How Lobbyists Control Governments
Money is often the grease that helps the wheels of government move.
Influence Peddling
Armies of corporate lobbyists work to influence government policies; if they were ineffective they wouldn't exist.
How Lobbyists Work
Campaigns to achieve a specific goal use several techniques that are tried and true:
Cultivate Relationships
Politicians and officials who control where money will be spent are schmoozed effectively. Three-martini lunches and extravagant dinners are standard methods for gaining favour. All-expense-paid vacations can work wonders in getting a project approved—just ask U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. For decades, he accepted trips funded by billionaire Harlan Crow, and when eight briefs involving Crow and associates came to the court, Thomas sided with his benefactor.
Disinformation
The tobacco industry wrote the game plan for this. In April 1994, the chief executives of seven tobacco companies appeared before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health and the Environment. They each swore under oath that they did not believe nicotine to be addictive. They each knew that it was. They lied, which is another way of spelling disinformation.
Others have used the same strategy, particularly the carbon industry in denying the undeniable link between burning fossil fuels and global heating. This disinformation tactic is usually a last-ditch attempt to delay the inevitable during which a few more quarters of profits can be raked in.
Control the Debate
In the United Kingdom, a plan was put forward to build a high-speed rail line, but the public gagged at the projected £43 billion ($52 billion) cost. Lobbyists were called in to change public opinion. Noting that the proposed line passed through wealthy areas where the opposition was strongest, the spin doctors reframed the issue to make it about jobs versus posh people wanting to preserve their privileges.
The slogan “Their lawns or our jobs” worked—for a while. However, the cost ballooned to £100 billion ($121 billion), as government-funded schemes have a habit of doing, and the partly completed line was cancelled.
Sponsor a Think Tank
This is an extension of the disinformation maneuver. It involves setting up an office of so-called experts and giving it an important-sounding name. In the United Kingdom, the Institute of Economic Affairs provided “experts” who appeared on many media outlets to talk about smoking and other issues.
Eventually, it was leaked that some of the institute's funding came from the tobacco industry. Other think tanks publish glossy reports that play fast and loose with studies to reach a solution biased in favour of whichever industry or corporation pays their bills.
Intimidation
The National Rifle Association (NRA) in the United States spends about $4 million a year on lobbying, chump change in the industry. The NRA uses a different method of influencing politicians—it mobilizes its membership to defeat any elected official who speaks out in favour of gun control. The result is that any member of Congress or state legislatures who wants to keep their seat (and that's all of them) remain silent on laws that might restrict firearms.
Future Employment
It is well known within government bureaucracies that favourable rulings for this or that group can lead to lucrative jobs. After a little time has passed to allow for plausible deniability, the scientist who approved a pharmaceutical product will turn up in highly paid employment at the drug company.
Bribery
Does money change hands? Is reinforced concrete strong?
A little something to help the law pass.
Washington's K Street
Trade associations, think tanks, lobbying companies, law firms, and the like have established offices on and around K Street in the U.S. Capitol. “K Street” has become a metonym for the lobbying industry in the same way that “Wall Street” is a metonym for the financial industry.
Of the 10 biggest spending lobbying firms that make up the K Street community, nine represent business interests; only the American Association of Retired Persons makes the list in 10th place.
The top spenders on influencing Congress for the first three quarters of 2022:
- U.S. Chamber of Commerce ($58.4 million)
- National Association of Realtors ($56.2 million)
- The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America ($21.7 million)
Where Washington's lobbyists hang out.
These folk weren't shelling out big bucks in support of a vibrant democracy; they were expecting a handsome return on their investments in the form of legislation that padded their profits.
Open Secrets, a research group that tracks money in politics, tells us that the total spending on lobbying in the United States in 2022 was $4.1 billion, and that's just for the federal government. With this kind of money floating around, there's bound to be corruption. This is where we meet Jack Abramoff, a man with deep connections to the George W. Bush Administration.
In 2006, Abramoff, known as a “super-lobbyist,” was one of 22 people convicted of corruption. In his 2011 autobiography, Capitol Punishment: The Hard Truth About Washington Corruption From America's Most Notorious Lobbyist, he describes his behind-the-scenes activities:
“[I] lavished contributions, meals, event tickets, travel, golf and jobs on innumerable federal public officials with the expectation or understanding that they would take official actions on my behalf or on behalf of my clients.”
He adds: “I wasn't the only villain in Washington ... [it's] the way the system works.”
The Tufton Street Think Tanks
Less than a mile away from Downing Street, London, where Britain's Prime Minister lives and works, a group of conservative organizations have set up shop. They call themselves think tanks, giving the impression they carry out serious research, but they are really lobbyists. They have impressive-sounding names—the Centre for Policy Studies, the TaxPayers' Alliance, Policy Exchange, and others.
