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NUMBER OF REGISTERED LOBBYISTS DOWN, BUT HAVE THEY REALLY DISAPPEARED?
Lobbyists this year began terminating their formal registrations with the federal government at significantly higher levels than usual, a joint study by OMB Watch and the Center for Responsive Politics has found.
The study found 1,418 deregistrations of federally registered lobbyists during the second quarter of 2009, a marked increase for any reporting period during all of 2008 and 2009. This occurred shortly after President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, which created new restrictions on former lobbyists appointed to the executive branch. Guidance was then issued in March, which marks the start of the 2nd quarter reporting, that enacted a gift ban and further restricted the kind of communications lobbyists could have about stimulus and TARP funds. Via a recent blog post, the White House also announced, "it is our aspiration that federally registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions," a practice that is common today.
Although lobbyists terminate their registrations for a variety of reasons, a few hundred lobbyists, at most, typically fall from the ranks of active lobbyists each quarter.
OMB Watch's Lee Mason said, "While we can't draw a direct link between the president's executive order and the increased pace of terminations during the second quarter of 2009, we can say that they came at a most controversial time," Mason said.
A troubling issue highlighted by the organizations is that the thousands of lobbyists who appear to have left their line of work may not have actually done so. At the federal level, many people working in the lobbying industry are not registered lobbyists, instead adopting titles such as "senior advisor" or other executive monikers, thereby avoiding federal disclosure requirements under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
Additionally, the terminology the lobbying community uses does not align with the categories of the U.S. Senate's or the Clerk of the House's lobbying disclosure databases.
The study found 1,418 deregistrations of federally registered lobbyists during the second quarter of 2009, a marked increase for any reporting period during all of 2008 and 2009. This occurred shortly after President Barack Obama issued Executive Order 13490, which created new restrictions on former lobbyists appointed to the executive branch. Guidance was then issued in March, which marks the start of the 2nd quarter reporting, that enacted a gift ban and further restricted the kind of communications lobbyists could have about stimulus and TARP funds. Via a recent blog post, the White House also announced, "it is our aspiration that federally registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions," a practice that is common today.
Although lobbyists terminate their registrations for a variety of reasons, a few hundred lobbyists, at most, typically fall from the ranks of active lobbyists each quarter.
OMB Watch's Lee Mason said, "While we can't draw a direct link between the president's executive order and the increased pace of terminations during the second quarter of 2009, we can say that they came at a most controversial time," Mason said.
A troubling issue highlighted by the organizations is that the thousands of lobbyists who appear to have left their line of work may not have actually done so. At the federal level, many people working in the lobbying industry are not registered lobbyists, instead adopting titles such as "senior advisor" or other executive monikers, thereby avoiding federal disclosure requirements under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
Additionally, the terminology the lobbying community uses does not align with the categories of the U.S. Senate's or the Clerk of the House's lobbying disclosure databases.
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