After taking lobbyists’ money for so long, Biden shouldn’t ban them from his administration | Opinion
When you join the lobbying profession, you immediately you become Public Enemy No. 1. Of course, you can’t blame the public for feeling this way.
As a profession, we let Washington, D.C., define who we are and how we operate. We don’t have a bully pulpit the way candidates, members of Congress and presidents do. We do not have a public forum where the people can hear us.
When attacks come, we simply hide and wait for the onslaught to pass. It’s easy for elected officials to blame lobbyists for dysfunction in Washington, the alternative being for them to look in the mirror and point the finger at themselves for their direct failures on behalf of those who elected them. When in doubt, create a boogeyman the public hates or distrusts more than they hate or distrust you.
When you become a lobbyist, you know that every election year you will become the scapegoat for all the failures of both Congress and the incumbent president’s administration. You know that, in one breath, members of Congress and the president will blame you for a policy stalemate — and then in the next breath call you and ask you for a campaign contribution.
These same elected leaders will tell their constituents how they need to halt lobbyists’ influence in Washington. But when they leave their campaign rallies, they will call us asking for help.
The reality is that it’s good politics to trash a profession the public does not know much about.
Joe Biden campaigned on improving ethics in Washington, but now that he’s been elected it seems like it was just a tagline to get votes. He is imposing restrictions on lobbyists serving in his administration and on government boards. Yet his transition team is filled with big-name lobbyists. His team has said that not all lobbyists will be banned. Some will be given waivers to serve.
But why some and not all? If our profession is the problem in Washington, as Biden claim, then why does his team include lobbyists? Why the need for waivers? Why not simply ban all of us, not just some of us?
The answer is simple. Biden has been in elected politics for more than 40 years and he knows the true value of what we do — and the information and expertise we will offer his new administration. So, while it may get the president-elect a good public reception to claim he’s banning lobbyists, he quietly will enlist us. That’s the Washington way.
Biden’s policy discriminates against a class of people because of what they do, but makes exceptions for those who have been his big donors.
The American people deserve better than this, Our profession deserves to be treated better than this. The next president campaigned on the promise to create a diverse administration. Some will say he is doing just that. I take a different view. The policies he is putting in place not only discriminate against a class of professionals, but they also tell lobbyists of color they are not welcome to serve in the new administration.
At a time when we should be celebrating public service and are asking corporate America to be more inclusive, Biden is doing the opposite. His bans limit lobbyists of color from creating opportunities to be selected to top positions in government and their chosen fields. That is exactly what the president-elect has criticized corporate America for doing.
As his new administration begins, I urge Biden to reconsider his lobbyist ban. Barack Obama did much the same after he was elected president a dozen years ago, and it turned into debacle for his administration, which relaxed its rules six years later in the aftermath of an unfavorable federal appeals court ruling.
Since 2009, we have seen a growing trend of people taking themselves off the lists of registered federal lobbyists so they could serve in the Obama and Trump administrations. We suspect that will continue under a Biden administration unless he changes course. Such shadow lobbying is a real problem — and one our profession is fighting against.
The new president should work with us on developing policies that create more transparency, not less. But an outright ban is going to continue the rise of shadow lobbyists at a time when the American people are tired of corruption in government.
Paul A. Miller is board chairman of the National Institute for Lobbying & Ethics, the advocacy profession’s trade association.
The Fulcrum