I logged on today, and an MSNBC story link, led me to a Timothy Noah column in July 11, 2003 Slate, Who cares if Tom Delay Bullies Lobbyists? It's better than the other way around. It leads to other links discussing something called "The K Street Project."

Welcome to the Machine, an article by Nicholas Confessore in The Washington Monthly describes the process,
To what effect? An example:and
How much pressure has been applied to create this process?
Another link, Targeting Lobbyists Pays Off For GOP , an article in the Washington Post (June 26, 2003) states:giving as one example,It goes on to say:

It also states:

Are the Republicans extorting too much power?

I'd like to hear other people's feedback.

Judging from what you've quoted and linked to, I'd have to say yes.

extorting too much power? They hold the Presidency, they hold the Senet, the hold the House. You want to take the power away, vote for another party. I would have to say they are exerting their "power" finally... power weather you like it or not they where given by the people of this country.

Such a snappy response, slowtime9. Did you read the link?

It speaks of an entrenchment the likes of which hasn't been seen since Huey Long in the South. Except that this is much more far-reaching and very much the carrot and stick approach--the carrot for Republicans and the stick for well, non-Republicans.

I believe this is a movement that needs to be publicized. If it isn't wrongdoing per se, then there shouldn't be a problem exposing it to the sunlight.

I don't know if Republicans are extorting too much power, but they certainly seem to be exerting a lot of power. I think this is almost more of a problem with our whole lobbying system, though, than with the Republican Party itself - though they certainly don't seem to be helping in the least.

I've been reading Arianna Huffington's excellent Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption Are Undermining America and a lot of it ties right in with this sort of thing. She doesn't discuss the K Street Project itself, but after reading up on the corporate infiltration of our government, I find this Project very worrying - but not at all surprising.

From Huffington's book:
Perhaps the most troubling component of 21st century lobbying is the extent to which the lobbyists have intimate connections with politicians even before their clients start paying their hefty fees. Ed Gillespie, for example, was the program chairman of the 2000 Republican convention. During the campaign, he worked with Andrew Card, Karl Rove, and Karen Hughes - and was Ari Fleischer's roommate on the campaign trail. After the election, rather than taking a job inside the administration, he set up his own lobbying company. Enron paid him $700,000 to lobby the president on his energy plan and he was instrumental in setting up the six meetings Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force had with Enron representatives. He was also behind Bush's imposition of tariffs on imported steel (thereby abandoning his free-market credentials) on behalf of the steel industry.

Marc Racicot, chairman of the Republican National Committee, abandoned his lobbying activities under pressure (from people like John McCain and William Safire), but has continued to exert similar pressure as a member of Bracewell & Patterson law firm, whose largest client was Enron. The National Electric Reliability Coordinating Council hired Racicot to discuss EPA requirements with Dick Cheney and Andrew Lundquist, who promptly recommended that the Justice Department drop lawsuits it had already brought for violations of standards in air-purifying equipment. He was also hired by the American Forest & Paper Association when environmental legislation threatened the use of timberlands.

A former chairman of the RNC (and current chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee), Haley Barbour, is also a lobbyist with Barbour Griffith & Rogers. He hits up his clients for donations to the party and urges those companies to make direct donations to Republicans in need. Unlike most lobbyists, Barbour's firm only deals with Republicans and their all-male staff is also 100% Republican - down to their receptionists and mailroom boys.

Nestle and Ralston Purina both hired Barbour when they were trying to get their merger approved by US regulators - which was accomplished in December 2001. He is currently working for Lockheed martin to extend their federal contract to manage Sandia National Laboratories, which runs out in September of this year. The Department of Energy has already granted lockheed an extension on their $1.7 billion contract rather than deciding the issue immediately. He also works for Microsoft (they paid his firm $980,000 in 2000-2001) to ease their way though Department of Justice battles. On behalf of Bristol-Myers Squibb, Barbour has also been instrumental in the congressional foot-dragging on a prescription drug bill.

As if these conflicts of interest weren't bad enough, some lobbyists have even closer ties than being colleagues and friends. Chet Lott, for example, gave up his career as a Domino's Pizza franchisee to become a lobbyist on behalf of BellSouth (in their fight to thwart long-distance service competition), the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (in their fight to thwart gambling regulation), and Edison Chouest Offshore (to ensure that they remain the government's leading supplier of special-purpose vehicles). Joshua Hastert, former owner of a record store called Seven Dead Arson, turned lobbyist and currently represents such companies as FirstPlus Financial Group, American Airlines, and MP3.com. The sons of senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Stevens are also now professional lobbyists. Chet 'n' Josh are the sons of Trent Lott and Dennis Hastert.

