| 1. I said this on CNN and I'll say it again here: The idea that lobbyists are the only or the primary source of good talent to fill an administration is ridiculous, although I can see how it can feel that way inside Washington, D.C., a place where it feels like everyone is, wants to be, or has been a lobbyist at some point in their career. However, the notion that lobbyists must be the major talent pool for government service is a symptom of what we might call Beltway Blindness - that is, being unable to see outside the traditions and parameters of How Washington Has Always Worked. One of the most durable features of D.C. has always been the revolving door between government and lobbying work - and now that that revolving door seems to be slowing or ending, there seems to be a tendency of those in D.C. to assume that must have catastrophic consequences.
Last I checked, there's a whole host of people in D.C. who aren't lobbyists but who are highly qualified and - I know this is hard for D.C. folks to accept - there are also thousands of people (gasp!) outside of D.C. who are also qualified. Indeed, I'd like to believe that one of the reasons Obama proposed a lobbyist ban was to create a policy that would effectively force a new administration to hire some new blood with a fresh perspective.
Make no mistake: I'm sure that some of the slowness in staffing agencies has something to do with the lobbyist ban. But that's likely because Obama has hired so many Washington insiders to head the agencies and make hiring decisions - and such insiders have spent careers in D.C. seeing lobbyists as the primary talent pool for personnel. Unable to do that now, there is probably some paralysis - they are facing hiring restrictions they've never had to cope with, and they therefore don't really know what to do. My guess is that it'll be a baptism by fire - they'll get over their paralysis and simply have to figure it out.
2. I absolutely agree with Yglesias that Obama's lobbyist ban probably goes too far in preventing lobbyists who lobby for non-profit institutions, entities and campaigns from serving in government (in fact, while these people technically register as lobbyists, many non-profit lobbyists use the term "advocate" to rightly differentiate themselves from corporate lobbyists). If Obama is to modify the lobbying guidelines, he could easily modify them to apply only to lobbyists who lobby for for-profit entities.* That would have, for instance, been consistent with Obama putting an anti-tobacco lobbyist into his administration, but it still wouldn't have been consistent with his putting a Raytheon lobbyist into the Pentagon.
On the whole, I hope that if it's a choice between Obama keeping the imperfect lobbyist ban and not keeping it, he chooses the former and not the latter (though I also hope he chooses a "third way" and simply modifies his lobbyist ban to not apply to non-profit lobbyists).
Indeed, the idea that this ban, even in a slightly flawed state, is "creating more harm than good," as Yglesias insists, only makes sense if you somehow believe (as many in D.C. do) that the primary talent pool for the best people to serve in government are lobbyists - which may sound rational to Beltway folks who have lived under such assumptions forever, but makes absolutely no empirical sense in a nation of 300 million people (yes - there really are talented people out here in the heartland!).
Even in an imperfect construction, the ban sets an important principle, and (aside from the smarmy waivers that have been issued) Obama has shown commendable courage in enforcing it. Perhaps more importantly, the ban might force this new administration to consider hiring a different set of people than the same old retreads of Permanent Washington.
* Yes, yes - I know that corporate trade associations are often technically not-for-profit institutions, but Obama's lobbying ban is not a statute, it's a White House guideline. So it wouldn't be difficult for the personnel office to discern that a lobbyist for a technically non-profit corporate trade association is, in fact, a lobbyist for for-profit corporations. Likewise, it wouldn't be difficult for the White House personnel office to discern that a lobbyist for a union or 501(c)4 is actually a lobbyist for a non-profit entity. |
