying reform. Partly, this is because lobbying often involves campaign finance issues such as bundling, disclosure, and contribution limits. But there are more fundamental similarities between the two, independent of their intersection. First, both involve constitutionally protected fundamental rights. However unpopular lobbying may be to the American public, it cannot be prohibited.

It is also inconsistent with the literature because even the strongest advocates of restrictions on organized political lobbying do not contend that it is a net negative , and, in fact, they argue that there should be expanded opportunities for organized political lobbying by disadvantaged groups.

With those considerations in mind, I will use this essay to explore some brief arguments for both sides in the debate.

The Affirmative

The basic argument supporting the affirmative side of the resolution is that government policy is based on the controlling influence of lobbyists rather than on the merits of the legislation itself.  This is problematic for two reasons. 

First, it leads to bad policy making because economic benefits to legislators rather than the merits of the policies themselves are driving the decisions.

Second, it is undemocratic because money rather than the desires of the populace is driving policy outcomes.

Affirmative teams need to develop strong arguments as to how lobbying actually undermines policy making because the strongest argument in favor of it is that the information provided by lobbyists improves decision-making.  If the affirmative can win that lobbying hurts policy making, they will likely win that it does “more harm than good.” 

The Negative

The central argument in favor of lobbying is that it improves policy-making because lobbyists provide essential information to decision-makers that they are unlikely to be able to obtain on their own.  If the negative can win this argument they can win that lobbying is “on balance good” because  the main criticism of lobbying is that money and lobbyists who bring the money corrupt the policy-making process.

The other argument that the negative can make is that lobbying is important to free speech, though I’m not sure how this argument works in proving that lobbying is on-balance good.