Clearly, none of these people are lobbying because of their intimate knowledge of the industries they represent. They are lobbyists because of personal contact with politicians. And this extends beyond the Republican Party: the sons of senators Harry Reid and John Breaux are lobbyists; Tom Daschle's wife, Linda, is a lobbyist and Jeff Bingaman's wife, Anne, is a lobbyist.

In the 107th Congress, the Senate Majority Leader, the Senate Minority Leader, the Speaker of the House, the Senate Majority Whip, the Chief Deputy Whip, and ranking members of the Judiciary, Appropriations, and Energy and Natural Resources Committees all had immediate family members working as professional lobbyists.

Given the Republican Party's traditional ties to big business, the K Street Project seems like the next logical step in the corporate take-over of the American government. As Arianna Huffington put it:
There is loads of information on corporate infiltration of our government in Pigs at the Trough and I find the level of this absorption of our political structure by the dark side of capitalism extremely troubling. Some may still naively believe that our politicians are given their power by the people. That power is, in fact, bought and paid for by big business - and that goes, to a large extent, for both parties. Our politicians are financed by business interests, from campaign through retirement (when they often become lobbyists themselves). Any given multi-national corporation can wield more influence in our administration and legislation than most citizen's groups combined. Almost every national politician is beholden to the interests of big business - and some are, literally, married to it (don't even get me started on the spouses who sit on boards of directors). Over the past few decades we have increasingly seen a merger of state and corporate power. Elsewhere, this type of corporatism is known as fascism.

And this is the type of government which Rick Santorum and the K Street Project is actively - and successfully - pursuing. As Tom DeLay put it himself: "If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules." Tragically, with every passing day, it looks more and more as though, even if we don't want to play in their revolution, we are going to have to live by their rules - and their laws. Patriots should be storming K Street and burning it to the ground.

Are you seriously advocating this type of violence?

If yes, you should be a bit more careful how publicly you espouse those kind of views. If no, you should be a bit more careful about the mud you sling Ann Coulter's way.

That said, I am no more in favor of K Street style politics than I am pandering to the lobbying of any special interest group.

Rather than extortion, I'd say the Repubs have been highly successful with propaganda.

They've successfully smeared Demos and liberals in general.

So we've traded "tax and spend" for "borrow and spend." We have an energy policy created in secret and not well understood by anyone outside the inner circles. We have a war that is costing a billion a week and may last four years and likely more due to the inability of the Repub leadership to predict reliably.

Our unemployment rate is high and job growth is negative.

Now let's list the successes of Repub leadership, to be fair.

There's, um, there's something. I know there has to be something.

Oh! Kept national health care away! Yeah, and impeached Clinton! Fixed the econo--never mind.

Stomped the Taliban! Got osama--never mind. Got Sad--never mind.

Got a lot of people to wave flags!

Forged an international alliance to--never mind.

So since this isn't extortion, I'd expect leadership to stand or fall on its record. As has been challenged, don't like the leadership? Vote it out.

Hey, the revolution's gotta start somewhere - Boston Harbor, K Street, whatever. But I was speaking more figuratively.

I feel the entire lobbyist culture should be dismantled - and it's not gonna happen through our well-fed elected officials. Things like the K Street Project are seriously threatening our form of government - indeed, they are becoming our form of government. Unless there's some form of widespread public outcry, there'll be no stopping it. We need not only campaign finance reform - and heavy, serious campaign finance reform at that - but also much stricter regulation of lobby organizations and political action committees. Ironically, without a massive, immensely well-funded lobbying effort - without the ability to be the highest bidder for the votes of our "representatives" - I don't see it happening.


Amen. Such institutionalized bribery has become systemic - and looks set to become even more deeply ingrained (and more partisan). But what do we do about it, P51? Anyone?

If we could somehow establish and maintain boycotts against several of the worst offenders there might be a way to loosen the stranglehold of special interests on Congress. But I don't know how. Any ideas?

I just believe that we have gradually lost the representative democracy that we were taught in school was our birthright. Extreme capitalism is truly the order of the day, and prosecution of Enron, Martha Stewart, and others cannot begin to undo the damage that trying to make a buck above every other consideration has wrought.

It casts the idea of privatization into a new light. That which many of us fear the most, too much government control, can easily give way to too much corporate control. While government operates under a veneer of providing opportunities for all, corporatism provides opportunities for all who can afford it. Inequalities to various segments of the population can be explained away by claims that it isn't economically feasible (read profitable) to provide the same services to all.

And you can have any flavor of government you'd like, as long as it's pistachio.

Let me be brief: the classical liberal realized that government would always be susceptible to improper influence by those with wealth and power. The solution is limited government. Those who state more government would be good if only we could prevent improper influences from corrupting it are similar to people who argue cats would be great if they could only bark.

The question we should be asking is, Why does a massive lobbying industry exist?

There has been on improvement in the lobbying racket. Prior to 1996, Congressmen could go on lobbyist-sponsored golf, tennis, and other leisure trips with their spouses, all expenses paid and all "ethical". They could receive 250 dollars from each lobbyist, which was an invitation to bribery and went on routinely. Public outrage can work. Public pressure and disclosure prodded the Senate to change its gift rules. They cut down the most obvious bribes. The new laws prohibit free meals and travel supplied by lobbyists. Of course, that doesn't touch giant PAC contributions which are the true source of corruption, but it is a step in the right direction. Boycotting might work as well, but the effects would be very limited.

True 'revolutionary' reform is another matter. Each political party is so absorbed in the blame game they don't recognize their own participation and accountability. Elimination of the two party system, and elimination of most money in politics would be the only lasting and complete cure to lobbyist influence....something I don't see happening anytime soon.

Maybe. But that would require a new American citizenry - one in which a majority actually cared about the political life of this country. Beside, does anyone here know of a recent boycott of anything which has been in any way effective?

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How so? It is just as easy - far easier, in fact - to bribe a single philosopher king with no legislature and no judiciary as it is to bribe hundreds of congressmen, dozens of administrators, and a massive bureaucracy. It seems to me that the larger the government, the more corporate lobbies would have to expend - and the more dispersed their lobbying efforts. Not that I am arguing in favor of larger government by any means - I just don't see limited government equating to less corruption or fewer lobbyists at all.

When do you think our government got too big, Hugo? Has it always been too large? Because lobbyists have been with us since the beginning. Pennsylvania Senator William Maclay wrote during the First Congress that New York merchants used "treats, dinners, attentions" to delay passage of a tariff bill. The linked essay by Senator Byrd contains numerous references to lobbying efforts from the turn of the eighteenth century through the burgeoning of professional lobby groups following the Civil War through the dangerous excesses of the present day. Lobbying has always been a matter of concern, whatever size out government has been. The fact that it is getting geometrically worse seems to have more to do with Republican Party collusion and enabling (though the Democrats are far from guiltless) than an increase in the size of government bureaucracy.

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A very small step. The "luncheon bribes" were never the most effective form of lobbying - and, of course, there are dozens of ways around such legislation - not to mention, as you did, PACs. Slightly more effective would've been the mandatory five-year "cooling off" period between the time an official leaves the administration and the time s/he can begin work as a professional lobbyist. This rule was instituted by President Clinton on his first day in office, then rescinded just before he left office.

There are other laws or - - executive orders which could be instituted to reform lobbying efforts, but I simply don't see it happening. A prohibition on family members of elected representatives acting as lobbyists would help (which, to me, seems like a very clear conflict of interest). As mentioned in another thread, I think that a challenge to the ruling which afforded corporations the same rights as individuals would be a start - if accompanied by legislation which prohibited lobbying by anyone but individuals or groups of individuals. If corporate lobbying efforts had to be paid for by donations from shareholders or employees rather than taken from corporate budgets, I suspect we'd see a bit less money being poured into the pockets of our elected and appointed officials.

The solution is limited government because the less favors government has to dole out the less incentive to lobby. Rather it be a king or 100's of congressman if they do not have the power to grant a favor there will not be much lobbying for it. You are correct that lobbyists have always been with us and, as long as government demands goods and/or redistributes income, they always will. The fact is even in a limited government there will be influence peddling, it will just be limited.

I think Von Mises said it well. (From www.mises.org)

All antiliberal parties want nothing but to secure special favors for their own members, in complete disregard of the resulting disintegration of the whole structure of society. They cannot withstand for a moment the criticism that liberalism makes of their aims. They cannot deny, when their demands are subjected to the test of logical scrutiny, that their activity, in the last analysis, has antisocial and destructive effects and that even on the most cursory examination it must prove impossible for any social order to arise from the operations of parties of special interests continually working against one another. To be sure, the obviousness of these facts has not been able to damage the parties of special interests in the eyes of those who lack the capacity to look beyond the immediate present. The great mass of people do not inquire what will happen the day after tomorrow or later on. They think of today and, at most, of the next day. They do not ask what must follow if all other groups too, in the pursuit of their special interests, were to display the same unconcern for the general welfare. They hope to succeed not only in realizing their own demands, but also in beating down those of others. For the few who apply higher standards to the activities of political parties, who demand that even in political action the categorical imperative be followed ("Act only on that principle which you can will at the same time to be a universal law, i.e., so that no contradiction results from the attempt to conceive of your action as a law to be universally complied with"), the ideology of the parties of special interests certainly has nothing to offer.(end of quote)

The ideologies of the parties of special interests has nothing to offer me. It is a simple fact that the more government controls the economic and social life of a nation, and the more power and goods government has to distribute, the greater the level of influence peddling will be. You cannot distribute power and goods that you do not control.