Introduction
Lobbying is a political technique to influence the government. It is the attempt of the individuals to influence the votes of legislators, normally in the lobby outside the legislative chamber. It is concerned with the activities of private interest groups, which are known as pressure groups. Sometimes, even public officials will attempt to indulge in lobbying mainly to influence the drafting of public policy by other officials.
Thus, lobbying “engages a favored position in the constitutional system since it is essential to the perpetuation of self-government. Lobbying activity centers on the legislative activity of a free and democratic society. In US v Rumelly[1], it was held by US Supreme Court that lobbying should be understood in its generally acknowledged sense as a demonstration made directly to the Congress, its committees, and its members. While defending the constitutional legitimacy of a lobbying law, Supreme Court in US v Harris[1] buttressed its re-analysis of the narrow scope of the law. (Johari 395).
The lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 was enacted to offer for the disclosure of lobbying activities, which aimed to manipulate the Federal Government policies. The main objective of this law was to plug the loopholes that existed in the previous lobbying law which authorized some categories of lobbyists to shun registering and for inconsistent and ineffective reporting of those who did register. LDA also defined how legislative and executive branch officials were covered and which lobbying activities were authorized and, which were not. According to an article in Economist in 2006, the number of registered lobbyists in Washington has doubled to over 35000 over the last five years.
Political conversation in the US is often pelted with harsh references to “special interest “or lobbying. These lobbying or special interest groups are planned groups that engage in vigorous political roles , either through lobbying government officials in an endeavor to influence public policy or legislation or through making political contributions. These lobbying groups are more powerful as they are having millions of dollars at their disposal. The main question is whether this dirty money corrupts the American political system, that is, whether the legislators are giving more priority to their sponsors or donors and lobbyists than they are responding to the will of average citizens.
Analysis
Jack Abramoff was an erstwhile producer of B movies. During the 1980s, Abramoff took a short break from politics and engaged in writing and producing movies. The famous film he produced was Red Scorpion, a thriller starring Dolph Lundgren. He was the leading lobbyist with high-stakes friends, Republican lawmakers who in turn exerted lever of powers on Capitol Hill. Abramoff became a curiously hot commodity in Washington D.C due to his deep association in conservative-movement politics since from the Reagan years and his longstanding involvement with many of the top images of the Republican revolution of the mid-1990s. Abramoff had unbelievable access to the top political Republican leaders and hence could get good favors. (Samuel et al 34).
Abramoff was the erstwhile national chairman of the College Republicans and also a close friend of Tom DeLay, the erstwhile majority leader of House of Representatives. As a lobbyist, Abramoff initially worked for the Russian energy companies to the apartheid section in South Africa, Abramoff indulged in unethical means to earn money.
It was alleged that he demanded a large sum of money as the commission to be subtracted from the vast sum of money that government could provide to his clients. Abramoff as a lobbyist worked to prevent casinos from being made as lawful in non-Indian regions. (Welch et al 258).
Abramoff was so powerful that he could be approached if one wants to meet a committee’s chairman or if some group wants to some special languages in a pending bill. Tiguas of West Texas, a tiny tribe of American Indians whose origin dates back to some 100 centuries are running a billion dollars casino business through their 1500 odd slot-machine, adobe–method “Speaking Rock “ at the fringe of El Paso. The trouble started when their Casino was ordered to shut down by Texas authorities. (Samuel et al 34).
The issue was in court for a long time and finally Texas got the verdict in their favor for shutting down the Speaking Rock by deliberating for that Casino gambling was illegal in their state even on the ostensibly autonomous region like that of an Indian Reservation.
Thus, to find a solution to their issue, Tiguas, approached Abramoff to dissuade Texas authorities from shutting the doors of their casinos in 2002.
Abramoff was already known for having close links with some Indian gaming clients, and he was even called by the nickname “Casino Jack.” (Samuel et al 35).
Tiguas are badly in need of Abramoff’s help and they want a form of language to be inserted in a bill by a group of friendly congressmen and this would override the court’s verdict that facilitated the state of Texas to shut down their casino Presto.
Abramoff when approached by Tiguas accepted to act as a lobbyist for them with no fees initially but of course with a catch and the Tiguas were not aware that guy who had offered to assist them in reopening their casino had been really a basic ingredient of prior initiative by Texas Attorney General John Cornyn to close it down. (Samuel et al 36).
In fact , Abramoff and his friend Michael Scanlon earlier was responsible to shutting down the Speaking Rock by sending $4 million to Abramoff’s friend , Ralph Reed, who was the erstwhile leader of the Christian Coalition which organized a fundamental operation to create support for Cornyn’s (Attorney General) initiative to shut down the Tiguas casino.
