This report is the first in a series (part 2/part 3) examining the years-long decline in both spending on lobbyists and the number of active lobbyists. Beginning in 2010, the Center for Responsive Politics documented a new trend in lobbying: the rise of the “unlobbyist.” The number of federally registered lobbyists who were active in a particular year began dropping in 2008 and has continued every year since. Our report last year showed that 46 percent of those who stopped lobbying in 2012 were actually still employed by the same firm. We argued that many of these ex-lobbyists simply shifted their job responsibilities slightly so as to avoid disclosure requirements and fly “under the radar.”

Here, we’re extending our previous work. Through extensive research, we tracked the post-lobbying career paths of almost 1,800 registered, previously active lobbyists and found a similar pattern: Nearly half of them continued to work for the same companies — and some even still had job titles like “Director of Government Relations.” From these findings, it seems clear that lobbyists are not fleeing K Street in droves, but rather they are doing similar work for the same companies. Instead of doing it in the public eye, though, they have moved out of sight.

Where are they now

The number of active lobbyists fell from 12,433 in 2012 to 12,279 in 2013. One possible explanation for this decline is that some have altered their activities just enough to avoid the reporting thresholds despite doing much the same work as they did in previous years. These “unlobbyists” are not uncommon, and there are many examples of prominent former government employees working for — or sometimes running — lobbying firms whose names never appear on lobbying disclosure forms.

For example, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) both work for major lobbying firms, but neither have ever formally registered as lobbyists.

To see whether lobbyists are continuing to move “under the radar,” we investigated the professional whereabouts of all lobbyists who were active in 2012 but did not report lobbying in 2013. We refer to these people as having “deactivated.” This is a somewhat different group than those who “ deregistered ,” a term with a specific legal meaning that is harder to measure due to data limitations.

In 2008, following the passage of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA) — passed in response to the Jack Abramoff scandal — more than 3,400 individuals who had lobbied the year before disappeared from the official rolls. In 2012, there were 1,700 fewer active lobbyists than in 2011, and about the same number — 1,788 — fell away between 2012 and 2013.

As of early 2014, 45 percent of lobbyists who were active in 2012 but not 2013 were still working for the same employer for whom they lobbied in 2012. In 2013, we performed a similar analysis of lobbyists who deactivated in 2012 and found that about 46 percent were still with the same employer. The deactivated lobbyists who stayed were again the largest category in 2014. About a third of deactivated lobbyists moved to a different organization, with 14 percent staying in a similar industry and 19 percent going to a different industry. A small handful exited the job market altogether, either through retirement or death. We were unable to find information on 14 percent of the lobbyists who deactivated during 2013.

There are many reasons why someone might cease reporting lobbying activity. The most basic explanation is that he or she no longer lobbies: the individual may have been promoted into a job that no longer requires active lobbying, her contract with a lobbying client might have ended, or she might be nearing retirement and therefore cutting back on her duties. Our interviews with some of the “unlobbyists” confirmed these assumptions. “It was just circumstances,” said Donald Gatlin of the Raben Group, a lobbying shop whose website says it also does “coalition building” and “strategic communications,” among other things. “‘Clients turn over. We have a lot of change here…I really don’t think it’s that unusual.” Gatlin added that there was no emphasis on reducing his or the group’s lobbying, and he was doing other work in 2013. Help us keep government accountable by making a donation today.

Dan Gilchrist of the University of Minnesota told us he “took a new, non-lobbying position” as of June 2012. Ellen Garrison of the American Psychological Association also said she changed jobs within her organization, as did several others who asked not to be named.

We also uncovered numerous examples of individuals who are no longer actively lobbying but whose job titles imply they are still involved in government affairs. About 14 percent of the nearly 1,800 lobbyists who deactivated in 2013 and 20 percent of those who are still working at the same place held titles that included phrases like “government,” “legislative,” “public policy,” “regulatory,” “congressional,” “federal,” “advocacy” or even “lobbyist.”

In roughly equal numbers, deactivating lobbyists hailed from organizations lobbying on their own behalf and lobbying firms for hire. That suggests the decline applies broadly to the entire influence industry, rather than to just K Street professionals — at least according to this measure.

The vast majority of lobbyists who deactivated in 2013 have multiple years of experience. Only 203 of them had never reported actively lobbying prior to 2012. Those who only lobbied in 2012 were likely doing a one-time job for a client.

About 10 percent of those who deactivated in 2012, or 166 individuals, returned to active lobbying in 2013. Nearly three-quarters of them came back to lobby for the same organization they were with previously.

For an Excel spreadsheet of lobbyists who were registered in 2012, deactivated in 2013 but were still with the same employer, click here.

Sector trends

Ever since the number of active lobbyists peaked at 14,837 in 2007, nearly every sector has experienced a significant decline. Most sectors did not, however, see quite as precipitous a decline in spending. In fact, spending increased in many areas.

But only one sector, labor, gained lobbyists during that period, increasing its lobbying force by 8 percent in 2013. On average, the 13 sectors tracked by CRP reported 23 percent fewer lobbyists in 2013 than in 2007, while at the same time they reported spending 7 percent more.

Our previous research has found that both HLOGA and, to a lesser extent, executive branch hiring restrictions put in place by President Obama contributed to lobbyists ceasing to register even though they continue to spend significant time on what most would consider lobbying activities

While most sectors have reported increases in spending since 2007, many also show a steep decline after 2009, when expenditures peaked. Since then, overall lobbying spending has dropped every year, reaching a low of $3.2 billion last year. Still, even though most sectors have seen declines in both the number of lobbyists and spending levels since 2009, in 11 of the 13 sectors the decrease in lobbyists outpaces the drop in spending.

The losses seem to be spread across all sectors of the economy. Among CRP’s sector categories, only Labor, Finance/Insurance/Real Estate (FIRE), Communications/Electronics and Agribusiness spent more in 2012 than they did in 2009, with the rest dropping by an average of 15 percent. All but one sector reported fewer active lobbyists. Labor was alone in also hiring more lobbyists and is also reported to be mounting a political comeback after being somewhat less involved during the last few elections.

The biggest disparities between changes in spending versus changes in the number of active lobbyists were in the Communications/Electronics and Defense sectors.

The overall disparity is not as striking as what we found for the longer period since 2007. Nevertheless, it indicates that money is still being spent to contact government officials and, by implication, that lobbyists and their staffs are still doing the work — but fewer are disclosing their activity to the public.

Most industries, which are subgroups of a sector, followed a similar pattern, unsurprisingly. The Computers and Internet industry, which has seen several companies like Google and Facebook storm into the lobbying arena in recent years, spent $20 million more in 2013 than in 2007 but reported 553 fewer lobbyists.

Issues and Bills

The Center tallied up how many total lobbyists worked in each issue area as well as how many of the deactivating lobbyists had reported working on them and found that every single issue area lost at least three lobbyists due to deactivation. Three issue areas — Federal Budget & Appropriations Health Issues or Taxes — lost more than 275 lobbyists apiece in 2013. However, those are also the top three issues in terms of total number of lobbyists.

By comparing the ratio of lobbyists who became inactive to total lobbyists listing each issue, we see that issues that attract less lobbying activity overall suffered the biggest losses by percentage. That could be because the exit of a few major organizations or the slimming down of a lobbying operation after a major fight over a big issue can have a larger impact, proportionally. Those with the biggest disparities were Religion , Welfare and Hazardous Waste ; less than 1.5 percent of all active lobbyists report working on those issues, but they accounted for more than 10 percent of the deactivating lobbyists in 2013.

However, the issues most frequently lobbied (those having more than 1,000 reported lobbyists in 2012) saw a comparatively small number of deactivated lobbyists. About one-third of all lobbyists reported working on matters related to Budget, Taxes or Health issues in 2012, for instance, but only 7.7 percent, 6.4 percent and 8 percent, respectively, of the those lobbyists deactivated in 2013.

Similarly, the bills targeted by the highest number of deactivated lobbyists were also the most popular bills overall . However, nearly a third of the lobbyists who reported trying to influence two bills that were not as widely lobbied in 2012, the SOPA and PIPA Internet security and privacy legislation, left the active lobbying rolls. Companies and organizations interested in influencing or stopping the bills may have added staff with specific policy or even technical knowledge to lobby Congress. In addition, specific clients would have required more attention during the fight. Some personnel who usually slip under the reporting thresholds by spreading their activity across several clients might have found themselves working much more on this one issue.

Conclusion

While there are a number of explanations for the decline in officially disclosed lobbying activity, it is clear that at least some of the activity has not stopped at all but has instead gone underground. Nearly half of the lobbyists who stopped reporting in 2013 are still working at the same employer and many are doing that work under a title that indicates they are still involved in influencing government policy.

Whether we look at what industry these “unlobbyists” lobbied for or what issues they worked on, the same basic pattern emerges: Lobbyists are becoming inactive at a higher rate than spending decreases would seem to predict, and in some cases in spite of increased spending.

Definitions and methodology

CRP matches individual lobbyists to their previous records every quarter as data is made available by the Senate Office of Public Records. Using these matches we found individuals who “deactivated,” or reported lobbying activity in 2012 but did not do so in 2013. What we have chosen to call deactivation differs in meaningful ways from the term deregistration, which has a specific technical meaning. To deregister, a lobbyist must be listed on the “deregistration” line of reports filed by every client she represented; alternatively, she could be listed on termination reports for all of these clients. Conceptually, not lobbying (as in, not appearing on any reports for a year) is just as meaningful as technically deregistering, thus we chose to study deactivation instead of deregistration.

CRP then attempted to determine where these “former” lobbyists were working today. We were unable to find current information for 242, or 14 percent, of the lobbyists who deactivated in 2013.



Read more about our methodology for processing lobbying data. Lobbyists must register with the government if they are paid to lobby on behalf of a client, make at least two contacts with covered government officials and spend at least 20 percent of their time working for that client. All three conditions must be met to trigger the filing requirement. Reporting interns Robbie Feinberg and Emily Kopp contributed to this report.



For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: Feel free to distribute or cite this material, but please credit the Center for Responsive Politics.For permission to reprint for commercial uses, such as textbooks, contact the Center: [email protected]





Support Accountability Journalism At OpenSecrets.org we offer in-depth, money-in-politics stories in the public interest. Whether you’re reading about 2020 presidential fundraising, conflicts of interest or “dark money” influence, we produce this content with a small, but dedicated team. Every donation we receive from users like you goes directly into promoting high-quality data analysis and investigative journalism that you can trust.Please support our work and keep this resource free. Thank you. Support OpenSecrets ➜