1/4 of Former Lawmakers Heading to the Lobbying Ranks

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


This Bloomberg story is a nice compliment to Dan and my story from yesterday.

Dan and I reported that over 100 former congressional staffers and executive branch employees — including some extremely well-connected people — have left public service and are now lobbying on behalf of the zombie banks being kept afloat by your tax dollars. Despite Obama’s efforts to change the revolving door culture of Washington, the huge gobs of money being handed out by the federal government these days means the Capitol Hill/K Street connection is more prevalent than ever. As Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation told me when we were reporting our story, “It has not gone unnoticed by special interests or K Street firms that there is a bonanza there.”

It hasn’t gone unnoticed by former congressmen and senators, either. According to Bloomberg, a full one-quarter of lawmakers who retired or were defeated in 2008 have moved to K Street. There is absolutely no concern anymore for the ethical questions that move creates. Bob Kaiser, author of So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government, gave me a great bit of historical context on this when I did a Q&A with him in March. I find it fascinating. I think you might, too.

Here’s Kaiser:

We had a taboo structure in Washington when I was young. There were things you just didn’t do, not because they were illegal, but just because they looked bad. And that whole category seems to have eroded in the last 20 years, eroded to the point of disappearance. For example, Tom Daschle came to town as a warrior liberal fighting for little guys and ends up humiliated by the discovery that he was being a fat-cat lobbyist without even registering as a lobbyist, exploiting a loophole in the reporting law. And taking big, big money from all kinds of special interests, including some from the realm he would be overseeing if he was secretary of Health and Human Services.

The Jim O’Hara story you mention is one that is fascinating to me. I remember it vividly because I was covering Congress when this happened. Jim O’Hara was a popular and serious liberal Democratic congressman from Michigan who ran for a Senate seat in 1976. O’Hara lost and had to come back to town with five or six kids and no job. He had to find a paycheck. And he went to work for Tom Boggs, one of the biggest lobbyists in town. This was seen in 1977 as something that was scandalous. “Jim O’Hara became a lobbyist? Gee, that doesn’t look right.” I talked to Leon Panetta, now our CIA director, about this. He was in the House at that time. And he said, “Oh yes, I remember when O’Hara came up to the House, exploiting the privilege to visit the floor”—which all former members have forever—”and he came on the floor as a lobbyist, and I wouldn’t talk to him. A lot of my colleagues wouldn’t talk to him. Because it just didn’t seem right.”

And now we have 185—I think that’s the latest number—former members of Congress registered to lobby. Absolutely taken for granted.

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we need readers to show up for us big time—again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate