Politics The Lobbyists’ Lament

Haley Barbour is founding partner and Ed Rogers is chairman of BGR Group, a government affairs and public relations firm in Washington.

Well, well, well. A new Gallup poll reveals that Americans view lobbyists as having the lowest honesty and ethical standards of any profession of the 22 surveyed. We’re shocked!

You don’t have to be an expert at studying the internals and crosstabs of a poll to understand that lobbyists’ work contains all the right ingredients for a cocktail of contempt. Lobbyists deal with the government in Washington. Ding! Politics. Ding ding! Political fundraising. Ding ding ding! We do much of our work with a lawyerly patina. Ding ding ding ding!


Lobbying is an unloved industry, with scads of lawyers, politicians and bureaucrats as well as campaign money in the mix, and everybody wants something. Everyone likes to beat up on us, and none more so than President Barack Obama, who grandiosely says things like: “We’re going to have to change the culture in Washington so that lobbyists and special interests aren’t driving the process.”

That kind of bluster doesn’t bother us. We love our jobs, but we’re not expecting the thanks of a grateful nation—lobbying just doesn’t have too many appealing elements for most Americans, and that won’t change. But if you are an Obama disciple and it makes you feel more comfortable, you could always just think of us as “Navigators.”

Each of us has had a 20-plus year career as a lobbyist, so it’s safe to say we’ve given some thought to lobbying and what lobbyists really do. And didn’t former President Bill Clinton once say something like: If you know what you’re doing, you’re never afraid to talk about what you do? So we come not to bury lobbyists, but to explain them. We don’t mind talking about what we do. And thanks to the ever-expanding government and the perpetual nature of bureaucracy, the lawyer and lobbyist business is a growth industry.

So many lobbyists are lawyers because a lot of what lobbyists do is like a slow-motion jury trial. You have to find the jury, meet with them one at a time and argue your case; you advocate on behalf of your client. It’s about persuasion.

Lobbying mostly consists of three parts:

First, someone has a problem, concern or desire to change something in Washington or in government somewhere. A good lobbyist needs to put together a “wiring diagram” that identifies all the offices and individuals who have some sort of discretionary input over the issue in question. That group includes the obvious government offices, but can also include the media, competitors, trade associations, think tanks and other interest groups.

These days, that diagram can grow pretty large. Aside from President Obama’s unprecedented and questionable use of executive fiat, power is becoming more diffuse in Washington. The growth of bureaucracy is making it harder for a company or even an industry, much less an individual, to find out what is actually going on in government, and harder still to move the needle on any given measure. Knowing who to talk to is the first step and, increasingly, it takes an expert to draw up the plan.

Second, you have to get a fair hearing in front of the people who matter, choreographed in a way that makes sense. Pretty much everyone we have met and interacted with over the past couple decades wants to do a good job, and most are open to hearing factual information. A dirty little secret in Washington is that the majority of policymakers want to thoroughly understand the policy and politics of whatever issue is on the table. Most want to get as many facts and as much perspective as they can, and lobbyists are a major source of that information. Democrats, Republicans; conservatives, liberals—while their individual perspectives on a particular issue may depend on where they sit, most of them are very willing to give you a hearing.

Third, when lobbying, you have to tell the truth and maintain a reputation for telling the truth. If you want to be invited back to talk about an issue with members of Congress, government officials and other policymakers, you need to be credible. It’s rare that you will change a decisionmaker’s view 180 degrees, but good information that demonstrates sound policy and good politics will move members at the margin. Those who are truly undecided might, in rare instances, move totally to the side of your client. But even among those who are inclined to be against your view, you might be able to moderate their position so that it is not as adverse to your client’s interests.

There are no “dark arts” here, to use a phrase that is often applied to our work. Lobbying occurs on every issue in every office in Washington, be it climate change, small-business regulations or animal rights. President Obama would be more effective if he were a better lobbyist. LBJ, Bill Clinton and even Ronald Reagan were all good lobbyists; that is, they were great advocates for their policies.

Even Mark Twain, whose nasty observations about Congress fill volumes, was once described by former Speaker of the House Champ Clark as “ the prince of lobbyists” for his advocacy work on copyright issues. Writes Clark of one of the novelist’s trips to Capitol Hill:

“For two days Twain held his court – talking all the time – and such talk! He talked about steamboating on the Mississippi, about his experiences in Nevada, California, and the Sandwich Islands, about lecturing, writing books, about his travels in far lands, about getting rich and going broke, about the prominent people he had met – in short, about almost everything and everybody – but always wound up by arguing in favor of his bill. On the morning of the second day there was a blinding snow-storm in Washington, and Twain blossomed out in a flannel suit, white as the snow, while all the world wondered. For a week his eccentricity in dress was the talk not only of the town, but of the whole country. … Incidentally his bill was universally discussed. For that cunningly devised caper he must have received a million dollars’ worth of free advertising for his copyright bill.”

So, we think we’re in pretty distinguished company.