Washington Lobbyists: Why did their number in D.C. double since 2000?

by G.Ater

the questionable reputation of the local lobbyists was for individuals that usually did not demonstrate the highest level of personal integrity. For many years, previous members of Congress back then would shy away from becoming a “D.C. lobbyist”, as prior congressmen that had chosen that profession were usually considered as “tainted ex-politicians”.

when Republican presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon were in office, many of those years, the Congress was under Democratic leadership. And historically, the Democrats have been major supporters of small business, not of big business.

In 1980, when Ronald Reagan and a Republican Congress both came to power, the world of the “Washington D.C. Lobbyist” began to change.

As Republicans had always been such staunch supporters of big business, it became apparent to large US corporations that they needed some local D.C. help for obtaining a chance at a bigger piece of the gigantic “government business pie”. They also recognized that through their “hired lobbyist guns in D.C.”, they could exert or “buy” congressional influence for future legislation that would support the goals of their big businesses.

Due to this change in the controlling political party, during the 1980’s the number of actual “paid lobbyists” increased many fold. In addition, during that period the salaries for those in the “government lobbying trade” began to increase exponentially. This is because, for what those individuals in D.C. were able to “bring to the party” for big business, it was many times in the millions to billions of dollars of new US government business.

In order to obtain a better level of “public transparency” about their lobbying activities, Congress eventually passed the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. This act is still in force and it requires that all lobbyists must register if they are to have any contact with any government representative. They are also required to file reports detailing their lobbying activities every 6 months.

And since George W. Bush was elected in 2000, and the Congress turned Republican in the mid-1990's, the number of registered lobbyists also doubled to 34,750 registered Washington lobbyists.

Unfortunately, even with the addition of the “lobbying act”, over time the activities of these lobbying efforts continued to get out of hand.