The 'Fourth Branch' of Government

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story/21702/

 

The 'Fourth Branch' of Government

 

By Alex Knott, The Center for Public Integrity. Posted April 8, 2005.

 

 

Shadowy lobbyists ignore rules and exploit connections -- and their

industry of influence nets almost $13 billion.

 

Special interests and the lobbyists they employ have reported

spending, since 1998, a total of almost $13 billion to influence

Congress, the White House and more than 200 federal agencies. They've

hired a couple thousand former government officials to influence

federal policy on everything from abortion and adoption to taxation

and welfare. And they've filed--most of the time--thousands of pages

of disclosure forms with the Senate Office of Public Records and the

House Clerk's Office.

 

Washington's lobbyists reported billing $2.4 billion in 2003, the most

recent year for which complete data exist. That figure will almost

certainly go up to more than $3 billion in 2004.

 

Special interests routinely spend far more on lobbying each election

cycle than they do contributing to politicians and political parties.

In the 2002 election cycle, the most recent for which complete data

exists, the Federal Election Commission reported that $1.6 billion was

raised. In that same time period, lobbyists received in payment $4

billion to press their case before the government. In 2000, the last

presidential election for which complete data exist, those numbers

were $2.3 billion for elections compared to $3.5 billion for lobbying.

 

Yet the resources devoted to tracking Washington's political

mercenaries and the billions they are paid to influence the decisions

of members of Congress and executive branch officials is minimal. The

Senate Office of Public Records employs 11 people, and the equivalent

House office employs fewer than 35. By contrast, the FEC, which has

authority to enforce campaign finance laws, has 391 employees and an

annual budget of $52 million.

 

That may explain why one in five of the companies lobbying the federal

government have failed to file one or more disclosure forms required

by law. In all, there are 14,000 missing lobbying documents that

should have been filed with Congress since 1998, including documents

disclosing the activities of 49 of the top 50 lobbying firms.

 

Those are some of the findings of a new study by the Center for Public

Integrity, which examined all of the lobby disclosure forms filed with

the Senate Office of Public Records since 1998. As part of the study,

Center researchers have created an online, searchable database of

every registered, federal lobbyist in America, allowing users to find

detailed data on lobbyists and their clients. The database provides

aggregated information over multiple years for industries, issues or

agencies lobbied and access to detailed information from individual

lobbying records. It takes information difficult to access from

sources such as the Senate Office of Public Records and makes it user

friendly and easily accessible by company, lobbying firm or issue.

 

The database also details federal lobbying activities by companies

based in each of the 50 states and six U.S. territories, along with

information about lobbying by universities and local governments. It

shows, for example, that in the past six and a half years, more than

300 universities have spent nearly $132 million, while more than 1,400

local governments have doled out more than $357 million to secure

funding for everything from freeways to fire trucks.

 

Influence Pipeline

 

Because of their ability to influence lawmakers and legislation,

lobbyists have been dubbed " the Fourth Branch " of government. But

while they wield enormous influence in the capital, lobbyists receive

little attention from the press and far less public scrutiny.

 

A search of the Nexis database shows that in 2004, news organizations

wrote ten times more stories on campaign finance issues than on

federal lobbying, even though the money spent on federal lobbying is

routinely twice the amount given to federal candidates and committees

in campaign contributions.

 

Yet the disclosure forms that lobbyists file show far more directly

than contribution records what special interests seek in Washington.

The reports can reveal that a company is trying to get federal grants

and contracts, or a state is attempting to secure federal funding for

a highway. They include information on who is fighting for which slice

of the nation's $2.5 trillion annual federal budget, or for or against

any of the rules in the 50 titles and tens of thousands of pages of

the Code of Federal Regulations.

 

Federal election law bars corporations, labor unions, non-profits and

other organizations from directly contributing to federal elections.

These same groups can and do hire lobbyists and pay them directly from

their budgets.

 

Altria Group Inc., the parent company of cigarette manufacturer Philip

Morris USA, devoted $125 million since 1998 to its lobbying

operations. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a non-profit organization

that represents businesses, spent $193 million of its money on

lobbyists--more than any other single entity. Even the Prison

Fellowship Ministries, a religious organization founded in 1976 by

Watergate figure Chuck Colson--who pled guilty to obstruction of

justice in the Watergate scandal--to minister to inmates, ex-convicts

and their families, has spent $1,575,577 on lobbying federal officials.

 

While all three organizations would be barred from contributing to an

election regulated by the FEC, they can spend unlimited amounts of

money hiring Washington insiders (if they can afford them) to push

their agendas.

