Lobbying

Lobbying refers to attempts by individuals or private interest groups (also sometimes called lobbies, pressure groups, special interest groups, think tanks, and/or advocacy groups) to influence government decision-making. Businesses engage in lobbying to protect and cultivate their business interests. Groups and individuals seeking to shape government procedure or pass legislation also engage in lobbying. The word "lobbying" comes from the historical practice of individuals attempting to influence politicians in a lobby of a legislative building. Lobbying appears in most political systems, though how publicly visible lobbying is will vary. Legislation has attempted to limit the reach of lobbyists and to increase the public accountability of the lobbying industry in the United States, which has expenditures in the billions of dollars annually.

Brief History

William Hull was one of the first lobbyists in the then national capital, Philadelphia. Hull sought, in 1792, to urge Congress to pay Continental Army veterans’ unpaid wages. Hull failed in his goal because the government lacked sufficient finances. In 1850, gun maker Samuel Colt gave lawmakers free pistols in an attempt to persuade them to extend his patent. In 1875, Sam Ward was proclaimed the King of the Lobby and was called before Congress to testify on charges of giving bribes amounting to $100,000. Ward was said to have sent letters on the stationary of congressional committees to emphasize his influence. Writer Walt Whitman called nineteenth-century lobbyists the "lousy combings and born freedom sellers of the earth."

An 1876 law requiring lobbyists to register was subsequently strengthened when Congress passed the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act in 1946; those who spent half their time lobbying needed to register publicly and disclose finances. In 1976, a post-Watergate Senate proposed stricter lobbying definitions but, ironically, lobbyists blocked the measure. President Bill Clinton signed the Lobbying Disclosure Act in 1995 redefining a lobbyist as someone who spends just 20 percent of their time lobbying. The law requires increased waiting periods for government members and senior executive and legislative branch employees before they can engage in lobbying. Prior to the law, critics noted a revolving door policy whereby former government officials would engage in lobbying. The 1995 law also provided maximum fines of $200,000 and/or a prison sentence of five years for violations of the law.

In 2006, Jack Abramoff, a former power lobbyist, pled guilty to felony counts of fraud, corruption, and conspiracy. Abramoff, with a business partner, was believed to have taken $66 million in profits from six Indigenous tribe lobbying clients alone. The following year, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, thus further restricting gifts and making lobbyist registrations and financial disclosures publicly available. By the 2010s, a lobbying firm would have to register for any client for whom they earned over $3,000 in lobbying income per financial quarter. Organizations with in-house lobbyists must register if their total expenses for lobbying activities exceed $12,500 during a financial quarter with quarterly reports due on the first day of January, April, July, and October each year.

Lobbyists get their name from the fact that they would traditionally approach politicians in lobbies of legislative buildings. No longer restricted to lobbies, modern lobbyists meet with politicians in private homes, offices, and hotels and may reach out to politicians in person or electronically. Lobbying is sometimes called K Street after the street in Washington, DC, where the major lobbying firms, think tanks, and advocacy groups have offices. Lobbying firms and their clients may provide financial and other support to the campaigns of government members who support their causes. This has raised the concerns of government critics, who fear political conflicts of interests. Those who support lobbying efforts argue that they provide a valuable service to politicians by providing them with analyses and syntheses of the social issues on which they legislate, as politicians’ staff members may not have the time or resources to effectively process the overwhelming amount of information available on particular social issues.

The number of organizations represented in Washington, DC, is said to have doubled from 6,681 in 1981 to nearly 13,000 in 2023. Meanwhile, lobbying spending rose from an estimated $200 million in 1983 to $3.24 billion in 2013. Those figures continued to rise into the 2020s, reaching $4.11 billion by 2023. It is estimated that 80 percent of lobbying spending is on behalf of business. Of the one hundred organizations with the highest lobbying expenditures, an estimated 90–95 percent of them represent business interests. In the 2020s, technology companies gained an increasingly large presence in Washington. Major companies such as Google, Meta, and Amazon significantly increased their lobbying efforts, focusing on issues including antitrust regulations and data privacy. Healthcare and pharmaceutical industries also maintained an active presence, with lobbying efforts centered around drug pricing and healthcare access, among other issues.

