Lobbyist Influence Quotes
Begala was commenting on a newspaper expose that President Bush had appointed over 100 lobbyists to administrative government posts in the area for which they had previously lobbied.
In the beginning of the 21st century some lobbyists were so powerful that they were actually in Congressional committee markups and other closed meetings and writing or helping to write actual legislation. In prior years lobbyists would send notes or make suggestions as to wording, but were not part of the group of Congressmen actually doing the drafting. The Republican majority took this practice so far that they had lobbyists in the committee rooms drafting legislation and refused to allow the minority party members in the meeting. So lobbyists got to draft legislation favorable to the organizations that paid them while elected congressmen were not allowed to participate or even observe who was in the room and what they were doing. Lobbying scandals in 2005 and 2006 began to curtail some of these most egregious practices. Democrats, when they were in the majority sometimes surreptitiously would accept written “language” suggested for laws and then would use the “suggestions” in their draft of the legislation. So the effect and the lack of ethics was often the same but the method more subtle. These unethical practices go back even to Daniel Webster who was regularly paid a monthly bribe to care for the interests of the railroads and he introduced legislation sought by the industry and company that was paying him. At least that overt a practice has been outlawed, but so many others remain.
