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The Pros And Cons Of Lobbying

734 Words3 Pages

Out of all of the political relationships between individuals which exist in the American political system, one of the most critical is that which exists between the lobbyist and legislator. To the average citizen, the foundation of America’s political process centers on the understanding, examination, and transfer of influence between politicians and representatives of public or private special interest groups. (Patterson, 2009) What is unseen by the average citizen is the multibillion dollar political industry developed by lobbyists for the benefit and information exchange on their special interests at the federal, state, county, municipal, and even local levels of government. The allure of lobbying at the federal level is because federal …show more content…

The data collected following the enactment of the disclosure act showed that lobbying expenditures between 1998 and 2006 almost doubled from 1.45 billion dollars to 2.6 billion dollars. The data also showed the number of registered lobbyists grew from 10,693 to 15,247. (Open Secrets, 2015) Because of the sheer amount of lobbyists and money being spent on special interests, the true data on the outcomes and successes of lobbying, tend to surprise people. The true impact of modern day lobbying is its successful and consistent achievement of nothing, the maintenance of the status quo. Three-fifths of the time, lobbying analysts observe gridlock and the successful stalemating of proposals, with occasional breakthroughs when the special interest groups push for reform. (Baumgartner, …show more content…

There have been notable examples in the last two decades of lobbying firms providing legislative proposals and specific verbiage they would like to see included in bills. In 1998, American International Group (AIG) was at the forefront of a work visa battle pertaining to the use of foreign workers over Americans. A proposed piece of legislation, created to fix the issue and protect American jobs from outsourcing, was created by the House Judiciary Committee and sent to the house floor. AIG, using their strong ties to the Republican Party, got the verbiage on protections written in a more vague manner which is longer in length and less regulatory. (Miano,

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