Overview

Lobbying is an important political issue internationally as well as domestically. Canadian lobbying occurs via media campaigns, advertisements, or by supplying politicians with research before a vote on legislation, as in the United States. Experts suggest that Canadian lobbying often occurs in closed meetings between lobbyists and politicians. Canadian lobbyists strive to keep pace with American contemporaries, and similarly Canadian politicians’ re-election budgets have come to depend more on contributions by interest groups. A prominent lobbying group is the Business Council on National Issues, founded in 1977 by company CEOs to increase Canadian business’ involvement in policymaking. When lobbying raised ethics questions under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, his government required all lobbyists to register with a public agency.

Lobbying exists within the United Kingdom and within the larger European Union (EU). UK lobbyists, like American counterparts, use techniques that the British have called astroturfing, or creating grassroots protests using regular people to represent the goals of business interests. British lobbying also employs think tanks, whereby research is generated by organizations that present themselves as objective and nonpartisan while representing private business interests. British lobbying has weathered several political scandals whereby political insiders have been accused of offering everything from favorable legislation, peerages, and access to important political figures in exchange for political donations. Similarly, lobbying has been increasingly scrutinized in the EU, especially the Transparency Register, which requires lobbyists to agree to register publicly. The EU seeks to increase the number of lobbyist registrations. Some have suggested stronger penalties for lobbyists who do not publicly register.

Lobbying is likewise active in Japan. One of Japan’s most powerful lobbying groups is the Japan Conference. The group receives very little media attention in Japan, but it has strong networks and nationalist political goals. A third of Japan’s parliament members are said to be members of this group’s parliament league. The group has 280 local chapters and 38,000 fee-paying members. The Japan Conference persuaded the government to recognize the controversial Emperor Hirohito with a national holiday and attempted to collect 10 million signatures to get a national referendum to change Japan’s constitution to remove Article 9; this article is a renunciation of war, which was a concession Japan made after World War II.

Bibliography

Avner, Marcia, and Josh Wise. The Lobbying and Advocacy Handbook for Nonprofit Organizations: Shaping Public Policy at the State and Local Level. 2nd ed., Fieldstone, 2013.

Drutman, Lee. The Business of America Is Lobbying: How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics Became More Corporate. Oxford UP, 2015.

Drutman, Lee, and Steven Teles. "Why Congress Relies on Lobbyists Instead of Thinking for Itself." The Atlantic, 11 Mar. 2015, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/03/when-congress-cant-think-for-itself-it-turns-to-lobbyists/387295/. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "A Brief History of Lobbying." Bloomberg Business, 7 July 2012, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-06-07/a-brief-history-of-lobbying. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

Grier, Peter. "The Lobbyist Through History: Villainy and Virtue." The Christian Science Monitor, 28 Sept. 2009, www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2009/0928/the-lobbyist-through-history-villainy-and-virtue. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

Heighton, Luke. "Westminster’s History of Cash for Access and Influence." The Telegraph, 22 Feb. 2015, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/investigations/11428392/Timeline-Westminsters-history-of-hubris.html. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

Hinsliff, Gaby. "A Quiet Word: Lobbying, Crony Capitalism and Broken Politics in Britain—Review." The Guardian, 5 Mar. 2014, www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/05/quiet-word-lobbying-politics-britain-cave-rowell-review. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.

Holyoke, Thomas T. Interest Groups and Lobbying: Pursuing Political Interests in America. Westview, 2014.

"Lobbying in the U.S.—Statistics and Facts." Statista, 3 July 2024, www.statista.com/topics/11840/lobbying-in-the-us/#statisticChapter. Accessed 29 Jan. 2025.