GSPM Blog

Panel four at the GSPM's Forum on Special Interests and Public Policy opened with a discussion of whether or not the Obama Administration's stance on lobbying, disclosure, and special interests are real or just a PR stunt.  

The panel included Ron Christie (Christie Strategies), Ellen Miller (Sunlight Foundation), Melanie Sloan (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington), and Leo Wise (Office of Congressional Ethics) and moderated by Steve Roberts, a professor in GWU's School of Media and Public Affairs.  

Answers were mixed.  

Ellen Miller argued that the Obama administration's stance on lobbying and ethics is in fact real and can lead the way to reform:  

Something the Obama administration has understood is transparency and it's meaning. The fault of the lobbying rules to date is that they do not deter and they do not give us information that we need because we see them after the fact. ... Information is only public when it is online, and it's only useful and only represents transparency when it is done in real time.  

 Melanie Sloan, on the other hand, found it "silly":  

The Administration is failing to deal with vast campaign contributions and the influence of those campaign contributions. It doesn't make any sense that it is all on one side. Responsibility is on all sides -- the government as well as lobbyists. You can't blame only prostitutes for the act of prostitution, for example. You also have to go after the Johns.   

Miller believes that allowing comments to proposed legislation online will play a rule in changing the system.   

The notion of engaging the people -- whether it's in one-way communication and finding ways for people to engage -- is what is happening online now in this Administration, and it's a first step. The first time citizens saw Google Maps with pins inserted for every piece of earmark spending and where that money was spent, they started to ask Congress, "What's that for." And Members of Congress had to respond. That transparency, which was done to Congress, begat more transparency. Technology is a disruptive force to Washington's Golden Rule: he who has the gold rules.   

(Miller offered another cool, geeky idea to place live web cams in offices so that people can watch their elected officials and the lobbyists at work. What are you going to do with the eyes of the American people on you at all times? The former President of the Utah State Senate used something similar last year.)  

Sloan disagreed,  

Putting information on the web isn't the same as having a full conversation.

 Ron Christie argued that the elected officials could be doing themselves a disservice by prohibiting all lobbyist contact. Christie believes that the role of the lobbyist is that of information provider and educator. The best lobbyists, said Christie, are the best educators.  

I relished the opportunity to speak with lobbyists because they helped me synthesize information more clearly and cleanly. Not all lobbyist information is nefarious. In the end, the public is not best served by prohibiting it. 

 For Sloan this line of reasoning about the lobbyist as educator is devalued by corruption in the process -- especially in elections.  

Lobbyists and government do themselves a disservice for not recognizing the role of money in elections, and they too should be lobbying for campaign finance legislation. Lobbyists will be better information provides if they also make cleaning up elections a priority.  

Christie exhorted the panelists and attendees to look at all the lobbyists in the system who are honest and hardworking.  

There are valuable ways for them to influence the system. There's a lot of money in the system, and elected officials may be inclined to help those who "help me." But Members of Congress are the ones who can create the laws and change the system.  

The Administration's stance on ethics and lobbying is the equivalent of building the airplane while they are flying, and it is going to crash on the people.  

Many of the other panelists felt that the Obama Administration was doing something right by focusing on openness and transparency. Miller used the example of the administration's statement about using technology to improve transparency, as well as it's Jan. 21 order to reveal more government records under the Freedom of Information Act.  

What do you think? Continue the conversation with us at www.gspm.org/forum. Email me at julie@ipdi.org if you'd like to guest blog and address some of these issues.