An excellent first step - One can hope that the Goldman Sachs lobbyists running the Treasury and the President's Council of Economic Advisors will get the boot soon too.

Cool! It is just possible that, fairly soon, the tone of the information passed to govt agencies by these committees could change rather decisively from partisan to impartial.

No GOP stalwart is going to change his skin because of this. But it could make it more difficult and embarassing to maintain interest-coddling positions when the only voices promoting them come directly from the interests themselves.

No more phony veneer of objectivity for an "Energy Advisory Committee" as it recommending drilling in your living room as the only answer to our energy needs, since the lobbyists from Exxon, Chevron and Shell will have been sidelined.

Who knows, it could happen, at least to some extent.

Better watch your back, Mr. President: Hell hath no fury like a lobbyist scorned. . .

Good One !
_ No GOP stalwart is going to change his skin because of this. But it could make it more difficult and embarassing to maintain interest-coddling positions when the only voices promoting them come directly from the interests themselves. _

The idea of a republican being embarrassed ! Comprehending dificulties from the decidering gut ? You must be thinking of republicans I have not met in many years .

Typical. Great move done with little publicity. Why not a big ceremonial firing of every single lobbyist from every single federal advisory panel?

Now THIS is what I voted for - BRAVO!

"You must be thinking of republicans I have not met in many years." Posted by: FRP

Yes, I totally agree. I was a long-term Republican and voted for Jesse Helms three times. He was considered hard-core back then but a great Senator for our state. I "choose to" believe that today he'd be one of the few "moderate" Republicans - not an ultra-partisan jackass.

So the lobby "czars" have been uncovered. The Palinites are busy...BAWAHAWAHWAHWAH.

Here's a link to a Presidential memoranda from 3/20/09 concerning lobbyists and the Recovery Act. I recall the wingnuts claiming first amendment rights being violated because "oral communications" were being discouraged in certain situations and must be "written". More change we can believe in.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Memorandum-for-the-Heads-of-Executive-Departments-and-Agencies-3-20-09/

Probably a good step, but folks shouldn't kid themselves that it means that advisory committees will now necessarily provide 'impartial' advice. I don't think too many people appreciate the importance of the 'iron triangle' of advocacy groups, legislative staff members, and co-opted agency staff in influencing, or in fact basically controlling, legislation and regulatory decision on a wide range of government issues. In my experience, senior career staff at government agencies often loose sight of the fact that they are supposed to ADMINISTER laws and programs, and instead begin to get a rush or sense of power cutting deals with hill staffers with similarly inflated egos, some of whom either come from or intend to move to the advocacy groups who are now "advising" them. Legislation on many topics, particularly involving social programs, becomes a dumping ground for the whims of the participants, resulting in programs which are so convoluted, or at times even self-contradictory, that they are basically impossible to administer in a logical or effective manner (I speak from first hand experience on the latter!)

Agree with Homer. People are fed up with special interests and corporate influence in govt, and the Obama admin does something concrete about it. But keeps it "below the radar", until someone finally feeds it to the press - on Thanksgiving weekend. Brilliant. No, Democrats have learned NOTHING from the last thirty years of deliberately ignoring the importance of publicitiy, framing, etc.

while i'm taking this all with a grain of salt [like dcsuisie, above], it's ironic that last week rove was projecting about obama's white house doing the BAD news dump on friday and now we see them doing a GOOD news dump on friday...sheesh

Just out of curiosity, how are "advocacy groups, legislative staff members, and co-opted agency staff ... influencing, or in fact basically controlling, legislation and regulatory decisions..." any different from, er, democracy?

There seems to be an odd disconnection here. "Advocates" who try to influence legislation and executive decisions on various policies aren't "lobbyists" -- why and how is that distinction made? Somebody who organizes small business owners to oppose X is different from a "community organizer" -- how?

The truth is, banning "lobbyists" doesn't actually ban people who represent organized interests: it just excludes SOME of 'em, and includes others.

Remember -- "advocacy" organizations are generally funded by foundations (which in turn were usually funded by vast capitalist fortunes, e.g., Carnegie, Ford, Rockefeller, etc.), and are not famous for their legislative success.

In fact, there's a pretty good case to be made that they are set up to fail -- there is a moral hazard in being funded by grants intended to help the poor and downtrodden, cuz you get more grant money when there are more poor and downtrodden to "help". If you ever actually solved a problem, why would the foundation keep giving you grants to solve it?

Worse, nobody elected the foundation officers who award the grants (who didn't make the money they give away, either), nor the folks they give 'em to -- and yet, in the odd way we cover political issues, advocacy organizations often play a very distinct role in defining what "the issues" and "the politics" are -- as opposed to, say, people who win elections, often by the folks the foundation-grant-funded folks are supposed to somehow "represent".

Jon Rauch coined the word "demosclerosis" for this, but I don't think he anticipated it'd become a STRATEGY.

For contrast, I've always cited the not hypothetical example of a corporate tax lobbyist, who defends his industry's loophole against all attempts at reform -- until the mathematical instant when reform would lower his industry's taxes. Then, in a heartbeat, he's all for reform -- and when reform locks in that lower rate, he's back asking the next Congress to reopen the loophole from the reformed rate.

Anybody want to name a few examples of "the advocacy community" being that effective? The not entirely hypothetical advocacy group experience is somebody with 10 or 20 years experience on the losing side of legislation, always explained by how entrenched the special interests are, and never by the possibility that a) the advocates didn't understand the subject, and b) they didn't understand the politics -- in other words, if they know how to get it done, it'd have been done already.

Just look at how quickly folks here talk about the "average American moron voter" when they've misread the politics of something, which is pretty common.

There are a million technical issues that various advisory groups advise about, and I dunno as it is exactly anti-democratic when the particular interests affected are part of the technical discussions -- what happens when the French and Germans dominate the next round of GATT talks, because there weren't any Americans at the table for the technical discussions who actually understood 'em?

Oh, and full disclosure: I'm a lobbyist.

Why not a big ceremonial firing of every single lobbyist from every single federal advisory panel?
Posted by: Homer on November 27, 2009 at 9:51

Just in case a big wave of waivers follows and we'd as soon not have to explain it?

Thank you theAmericanist. I'm practicing furrowing my brow in the mirror now. That concerned look is a tough one to get right.

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