One of the most prominent outfits is the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) that we met briefly earlier. Its funding is deliberately opaque; it's known that most of its money comes from wealthy individuals and corporations, but their actual names are kept secret.
The IEA is a champion of free market fundamentalism—unrestrained capitalism, if you will. The group doesn't like protection for the rights of workers or the environment and it hates taxes; oh, how it hates taxes.
Some of the people who toiled in the IEA's cubicles were brought in as economic advisers to Liz Truss when she became Prime Minister of Britain on September 5, 2022. Truss and her then-Chancellor of the Exchequer (finance minister) Kwasi Kwarteng have close connections with the Tufton Street cluster of think tanks.
55 Tufton Street, the unobtrusive home of the Institute for Economic Affairs
The Disastrous British Mini-Budget of 2022
Within days of taking office, Kwasi Kwarteng introduced a mini-budget that looked as though it was written in Tufton Street. The mini-budget was, in the words of the BBC: “... the most consequential financial statement for a generation, ripping up decades of economic orthodoxy.”
The centrepiece was a huge tax cut that mostly benefitted the wealthy and corporations that would add £45 billion ($55 billion) to the deficit.
The Tufton Street crowd was ecstatic, but the popping of champagne corks was a bit premature. Financial markets reacted in horror at what Truss and Kwarteng had done. The value of the pound crashed. Interest rates shot up, impacting mortgages and payments on the national debt.
Described as “casino economics,” the mini-budget fiasco cost Kwarteng his job after just 38 days in office. A few days later, under pressure to resign, Liz Truss told the House of Commons forcefully “I am a fighter and not a quitter.” The next day she resigned. Almost all of the tax cuts were reversed.
The right-wing gurus of Tufton Street, chastened but unrepentant, continue, along with their colleagues in other capital cities, to press the case for more business-friendly legislation.
Bonus Factoids
- A lobby is “a corridor or hall connected with a larger room or series of rooms and used as a passageway or waiting room: such as ... an anteroom of a legislative chamber” (Merriam-Webster). It comes from the Latin word lobium, meaning “gallery.” The noun "lobby" was turned into a verb “to lobby” in about the middle of the 19th century when people began to conduct business in lobbies.
- Transparency International (TI) is a non-governmental organization that fights corruption around the world. It publishes an annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) that ranks countries according to how much foul play goes on. A score of 100 would be awarded to a country in which no chicanery occurred. No nation is awarded that; Denmark comes closest with 90. TI's most recent report notes that “The events of 2022 once again showed that countries perceived as having low levels of public sector corruption are very vulnerable to undue influence by private interests—both domestic and foreign. According to the 2022 CPI, the fight against public sector corruption has stagnated in the majority of countries earning top scores—including advanced economies such as Germany (CPI score: 79), France (72) and Switzerland (82). Meanwhile, five traditionally top-scoring countries have seen their assessments decline significantly: Australia (75), Austria (71), Canada (74), Luxembourg (77) and the United Kingdom (73).” The United States comes in 24th out of 180 countries with a score of 69.
Related Articles
- Is Democracy Failing?
All over the Western world, people are losing their enthusiasm for democracy. Election turnouts are dropping, suggesting the democratic system is not important to large numbers of people. - Democracy Is in Decline
After decades of progress towards freedom and the right of people to govern themselves, there seems to be a bit of a hiccup in the growth of democracy.
Sources
- “The Clarence Thomas Scandal Is About More Than Corruption.” Corey Robin, Politico, April 18, 2023.
- “Big Tobacco Got Caught in a Lie by Congress. Now It’s the Oil Industry’s Turn.” Mark Hertsgaard, The Nation, October 14, 2021.
- “The Truth About Lobbying: 10 Ways Big Business Controls Government.” Tamasin Cave, The Guardian, March 12, 2014.
- “Big K Street Players Spend More as Election Uncertainty Brews.” Kate Ackley, rollcall.com, October 21, 2022.
- “Federal Lobbying Spending Reaches $4.1 Billion in 2022 — the Highest Since 2010.” Taylor Giorno, opensecrets.org, January 26, 2023.
- “Jack Abramoff, in New Book, Decries Endemic Corruption in Washington.” Dan Froomkin, HuffPost, December 28, 2011.
- “55 Tufton Street: The Other Black Door Shaping British Politics.” Jack Fenwick, BBC News, September 26, 2022.
- “Corruption Perception Index.” Transparency International, 2023.
This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.
© 2023 Rupert Taylor
