LOBBYISTS INFLUENCE WASHINGTON AGENDA

“ . . .  It may once have been adequate for lobbyists to
provide business clients access to the right people. Today,
however, they also must develop expertise on major
political issues, so that they can provide policymakers with
research, draft legislation, and pass on up-to-the-minute
information. Lobbyists, not staffers, concludes [Lee] Drutman
[author of The Business of America Is Lobbying:
How Corporations Became Politicized and Politics
Became More Corporate], are now the major
source of information for Congress and the
executive branch on major legislative issues. In one survey,
two thirds of congressional staffers said they depend on
lobbyists for the information they need to make legislative decisions
and pass bills. Thus lobbying grows because Congress, and
often the executive branch, needs lobbyists.

         To sum up [Lee] Drutman's main theme, there is a large imbalance of
both lobbying money and expertise that enables lobbyists to influence much of the

Washington agenda today. Drutman believes this influence must be

trimmed, and he proposes a number of reforms to address the asymmetry of money and expertise - including a new public lobby - that I believe may be effective and will discuss. But none of Drutman's proposals has been discussed in the presidential campaigns thus far. The candidates are more content to sling insults than to take the power of lobbying seriously.”

Jeff Madrick, “How the Lobbyists Win in Washington,” April 7, 2016, in The New York Review, April 7, 2016, pp: 50-52.