A Lobbyist's Paradise

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

"The last 12 years were nothing less than an extended hunting season for high-priced lobbyists and Washington influence peddlers. On streets where statesmen once strolled, a never-ending stream of money now changes hands -- tying the hands of those elected to lead."

-- Candidate Bill Clinton, describing the atmosphere of the Reagan and Bush Administrations

"The period we're in is a lobbyist's dream come true."

-- Joan Claybrook, head of the advocacy group Public Citizen, describing the atmosphere of the Clinton Administration

Another illustration of the adage that the more things change, the more they remain the same? Not quite: in this case, the more things have changed, the more they have got even worse. Under President Clinton, the lobbying, influence peddling and revolving-door connections between officials and lobbyists that candidate Clinton denounced have become more intense, and at times more brazen, than ever.

Largely as an unintended result of his election too. Clinton has tried to deliver on his campaign pledge to "stop this betrayal of democracy" by issuing Executive Orders and proposing legislation designed to curb some % lobbying abuses. But his not very vigorous efforts have been overwhelmed by some side effects of his defeat of George Bush:

The change in party control of the White House has put hundreds of new people whom lobbyists need to cultivate into executive policymaking posts. Their displaced Republican predecessors, meanwhile, have stepped en masse through the famed revolving door into lobbying. They have been joined by an exceptionally large number of former Representatives, Senators and their staff members who have left Capitol Hill, by retirement or defeat, but have no wish to depart from the corridors of power.

The new Administration is proposing legislation that affects the interests of more lobbyists' clients more deeply than anything else in at least a dozen years. The frenzied lobbying stirred by the fight over taxes and the budget is already being eclipsed by the jockeying over health-care reform, which will touch vital interests of big business, small business, insurers, unions, doctors, nurses, the elderly, the poor -- just about every group well organized enough to employ a lobbyist. And then there is the North American Free Trade Agreement, a legacy from Bush that Clinton has made his own and is pushing toward a showdown vote. Says Wayne Berman, a consultant on trade issues to a think tank and a major insurance company: "This has been a blockbuster summer for Washington lobbyists. The Clinton Administration made it a blockbuster summer by its frenetic activism on budget, taxes, trade and health care."

With George Bush in the White House, much legislative maneuvering -- and lobbying -- on Capitol Hill was mere shadow-boxing. So many bills were obviously headed for veto that congressional tinkering with their details was irrelevant. Now lobbyists must go all out to influence committee and floor votes on amendments to legislation that a Democratic President is almost sure to sign into law.

The surge in lobbying only partly shows up in numbers. Currently 6,198 people have registered as lobbyists, up from 5,312 in 1988 and close to a record, but not much different from 1991 or 1992. The number of clients they represent has also grown, from 10,874 two years ago to 11,414 today.

In any case, lobbying is far more extensive and influential than the numbers begin to show. For every registered lobbyist there is probably at least one additional person who is also trying to influence policy by offering legal services to clients, or advising on the best strategy for dealing with government, or providing introductions to friends in the power elite -- but not personally buttonholing legislators or Administration officials. And these alleged nonlobbyists can have much more clout than those who do work the cloakrooms and corridors, since the trend these days is to "grass-roots lobbying" -- that is, influencing legislators by stirring up a storm of letters and phone calls from their constituents back home.

One big name who denies being a lobbyist is Robert Oakley, the former ambassador called out of retirement by Clinton to try to negotiate a political settlement in Somalia. As head of counterterrorism for the State Department in 1985, Oakley helped draft a ban on flights between the U.S. and Lebanon. As a principal of C&O Resources, Inc., a consulting firm, he stands to share in fees of as much as $600,000, which Middle East Airlines will pay to C&O and another consulting firm if the Clinton Administration lifts the ban by Jan. 1. The State Department is investigating whether Oakley violated a law that forbids former officials of the Executive Branch ever to lobby in regard to decisions that they "personally and substantially" participated in. Oakley told the New York Times he did no lobbying -- he only passed along to State Department officials information on how greatly the threat of terrorism in Beirut has diminished.

The revolving door between government, or Congress, and lobbying has been spinning faster than ever. A study by Public Interest Research Group, a Ralph Nader organization, of 319 people who left government or congressional service last January found 101 who went into outright lobbying and an additional 79 who joined law firms that do lobbying, a total of well over half this most recent graduating class. Some lobbyists have also been operating more boldly than ever. John Rousselot, a former Republican Congressman from California and officer of the extreme right-wing John Birch Society, last week caused a stir by appearing on the dais during a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee, on which he once sat. Rousselot insists his appearance was inadvertent: he was doing some "fact finding," or so he says, in an anteroom, got into a conversation with California Democrat Robert Matsui and unthinkingly strolled with Matsui out onto the dais. Others suspect Rousselot of showing off for his clients (he represents a score of cruise-ship operators), or auditioning for prospective clients, or maybe both.

Clinton's moral clout in dealing with influence peddling has been a bit weakened because some of his own appointees have been accused of influence peddling, notably Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown, who has denied any impropriety in his contacts with a Vietnamese businessman. Nonetheless, the President has tried to put a crimp in future lobbying by an Executive Order prohibiting senior members of his Administration from lobbying their old colleagues for five years after leaving office. (The limit, in cases not concerning matters the officers had been "personally and substantially" involved in, had been one year.) The President also persuaded into budget law a limitation on the tax deductions businesses can take for lobbying expenses.

These moves might help, but how much? The Executive Order does nothing to slow down the speed at which the revolving door spins right now. It may also be vulnerable to the same difficulties in defining what is and is not lobbying that plague enforcement of the law requiring lobbyists to register. Meanwhile, says consultant Berman, Clinton's fulminations against lobbyists may be doing them an unintended favor: "By demonizing lobbyists, he has strengthened their appeal" to clients who do not at all mind hiring adept practitioners of a black art.

With reporting by Laurence I. Barrett/Washington