Abramoff never knew that two wrongs do not make a right. Abramoff’s role in this deal can be described as one of the most disgraceful deeds of greed and fraud as Abramoff and his friend Scanlon received $4.2 million from Tiguas but failed in their effort to reopen “Speaking Rock.” (Samuel et al 36).
Abramoff’s Tiguas affair can be described as the greatest political lobbying scandal that Washington ever witnessed in a generation. It was alleged by a federal grand jury who was probing into Abramoff’s profitable lobbying with several Indian tribes that he amazed about $87 million over the past five years from Indian tribes in Alabama, Mississippi, California and Michigan.
Abramoff organized a grassroots campaign against shutting down the Tiguas casino. However, the poor Tiguas never knew that the grass root outfit recommended by Abramoff was “Capital Campaign Strategies “ which was actually run by Scanlon, who was responsible for the shutting down of their casino! The poor Tiguas did not aware that both Abramoff and Scanlon allegedly dividing the fees paid for campaign. It was inferred from the Congressional records that over a five-year period of time, six Indian tribes paid more than $ 66.3 million to Scanlon and Abramoff benefited $21 billion out of it. This is apart from the monthly retainer ship fee from $125,000 to $150,000 from various firms he worked for. (Samuel et al 37).
During the George W Bush regime, there was a chain of congressional scandals and exposure of K Street Project, an attempt intended to support lobbying firms to employ Republicans and to reward lobbyists devoted to the Republicans with access to high Administration and congressional members.
It was alleged that Tyco International Ltd paid $1.7 million to a law firm which had a close association with Abramoff between 2003 and 2004 in an endeavor to stop the passage of the “ Corporate Patriot Enforcement Act “ and analogues bills that aimed to reprimand American companies that incorporated outside the U.S.A with an ulterior motive to save taxes. Finally, the bill was blocked. (Benoit 5).
Finally, Abramoff and his associates were sued by some of the Indian tribes on the charge that they were defrauded by Abramoff.
Abramoff was convicted for various felonies and implicated a broad range of public officials, lobbyists and staffers in his fraud scheme. (Welch et al 258).
Abramoff’s episode highlighted the lobbyist’s endeavor to donate money to Republican electoral candidates in barter for influencing legislation, which has made influencing buying more to the light. It was alleged that giant lobbying firms are anticipated to employ only top ranking Republicans as their lobbying agent and paid more than $1 million dollar per annum and these Republicans are anticipated to give away some portion of the money for Republic electoral campaigns. Thus , Republican congressional members who were in the pay roll of such lobbying companies were then supposed to come through with proper votes on pending legislation in their favor.Now , Abramoff is in jail along with two erstwhile DeLay aides, a member of congress and many others for the offense committed. (Welch et al 259).
Many famous nonprofit organizations have become associated to the Abramoff scandal. It is to be observed that Federal law bars tax-exempt organizations from receiving money for lobbying to execute public relations, and if they indulge in such activities, they may lose their tax-exempt rank by infringing this rule. Moreover, five nonprofit organizations were indulged in lobbying for Abramoff in barter for writing newspaper editorials and calling legislating on this behalf. Suppose, if Abramoff wants to bestow tax concession for a whisky manufacturer, he will request these nonprofit organizations to write op-ed articles and to make phone calls to legislators. For this, Abramoff will donate many thousands dollars to nonprofit organizations. (Welytok, Daniel S & Grassley Chuck 40).
In each house, Congress is having an ethics committee and unfortunately these ethics committees are nonfunctional. Further there are provisions for registering lobbyists. To one’s dismay, any of the recent scandals were not investigated by the Senate Committee. In the background of the 2005 scandal and Abramoff scandal, some senators vowed to introduce new regulations in place prescribing a ban of free gifts, travels, but there was no progress. (Welch et al 259).
One of the main reasons why Republicans lost power in the 2006 election was mainly due to influence peddling and widespread congressional corruption. However, we have to wait and see how Democrats are going to handle this lobbying affair and will they have the capability to castigate shady dealings is a million dollar question. (Welch et al 259).
US government should make stringent laws to punish those lobbyists who indulge in unethical activities to get gains from government for their clients. It is also conflict of interest to employ one’s government rank to get a job immediately after resignation or retirement. The Ethics in Government Act of 1978 attempts to control this. However, the above activities is not very strictly administered. For instance, the majority of the top employees of the Department of Homeland Security, under the leadership of Tom Ridge, the department’s first director resigned from the government services and became lobbyists, top executives and board members of the companies that presently having business with Homeland Security agency. Some officials are acting as consultants to companies that have been handled by them while they were in service and drawing hefty pay packets from it and this is known as “revolving door.” (Welch et al 259).
Influence peddling is the term used to denote the strategy of using access to powerful people to make money. For instance, the majority of the lobbyists employed by K-Street firms were former Republican senate members, and they could be able to seek customers because of their close link with DeLay and other mighty republicans. (Welch et al 259).
During the democrat rule, under Clinton’s administration, many numbers of top administrative executives including a cabinet secretary, Mike Espy resigned from their office under an ethical cloud pertaining to influence peddling and conflict of interest. (Welch et al 259).
During Bush administration, influence peddling was part of secret policy-making procedures within the White House. Ex vice-president Cheney was accused of having a financial interest in Halliburton which is a major American contracting company in Iraq. It was alleged that Halliburton was awarded contracts worth of many billions of dollars without competitive bidding. (Welch et al 260).
A democratic government should represent both the rich and poor alike and all should have an equal opportunity to influence government. The impact and influence of money in politics of America are a source of concern forever. Politicians either Democrat or Republican in the guise of lobbying diverts public funds to their own pocket, generously accepting kickbacks, accepting liberally campaign donations from those who want favors from the government and look for personal financial elevation. (Welch et al 260).
In recent political annals, there were two great lobbying scandals that involved in use of money to buy access namely the Watergate scandal of 1972 and the Jack Abramoff scandal in 2005. Immediately, after the Watergate scandal, public reaction was stronger and as new laws were enacted mainly to clean up in the American campaign finance system. However, the shrewd politicians were able to find loopholes in these procedures and indulged in lobbying to make money. (Welch et al 260).
In retort to the Abramoff scandal, voters obviously concluded to replace the power from Republicans to Democrats as the culture of corruption had gone too long. In 2008 presidential elections also, the role of a lobbyist in the Obama and McCain campaign also mirrored that still prolong in an epoch of substantial anxiety over ethical norms in governments. (Welch et al 260).
Abramoff scandal has spotlighted the notice of the massive use of tips, money, networking by lobbyists to get favors from government through its officials. It was reported that Indian tribes that own a casino were spent more than $ 5 million to influence pro-gambling legislation.
The funny part was that some of these funds after being channelized through a chain of non-profit organizations so as to disguise that source of funds came to Ralph Reed, erstwhile top leader of the Christian Coalition to muster the Christian groups to support for anti-gambling legislation! (Benoit 4).
Government is rather reluctant to take stringent action against lobbyists or to enforce stricter laws on lobbying since they might have been benefited from the campaign funds. Just hours after the award of six-year sentences to Jack Abramoff for his dubious lobbying activities, the US government woke up and overwhelmingly enacted first ever key lobbying restriction legislation in over a period of ten years. The imposed restrictions were chiefly on travel, gifts, norms for revealing information on pet projects, and regularity of reporting.
However, critics report that though the new restrictions are seeming to be very tight, but it appears like a “smoke screen” and will have a little impact the inconsistent supremacy of the lobbyists and the interest group they symbolize. (Benoit 29).
Obama’s government is indulged in an “ethics agenda” which is the most motivated agenda of ever set out by a new government. It ensures a stricter approach not only to the typical issues like the revolving door and the conflict of interest but also expands into the wider confronts like political sway on career officials and paucity of transparency in government. The main aim of the streamlining agenda is more on enhancing the democratic setup rather than punishing political reprobates.
Conclusion
Abramoff’s case is awful in many aspects. Many lessons have been learned from Abramoff scandal. It is necessary now to recruit and train well-paid lobbying staff in major congressional offices, mainly to address the wishes of the middle class and poor Americans. Abramoff scandal teaches a lesson to American government to deal more efficiently with the revolving door. To make sure that privately funded tour and travel is consistent and legitimate with chamber regulations and guidelines. US government is to set up more efficient system of disclosure and report system and to minimize the chances available to members to deliver special benefits for mean interests.
References
Benoit Denise.. The Best-Kept Secret. Rutgers: Rutgers University Press, 2007
Johari, J.C. Comparative Politics. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd, 1982.
Samuel, Terence, Edward T. Pound, and Betsy Streisand “SNAKE EYES FOR ‘CASINO JACK.’.” U.S. News & World Report 139.7 (2005): 34-40. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web.
Tumulty, Karen, et al. “The Man Who Bought Washington. (Cover story).” Time 167.3 (2006): 30-39. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web.
Welch Susan, Grul John, Rigdon, Susan M. Understanding the American Government. New York: Cengage Learning, 2009.
Welytok, Daniel S & Grassley Chuck. Non Profit Law & Governance for Dummies. New York: Dummies Press, 2007.