Hillary Clinton's transition operation is limiting how federal lobbyists can work with her transition teams. | AP Photo Clinton sticks with Obama’s strict lobbying rules — for now

Hillary Clinton’s presidential transition team has put in place strict rules that limit the influence of lobbyists in crafting the nominee’s policy agenda, POLITICO has learned, an early indication that Clinton is unlikely to abandon all of the lobbying restrictions imposed by Barack Obama.

The secretive transition operation, which has tried to keep a low profile in order to not appear overly confident in a Clinton victory, is limiting how federal lobbyists can work with the transition teams that are tasked with planning for the transfer of power at dozens of key agencies, according to several sources familiar with the operation. The Clinton campaign's policy operation, which is a separate entity from the transition team, continues to be the point of contact for companies, consultants and lobbyists to send policy memos.


The transition operation’s ethics pledge mandates that transition officials recuse themselves from working on any issues on which they have lobbied in the past year. The rules also require transition staff who stay in the private sector to agree, for one year, not to appear before or seek to influence any federal agency they focused on during the transition, three sources familiar with the issue told POLITICO.

The rules define lobbying based on the Lobbying Disclosure Act, which says that a lobbyist is "any individual who is employed or retained by a client for financial or other compensation for services that include more than one lobbying contact, other than an individual whose lobbying activities constitute less than 20 percent of the time engaged in the services provided by such individual to that client over a 3-month period."

The rules are nearly identical to those imposed by Obama’s transition team in 2008.

The policy sheds new light on how Clinton would deal with lobbyists if she is elected, and it casts doubt on the notion that she would overturn Obama’s 2009 executive orders that limit the role of lobbyists in government.

One 2009 order — signed on the president’s first full day in office — bars registered lobbyists from working at federal agencies they lobbied within the past two years, and it bans officials from working on issues that are “directly and substantially related” to the work they did in government for two years. The Obama administration did issue waivers to some lobbyists in order to allow them to serve despite not meeting those requirements.

Washington’s fleet of Democratic lobbyists, many of whom have close ties to the Clintons, have long held out hope that a Clinton administration would dramatically alter Obama’s restrictions, opening the floodgates for lobbyists to enter government.

“My own sense is that Ms. Clinton’s relationship to lobbyists has been considerably different than Obama’s. Hillary has worked with a lot of lobbyists in Washington for a long time, and I don’t think she finds lobbying to be odious or disqualifying,” one Democratic lobbyist said. “I don’t think she’s going to be unilateral in disqualifying people from serving in her administration.”

Former Obama administration officials acknowledge privately that the lobbying restrictions created complications and were difficult to enforce, even if they sent a powerful political message after the 2008 election. The Obama administration has come under frequent criticism for failing to meet the rules.

It remains unclear exactly how Clinton would deal with Obama’s lobbying restrictions once in office. One possibility is altering the order to correct the flaws in Obama's approach, perhaps by more clearly detailing exceptions to the anti-lobbying provisions.

But overturning Obama’s executive orders would open Clinton up to intense criticism from progressive groups and good-government advocates, who are already worried about the nominee’s ties to lobbyists and business groups — and will be on high alert for any deviation from the current policy. But Clinton will need to make a final decision on the issue only if she wins the presidency.

"We are consumed with the sole task of garnering 270 electoral votes in order to elect Hillary Clinton as the next President," said Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon. "Decisions on personnel in a potential Clinton administration are not being made until after the election."