Postman covers an odd incident with a state legislator publicly disparaging lobbyists hired by the Sonics for this year's session. The legislator, Rep. Sam Hunt, D-Olympia, has since apologized for claiming "I think they took the money and ran."
I know, I know. Lobbyists aren't supposed to be the most sympathetic of folk. Like many professions that essentially come down to a sales job, there are always some practitioners of the craft who earn the ill-repute sometimes bestowed on them.
Having worked with a number of lobbyists during my stint at the Washington Biotechnology & Biomedical Association (WBBA), I'll attest some are indeed slimy. Some are cheesy. But most are decent people, undeserving of the caricature some presume befits them.
One of the Sonics' lobbyists quoted by Postman, Linda Hull, was one of WBBA's lobbyists during my tenure there, along with her daughter Vicki Austin. They're an impressive combination of professionalism, realism, and humanity. In a world where partisanship is so easily a point of focus, I, a Republican, thought very highly of them, Democrats. They taught me a lot, for which I remain appreciative.
Rep. Hunt was right to apologize for the baseless charge. Hull, and Austin, are good people.
Posted by Eric Earling at April 19, 2007 06:15 PM | Email ThisA lobbyist is treated differently - the input from a lobbyist may go to any state or federal representative and is taken at face value, and not ignored.
Why is input from a lobbyist accepted by any legislator, but input from the people is narrowly accepted only by your specific elected representative?
A similar problem exists with committees considering legislation. If your elected representative is not on the committee, you will not be permitted to have any input into the process. But a lobbyist is permitted to have input.
Because lobbyists receive greater access to legislators than do citizens, for that reason alone, I hold lobbyists in ill repute. Until citizen input is given the same opportunity to be heard that is given to lobbyists, we have a two-faced system - those that can afford lobbyists can and will have more influence than us just plain folks. That is not right.
Posted by: Eric on April 19, 2007 09:36 PM1) Lobbyists are professional and as such treat everyone with respect as a potential ally on some future venture.
2) Lobbyists are knowledgeble since their professional responsibilities require them to know certain policies better than anyone else. Sure it is on behalf of their client, but they still know what they are talking about.
3) Lobbyists are honest. It sounds odd for someone with the reputation that lobbyists have, but remember a lobbyist stays employed by having repeat customers. A lobbyist caught lying by a legislator or even withholding information of impact to the legislator has lost the only currency they had to begin with.
4) Lobbyists are spokesmen/women and thus the represent many as opposed to one person's thoughts. The approval or disapproval of a group or interest is reflected in the lobbyists views on policy proposals. As such, lobbyists represent a preview of future newsletter articles and possible newspaper stories on a topic.
5) Lobbyists reflect donors. It might not be believable, but donors are the smallest of the reasons that they are heeded. Often lobbyists represent interests which make few or no contributions. For example, the lobbyist for the special education coalition probably delivers less money statewide than one businessman in a legislators' district, but lawmakers would be very foolish to ignore the perspective of such a representative. Some lobbyists do represent the views of donors, and are heeded for that reason, but it is a small factor since most donors of consequence are courted by legislators directly rather than through intermediaries like lobbyists.
I'm not a lobbyist, but hope to give a glimpse into the surprising truth about them. As with any cclump of people, there will be some bad apples, but as a rule they are as I have described them.
And can I say again how important #1 is? A large percentage of those "real citizens" who contact their legislators treat the legislator like crap.
Posted by: anon on April 20, 2007 06:14 PMThey blatantly lie (and not by small amounts)- and the legislature eats it up like candy...even when refuted with fact checking from public records requests and other state and federal sources- ie the government's own data. It's quite shameful and I really wish the IRS would double down on auditing these crooks for tax fraud (ie violating 501C3 limits on resources used for lobbying).
My experience has nothing to do with the Sonics- that money was private---so good for them and good for the legislature for shutting them down.