William Eggers, in his book, Government 2.0, writes “We shouldn’t need a lobbyist to navigate our way around government.” (p. 125) I mentioned this quote in a Saturday panel at Government 2.0 Camp session called “Top Ten Measures for Transparency Success.”
This is a powerful sentiment. It resonates because many people believe that lobbyists have become too pervasive and powerful. Thinking about his quotation in the context of a discussion about transparency leads me to ask a more pointed question: As the government becomes more transparent, will lobbying activity decrease?
I don’t have empirical data to present, so let me talk intuitively instead. How would a researcher connect increased levels of transparency with a decreasing level of lobbying activity? I used “decreased lobbying activity” as an intentionally generic term. It might mean fewer lobbyists, fewer lobbying firms, less impact due to lobbying, or some combination.
Let’s drill down a little bit. Here I propose a simple method: compare the roles of lobbyists with some specific benefits of transparency and see what connections jump out. Lobbyists serve many kinds of roles, some more legitimate than others:
- representing the positions of their affiliated organizations
- presenting information relevant to their situation
- trading influence, currying favors
- using financial means to influence law
- building relationships and bridges
- getting insight in the future; e.g. future legislation
How might these lobbying roles connect to transparency? In a previous blog post, I listed the the five benefits of transparency according to Eggers:
- Enhance accountability
- Increase citizen involvement in government
- Raise performance
- Boost government credibility
- Reduce corruption
In this simple method of looking at connections between lobbying roles and transparency benefits, there are a couple of direct connections that stand out.
(a) The second benefit of transparency, namely having more citizens engaged, has the potential to reduce the impact of special interest lobbyists. The rationale is straightforward: engaged citizens are more likely to contact their lawmakers directly and perhaps even organize. As citizens gain more power the impact of lobbyists will decrease, all other things equal. Examples such as Open for Questions at whitegouse.gov and Change.org illustrate some technology-based platforms for bringing in public opinion.
(b) The fifth benefit of transparency, namely reducing government corruption in general, should also reduce corrupt lobbying behavior. The rationale goes like this: increasing the reporting of lobbying activity brings more public attention. This means that citizens and journalists have the raw data they need to delve deeper, form their own opinions, and raise a stink if they find something objectionable. Resources such as the Influence & Lobbying section of OpenCongress.org were designed with this purpose in mind.
This is far from a systematic analysis, but my thinking so far offers some support that increasing transparency will decrease lobbying activity. There are probably other connections that deserve mentioning. I’d appreciate if you added your thoughts in the comments.
Going beyond the discussion above, it is clear that as long as we have private interests and organizations, there will be a need for advocacy and therefore lobbying. Of course, that lobbying needs to be done responsibly and kept in check.
I spoke with Jeffrey Levy and some other people after the panel. The big picture is that we have 535 elected officials that represent about 306 million people. Getting access to your representatives and sharing information with them in that sense is a big informational challenge. Lobbyists traditionally have served a key role in this dynamic.
