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Edited on Wed Jan-16-08 12:35 AM by EffieBlack
For some time, I've been frustrated by the consistent, wholesale attacks on "lobbyists" as if lobbying is a dirty word and an even dirtier activity. Lobbying is not, in and of itself, a bad thing - ALL Americans have the constitutional right to seek redress from their government. Frankly, I'm sick of this knee-jerk bashing of "lobbyist" as if it's ipso facto a dirty word. There are many people in Washington who register as lobbyists because they advocate for legislation as part of their work - legislation that advances the causes that most of claim to believe in and that protects and improves the lives of people who often can't speak for themselves.
The NAACP has lobbyists. The Human Rights Campaign has lobbyists. The ACLU has lobbyists. The National Organization for Women has lobbyists. The American Association of People with Disabilities has lobbyists. The AFL-CIO (and most other unions) have lobbyists. The Children's Defense Fund has lobbyists. LaRaza has lobbyists. NARAL has lobbyists. The American Association of Justice, formerly the American Association of Trial Lawyers (BIG Edwards' supporters) have lobbyists. (And before the Obama people start nyah nyahing Edwards, they should consider the fact that one of Obama's top people used to work for that organization - as a lobbyist).
Let's be clear: the problem is not the lobbyists, but the money that a small group of greedy and corrupt lobbyists have been able to use to leverage their influence.
It's ironic that, in the midst of a heated argument about who was more responsible for the passage of the Voting Rights Act, so many people either have forgotten or just don't know that, while Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, and many other civil rights activists were instrumental in the Act's passage, it was a LOBBYIST who probably should get most of the credit for this achievement. Clarence Mitchell, the NAACP's Washington Bureau director and their long-time lobbyist, was known as "the 101st Senator" for his strong presence, brilliant legislative strategizing, and effective lobbying for critical civil rights legislation. Among those who were there and/or who have studied and know the real history of this period, Clarence Mitchell - "the Lion in the Lobby" - gets most of the credit for the enactment of these laws.
Given all of this, the attacks we're seeing here tonight against Rodney Slater, the dismissal of him as "Hillary's lobbyist" and suggestions that he has no business speaking up in support of Clinton, are beyond the pale.
Rodney Slater, the former Secretary of Transportation, is an enormously accomplished and respected man. He was born dirt poor in Arkansas, picked cotton as a child, attended segregated, inferior schools, yet managed to go to college, where he excelled. He worked his way through law school and after law school, rose up through Arkansas government. He is a good and decent man of unquestionable integrity and is greatly respected around the country.
Secretary Slater is an attorney working for a major law firm that includes a government relations department, so it is perfectly normal for him to acknowledge that he's lobbyist in order to ensure that he's staying within the law and reporting all of his contacts with legislators, limited though they may be. That does not make him or all other lobbyists crooked or evil or contemptible.
Now, if Matthews or anyone else can point to any questionable or dirty clients that Secy. Slater has represented, unethical behavior on his part, or any legislation that he has tried to get passed that was harmful to the interests of ordinary people, that's another question. But throwing the term "lobbyist" at someone as an ad hominem attack that somehow invalidates any viewpoint they may have is tired.
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