 

Rules Made to Be Broken

 

Under the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, the federal law that

regulates the influence industry, a lobbyist must disclose his

clients, the issues they have hired him to lobby on, the government

entities he is trying to influence on their behalf and the amount of

money they pay him. If the lobbyist is a former government official,

for a limited period of time he must disclose his old government position.

 

Yet many lobbyists fail to file necessary disclosure forms. Others

file their disclosures well beyond the deadlines established by law.

Almost one in five lobbying disclosure forms filed were at least three

months late. Similarly, more than 3,000 of those filings were

submitted at least six months late, while more than 1,700 of them were

late by at least one year.

 

The Center found that countless forms are filed with portions that are

blank or improperly filled out. An unknown number of lobbyists neglect

or refuse to file any disclosure forms whatsoever.

 

In 1994, the General Accounting Office (now called the Government

Accountability Office) estimated that one in four lobbyists don't

bother to register. Following passage of the Lobbying Disclosure Act,

lobbyist registrations increased significantly from the prior year--in

part because of the law's broader requirements for who must file--but

there are still those who do not bother to file.

 

It's enough to confuse even a presidential candidate. Last year, Sen.

John Kerry voluntarily released a list of all the lobbyists he had met

with since 1989. At least 40 of the people Kerry listed as having

lobbied him were individuals who didn't register--and may not have

been required to do so. Only those who spend at least one-fifth of

their time lobbying for their organization are required to register.

 

Included on Kerry's list were Sandra Feldman, president of the

American Federation of Teachers until 2004, Gerald McEntee, president

of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees;

and Ivan Seidenberg, CEO of Verizon. Between cocktails, lunches and

Senate office meetings, Kerry met with these three people 10 times

since 1998. And even though they represented their organizations, they

were not required to register to lobby.

 

The offices that track lobbyist disclosure, the Legislative Resource

Center of the House of Representatives and the Senate Office of Public

Records, lack adequate staff to monitor the forms submitted to the

House and Senate. Neither office has staff dedicated to ensuring

compliance with the law.

 

In 1993, the chairman of the FEC wrote the House Judiciary

Subcommittee to ask that his agency be put in charge of all lobbying

disclosure. " All these functional activities are requirements of

regulating campaign finance and we already have developed the type of

staff expertise, procedures, physical plant and information technology

necessary, " FEC Chairman Scott Thomas wrote in addressing pending

legislation. Two years later, when the Lobbying Disclosure Act was

enacted, Congress decided to keep lobbying disclosure within its purview.

 

In 2003, the Center compared the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act to

the lobbying disclosure rules in all 50 states and found that 47

states had better standards of disclosure than the federal government.

Currently, Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) is looking to reform the

Lobbying Disclosure Act, including by requiring reporting about

grassroots efforts and lists of lobbying coalition members.

 

Over the years there have been various calls for lobbying reform,

including everything from a bill that would increase the time that

federal workers would have to wait before lobbying their old bosses to

a provision that would make it illegal to send " fraudulent " lobbying

communications to Congress.

 

Yet lobbyists who often oppose one another in the rough and tumble of

backroom legislative battles have by and large united against more

regulations over their industry. And for the 535 members of Congress

and the 30,000 people who serve on their staffs, lobbying is often a

lucrative career option. Some 240 former members of Congress and

agency heads were registered lobbyists, according to the Center's

analysis. In all, more than 2,200 people registered as lobbyists in

Washington during the period covered used to work for the federal

government in some capacity.

 

On the rare occasions when Congress has tried to rein in those who go

from the government's payroll to working for private interests, its

efforts have been narrowly focused.

 

" The real problem here is one of appearance--the appearance of a

revolving door between government service and private-sector

enrichment, " Sen. Robert Dole remarked when the Senate debated the

Lobby Disclosure Act in 1995. Dole referred to one type of federal

official: those who worked for the U.S. Trade Representative's office,

which negotiates trade agreements with foreign governments.

 

In its first investigative report, released in December 1990, the

Center for Public Integrity documented that 47 percent of those

officials went on to lobby for foreign interests after leaving

government service.

 

Dole called for a lifetime ban on lobbying for foreign governments by

the nation's top trade officials. " Service as a high government

official is a privilege, not a right, " he said. " This amendment may

discourage some individuals from accepting the U.S.T.R. job, but in my

view, this is a small price to pay when the confidence of the American

people is at stake. "

 

After graciously accepting his defeat in the 1996 presidential

election, Dole bowed out of politics and went on to a lucrative career

working for Washington lobby firms. The former Senate majority leader

is now a registered lobbyist who has represented the government of

Indonesia.

 

Alex Knott is political editor at the Center for Public Integrity.