The problem for the media is that stories like Pear’s—which focus on relationships, access, and D.C.’s intellectual environment—are less common than articles that are, in one way or another, about money. Some of those stories, like the ones about Duke Cunningham or William Jefferson, concern the exceptions to the rule, the times when votes really are sold. These are “news stories” in the classic sense—accounts of the system breaking down and the public trust being exploited by villains. They are also much better reads than stories about how lobbying normally works, which, Drutman notes, is “kind of boring.” Antique commodes and cases of cash in a freezer will always trump a couple of guys in pin-striped suits arguing.
But there is also another class of news story—what Drutman calls “hand-wavey” accounts—that note that money is pouring into D.C., but don’t spell out how that money is, or isn’t, moving votes. These articles often make use of figures compiled by organizations such as the Center for Responsive Politics, which make data on campaign contributions easier to access, organize, and report on than ever before.
But, Drutman worries, there’s often too little qualitative reporting to back up that quantitative material, and, as a result, a lot of questions go unanswered: “What are these lobbyists doing? How are they making the case? How are they changing minds? Are they changing minds? Or does everybody already buy into the banking industry’s story more or less, because that’s the only story that they’ve been hearing for their entire time in Congress?”
His plea is, essentially, for reporters to do more reporting. “I think the story that needs to be told is just following around both members of Congress as they’re being lobbied, and lobbyists as they’re lobbying members of Congress and seeing what is happening on a day-to-day level that may or may not be moving particular key votes.”
That may be easier said than done. In this case, though, the Times’s Pear delivered something very much like it—and, in the process, helped show readers how the business of lobbying works.
This, like the Pear article, is a great piece. But it I think it is not the case that simply because you cannot identify direct relationships between the the money and the influence through lobbyists doesn't mean that it isn't essentially a problem of the influence of money. While not all lobbyists are lobbying for big business, big business is the sector that has the most money to spend on lobbyists. If lobbying as an activity were representative or evenly distributed we might not have so much concern about the business of government being farmed out to lobbyists. We are (or should be) worried about because very often farmed out to lobbyists or having lobbyists set the agenda means having a systematic bias towards the interests of big business. And while there is nothing wrong, indeed much good, about big business, it is disturbing to have it so involved in the drafting of legislation that is in part aimed at placing restraints on it. It suggests that these efforts are likely to be sabotaged from within the drafting process. Transparency about the role of funding and lobbying may not cure this problem but it is certainly a step in the right direction which is why the outcome of the Citizens United case could be critical.
#1 Posted by Tamara Piety, CJR on Tue 17 Nov 2009 at 12:41 PM
Hi Tamara,
Thanks for the kind words. I agree that the uneven distribution of lobbyists is an important issue, and a place where money does play a role -- I tried to acknowledge this with the line about how private interests "are not evenly balanced," but I should have been more explicit. If you click through to Drutman's posts, especially at the end of the series, you'll see this is an issue he thinks about a lot, and he offers some policy proposals to address it.
#2 Posted by greg marx, CJR on Tue 17 Nov 2009 at 01:07 PM
This is a long overdue effort. It's a shame the Times' story is "unique" as (in a rational world) it should be a major focus of most news agencies.
While businesses should have influence on government (they pay much of the taxes), lobbyists have long since exceeded prudent bounds. Where else can such a small investment pay off so well?
And it's not just business; labor unions have hit the jackpot in the Obama administration. Where are the investigative reporters looking into that?
#3 Posted by JLD, CJR on Wed 18 Nov 2009 at 09:37 AM