The company maintains its senior vice president for government affairs isn’t required to disclose his efforts to influence government. | Getty Lockheed's top government affairs official not registered as lobbyist His decision not to register goes against both company precedent and the practices of other top defense firms.

The top government affairs official at Lockheed Martin, the world's largest defense contractor, holds a unique distinction among his main rivals at firms like Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman: He hasn't registered as a lobbyist.

The company maintains that Robert Rangel, its senior vice president for government affairs since early last year and a former chief of staff to Defense Secretaries Donald Rumsfeld and Robert Gates, isn’t required to disclose his efforts to influence Congress and the executive branch. He doesn't meet all the legal requirements outlined in the law that governs lobbying disclosures, the company says, including the percentage of his time he actually spends twisting the arms of government officials.


His decision not to register, however, goes against both company precedent and the practices of other top defense firms.

Rangel’s two predecessors as head of Lockheed’s Washington operations were both registered as lobbyists with the House and Senate. And, with one exception, the top government affairs executives at other major Pentagon contractors have also filed paperwork publicly disclosing the issues and policies they advocate for or against — and any relevant government positions they previously held, according to a POLITICO review of the disclosure filings.

Rangel's case sheds light on a lax disclosure process that is easily skirted and seldom, if ever, enforced, as a number of watchdog groups have pointed out — leading to what some call a class of “shadow lobbyists,” or Washington insiders who engage in lobbying activities but don’t register.

Some, according to interviews with lobbyists and others familiar with the process, want to avoid the stigma of being labeled a lobbyist to improve their prospects for being hired in the future into senior jobs in the White House or with a federal agency.

Indeed, the lobbyist label dogged President Barack Obama's first selection in 2009 for deputy secretary of defense. William Lynn had served in the same role as Rangel at Raytheon and under new rules instituted by Obama to reduce the presence of former lobbyists in government was required to get a presidential waiver.

“Sometimes people feel the label 'lobbyist' gives them a bad name,” said Lee Drutman, an expert on lobbying at the New America think tank. Rangel, he surmised, "probably saw himself going into a Rubio or Bush administration and probably figured whoever became president was going to carry on the Obama lobbying rule because of the optics of that.”

Rangel declined a request to comment, referring questions to a Lockheed spokesman. But the company defended his lobbying status, asserting he has a large portfolio that includes the company’s business development efforts. He delegates Lockheed’s lobbying activities to Greg Walters, the company’s vice president for legislative affairs and a former staff member of the House Appropriations Committee. Walters is a registered lobbyist.

“Robert leads our government affairs operation,” said company spokesman Bill Phelps. “This function also includes business development in the United States. He delegates the company’s lobbying activities to a team within the organization. He spends less than 5 percent of his time on lobbying and thus is not required to register as a lobbyist.”

Congress has been trying to regulate lobbying since at least 1876, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report. Because the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to petition their government, these efforts have put few restrictions on lobbying and have mostly focused on disclosure.

In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton signed into law the Lobbying Disclosure Act, declaring that “all the people should know what is done by the people who affect public decisions.”

The law, amended in 2007, requires individuals to register with the House and Senate if they meet three conditions: They must make more than one lobbying contact in a three-month period, receive compensation and spend at least 20 percent of their time lobbying.

And by that definition, Lockheed contends, Rangel doesn’t qualify. “We’re very methodical about compliance,” Phelps insisted.

But Rangel's job description certainly makes him sound like a lobbyist.

Rangel, 56, leads Lockheed's “engagements with Congress, the Department of Defense and all other federal government offices and agencies,” as the company put it when it named him to the post. He's also in charge of the company’s political action committee, which has doled out nearly $3.3 million to candidates for office this election cycle. He was even recognized last year by The Hill newspaper as one of the top corporate lobbyists in Washington.

Rangel's predecessors at Lockheed, Greg Dahlberg and Brian Dailey, were both registered as lobbyists. And among the Defense Department’s top 10 contractors, Lockheed and L-3 Communications are the only firms where the top government affairs executive is not registered.

Boeing’s senior vice president for government operations, Timothy Keating, is registered, as are the chief lobbyists at General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, BAE Systems and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

For its part, L-3 says its senior vice president for Washington operations, Richard Cody, a former Army vice chief of staff, rarely interacts directly with members of Congress and therefore doesn’t need to register.

“As head of L-3’s Washington Operations organization, General Cody’s primary role is oversight of several corporate functions, one of which is government relations,” said company spokeswoman Jennifer Barton. “On the few occasions when he discusses L-3 business directly with members of Congress, those interactions are reported as required by law.”

A number of experts on federal lobbying were surprised Rangel has not registered given his experience in the highest ranks of the Defense Department, having transitioned as Gates' top aide from the Bush administration to the Obama administration.

In his 2014 memoir, “Duty,” Gates said Rangel, who is also a former staff director of the House Armed Services Committee, “knew more, and had better instincts, about both Congress and the Department of Defense, than anyone I had ever met.” And Geoff Morrell, who was Pentagon press secretary under Gates, said Rangel is meticulous about following rules.

"I worked side-by-side with Robert Rangel for four years and can tell you that he was not only the smartest and hardest working guy in the Pentagon, he was also the one who most respected the rules and adhered to the highest of ethical standards,” Morrell told POLITICO. “And I am quite certain he is still living and working the exact same way today."

Rangel oversees an in-house government affairs team that includes at least 15 registered lobbyists, according to the company’s most recent disclosures. Lockheed also hires a number of outside lobbying firms to advance its agenda on Capitol Hill and inside the Pentagon, including most recently retaining the firm run by former House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.).

In all, the company spent $13.7 million on lobbying last year, pressing for more funding for a range of programs, from the F-35 fighter jet to the Navy’s troubled Littoral Combat Ship.

Lockheed CEO Marillyn Hewson made clear when Rangel was promoted to be the company’s top government affairs executive that one of his selling points was his extensive contacts at the Defense Department and on Capitol Hill. “Robert has decades of experience working with our nation’s congressional and Department of Defense leaders,” Hewson said at the time.

“I couldn’t even imagine how he could possibly justify not being a registered lobbyist," said Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist at the consumer-rights group Public Citizen. “If he’s spending more than 80 percent of his time doing things that are irrelevant to his contact with Congress and the Department of Defense, that just defies credulity."

Once someone registers as a lobbyist, he explained, there's a system in place for ensuring the person is filing accurate quarterly lobbying disclosure reports. But, he said, "We don't have any agency that actually ensures those who should be registered are registered."

Another defense lobbyist who asked not to be identified said that Rangel was a “straight shooter” and was surely careful to be abiding by the letter of the law, if not the spirit.

“As long as the law says 80-20 … I’m sure he’s very careful to follow it,” the lobbyist said.

The spirit of the law — that disclosure of who is influencing decisions that impact billions of taxpayer dollars is in the public interest — in this case is being violated, in Drutman's view.

“If [Rangel is] doing high-level strategic stuff, I guess he could technically not qualify as a lobbyist, but come on,” he said.