Obameter #240: Seperation of Lobbyist and State

It started out looking good. Presidential Candidate Obama called for ethics reform and a two-year waiting period between employment for special interest groups and employment for the state. Special interests had corrupted government policy for decades, and he was trying to fight it. No one from any political background could help but admire it. As soon as he was elected he issued an executive order demanding that federal appointees not deal in any issue for which they had lobbied within the past two years. It was an open-and-shut case: Obama had made good on his promise.

But the case wasn't closed. The executive order included a waiver clause, wherein government officials could waive certain of the order's rules based only on the claim that it is against the public interest or against the spirit of the executive order. There's no appeal process, so the mere claim that a waiver is justified is also the final word that the executive order does not apply to that appointee. The rules only apply if and when the Obama Administration says they do. PolitiFact reclassified the promise as a compromise. After all, the executive order was still a step forward.

Then more information came out. Often former lobbyists do work for the Obama Administration but are "recused" (ie prevented) from discussing the topics they used to lobby for. Thus, the judgment of whether the executive order applies or not does not even necessarily require the formality of a waiver. The people present can decide at the time whether a lobbyist is acting ethically or not, and their decision is above appeal. A rule that can be excepted on demand is not a rule at all. This evidence was enough to turn one of the most attractive of Obama's campaign promises into a substantial mark against him: promise broken.

Here is an incomplete list of former lobbyists working for the Obama Administration. According to the Obama Administration, only three waivers have been issued. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, these former lobbyists do not have waivers. They are sorted roughly by the likelihood of conflicts of interest, with the most obvious temptations for corruption listed first.

• William Lynn used to work for defense lobbyist Raytheon, and now works as the top operations manager over the Pentagon -- a job which entails contracting out to private defense contractors such as Raytheon. He received a formal waiver.
• Jocelyn Frye lobbied for National Partnership for Women and Families until 2008 and is now director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady. In 2008 she lobbied for the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (which deals with gender equality in regards to executive pay), the first law Obama signed into law after becoming president. She also works for President Obama’s domestic policy team and is an old college buddy of Michelle Obama. Jocelyn received an official waiver.
• Cecilia Muñoz, former lobbyist for National Council of La Raza (a Hispanic civil rights' organization), is now the administration's principal liaison to the Hispanic community and the director of intergovernmental affairs in the Executive Office of the President, managing the White House’s relationships with state and local governments. She attained a formal waiver.
• Mark Patterson, the chief of staff to Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, was a lobbyist for financial giant Goldman Sachs in 2008.
• William Corr, anti-tobacco lobbyist until last year, was nominated to be deputy health and human services secretary.
• Melody Barnes lobbied in 2003 and 2004 for liberal advocacy groups and is now domestic policy council director.
• David Hayes, lobbyist for clients including San Diego Gas & Electric until 2006, was nominated as deputy interior secretary.
• Ron Kirk, Austin Texas lobbyist for Merrill Lynch until 2008, is Obama's nominee for U.S. Trade Representative. Obama's executive order only applies to federal lobbyists, which he is not.
• Eric Holder, lobbyist until 2004 for his client, the now-bankrupt telecom company Global Crossing, was a nominee for attorney general.
• Patrick Gaspard was a lobbyist for the Service Employees International Union. Now he is the White House political affairs director.
• Mona Sutphen was registered to lobby for various clients including London-based conglomerate Angliss International in 2003, and is now deputy White House chief of staff.
• Tom Vilsack, National Education Association lobbyist until 2008, was nominated for secretary of agriculture.
• Dan Turton was a lobbyist at Timmons & Company in 2006. He was briefly on the House Rules Committee before becoming a White House’s legislative affairs aide.
• Sean Kennedy lobbied for AT&T in 2006 and is now a White House legislative liaison.
• Ron Klain lobbyist until 2005 for such clients as Coalition for Asbestos Resolution, U.S. Airways, Airborne Express and drug-maker ImClone, is currently Joe Biden's chief of staff.
• Richard Verma, a lobbyist for Steptoe & Johnson, is rumored to be in line for the post of assistant secretary for legislative affairs at the State Department
• Mark Gitenstein, former lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who left the massive international law firm Mayer Brown last summer, is said to be Obama's choice to head the Justice Department's Office of Policy Development. He is also a long-time senior aide to Vice President Joe Biden.
• Emmett Beliveau, former lobbyist for the mega-firm Patton Boggs, is the White House’s director of advance and was the executive director for the presidential Inaugural committee.
• Tom Donilon, lobbyist for Fannie Mae until 2005, is a senior aid to Joe Biden.
• David Medina was a lobbyist for the AFL-CIO and worked for the U.S. Global Leadership Campaign in 2008 and is now the first lady’s deputy chief of staff.
• Michael Strautmanis lobbied for the American Association for Justice (a plaintiffs' lawyers' lobby) until 2005 and is now chief of staff to the president’s assistant for intergovernmental relations.

Though most of the above jobs for lobbyists do not obviously result in conflicts of interest, some obviously do. It is crystal clear that the real state of things does not match Presidential Candidate Obama's campaign promise nor President Obama's executive order.

But there is a more important question here: should Obama have ever made this promise at all?

The objective of all these appointments and this hiring is to get the most qualified people possible into positions that make the best use of their qualifications. The side effect of that is that the most qualified people often come with personal or professional biases which are detrimental to good government. Obama's promise, in essence, is choosing to abandon a certain amount of ability in order to minimize these biases; that is, to throw out all the bathwater and as few babies as possible. The obvious fallacy of throwing away parts of what you need is expressing itself in the Obama Administration's need to appoint some qualified lobbyists in order to keep the qualifications up generally.

Government needs able people, and the more able the better. The distortions of bias are contrary to good government, but so is tying an appointee's hands. Ignoring conflicts of interest is bad, but banning thousands of able people is bad, too. There's a third, better way. Rather than banning the bias, counter the bias. Rather than banning William Lynn from the Defense Department, team him with, say, a former lobbyist from another defense contractor and an Eisenhowerian critic of the military-industrial complex, all experts in the field and under orders to proceed officially only when largely in agreement. Thus, their biases defy each other, leaving only the quality of their arguments and their professional expertise to break the tie.

I'd love to say this was my original idea, but it's not. It is based on the ideas of James Madison from Federalist Paper #10, wherein he argues that the dispute of a great many factions results in policy congruent with the liberty and best interest of the whole; that is, that a great mass of respectful disagreement is more effective at producing good policy than is one or two overwhelming views. To summarize the summary, diversity is good.

It is abundantly clear, both by his promise and by the exceptions to it, that Obama is not pursuing plurality in this sense. Worse than breaking his promise is his failure to pursue at all the means with greater potential than those he promised.

Obama was right to try to prevent conflict of interest from driving Washington. In every other respect pertaining to this issue, his plan, his execution, his philosophy, he was wrong.