National Journal recently started a new blog forum called Under the Influence Experts, which they pitch as “An Inside View of the Lobbying and Advocacy Industry.” Each week, National Journal’s Bara Vaida posts a question about lobbying, campaign finance, etc. and National Journal’s community of lobbyists, activists and other pundits respond.
This week’s question is “Should Lobbyists Be Banned From Campaign Contributions?”
CCP Chairman Brad Smith responds:
Of course we should. After all, who really believes that lobbyists have constitutional rights? At a minimum, we should force them to choose between exercising their First Amendment right to petition the government for redress, and exercising their First Amendment rights of speech and association.
Besides, it’s not like the law isn’t complex enough already. At this point, the Federal Election Campaign Act only imposes rules on 71 distinct entities, from individuals to local party committees to independent organizations to unions to “qualified non-corporations (“MCFLS”)” to LLCs and, well, 65 more. FEC regulations span over 500 pages and over 1,200 pages of the Federal Register are devoted to explanations and justifications of those regulations.
Time for the intrusion of real life. One of the many unfortunate results of “reform” is the way it has distorted the funding process. (By the way, does it ever occur to anyone that we’ve been trying this top down, regulatory approach for over a century now — 35 years since the FECA was passed, if you want to start there — and the problem never gets better, despite all the promises of the “reform community?”) There was a time when, once you decided to run for office, you found some people who agreed with you on issues, and they gave you money, and raised more from their friends. But the ever increasing complexity of the law, and the need to raise funds in small amounts, has made this old system pretty much impossible. (Some have analogized raising money under the current contribution limits, which were too low when the law was drafted in 1974 and are now a fraction of that amount in inflation adjusted terms, to trying to fill a swimming pool with a teaspoon.)
This has, in turn created the professional donor/fundraiser class. It is not that lobbyists use campaign contributions to buy influence, but rather, but that lawmakers seek lobbyist cash in a sort of extortion racket — “I won’t meet with you if you don’t provide cash.” It is, of course, illegal for a lobbying firm or its clients to reimburse a lobbyist (or anyone else) for a donation, so lobbyists are simply given an income that is sufficient to allow them to make the requested contributions.
If the Obama administration and Congress were interested in muting the influence of lobbyists, a more effective reform would be to raise or eliminate or substantially raise the $2,400 federal individual contribution limit, as well as the aggregate giving limits and the limits on PAC contributions, which haven’t been raised since 1974. As it stands, candidates must raise hundreds of contributions from a wide array of individuals and interests. Without an arbitrary contribution limit, candidates could rely less on PACs and lobbyists and leave it up to their constituents to decide whether their campaign funding is proper.
Read the whole entry, cross-posted at National Journal’s Under the Influence Experts blog.
