"I made my living as a lobbyist, sometime registered as such, sometimes managing other registered lobbyists, always controlling the money flow to the members of Congress from my company and two others. Our industry was fairly heavily regulated, much more than the investment banks, hedge funds, etc. ever were.

"There were tangible advantages to our companies if we could get federal regulations modified or removed. Congress was the only body that could change regulations. But members of Congress were not likely to make changes spontaneously. So it was necessary for someone to carefully explain to members of Congress just what modifications would be beneficial to the public interest. That's what we lobbyists did.

Getting Attention
"But, to get something done, we had to get the attention of key congressmen and congresswomen, and they are all terribly busy people. They allocate their time and attention in ways that will maximize the good they can accomplish for their constituents, if they want to get re-elected! So the trade off was (and is) that they give us some of their attention and support (i.e., votes) in exchange for information, intelligence and support (i.e., campaign contributions). It's a very simple exchange: votes for money.

"These are the dynamics of the system in Washington D.C., and they are inherent in the structure of our government wherein Congress makes the laws for the nation as a whole and its members are elected by constituents in just one small place, "back home." You can change the rules of the game with things like term limits, contribution disclosures, assorted donation limitations (only so many $ can be spent for lunch), etc., but you cannot remove the inherent nature of the system unless you change government in some serious way.

Bags of Money, Sex, Airplane Rides
"That said, how the members and lobbyists conduct themselves varies greatly and it changes over time. Once upon a time bags of cash were used to get members' attention. Sex has been a medium of exchange periodically. The use of corporate airplanes was (and is) always popular. We often held very nice "information-sharing" meetings at expensive resorts in locations with great climates, and members of Congress loved to attend. This made it easy to talk with them, but it could also be dangerously visible as AIG recently found out.

Earmarks
"Today, the trick seems to be to use earmarks to get things done. Little laws are quietly slipped into the back pages of big bills. Personally, I find the brazenness of earmarks to be crass and lazy, because the earmarks usually just openly name the beneficiary of the federal money. In my salad days, we did it with much more finesse.

"For example, rather than baldly naming the beneficiary of a favor, in my day we would craft a provision (change in the law) in such a way that it only applied to some unnamed party, but appeared to be of more general application. Let's say we wanted to get a subsidy for our company. We would draft the provision so the federal subsidy would be available to all users of coal-fired, cogeneration plants over 200 MW in size, north of the Ohio River in counties with populations over 250,000. It sounds general, but when you searched for the companies that might fit this specification, you would find that there was only one possible candidate, namely, our company’s plant!

"Much more craftsmanship and craftiness was required in those days, and the artfulness was appreciated and applauded in the DC watering holes where lobbyists gathered.

"The standards in Congress for dolling out pork (via earmarks) is much lower these days.”


Editor’s Note: The letter above came in response to Tahoetopia.com series of three articles on “Economic Quagmire,” and three articles on “U.S. Congress.” To see these stories, click on Other Stories. Quagmire, Part III, is specifically on lobbying.