9 ms·

Google, once disdainful of lobbying, now a master of Washington influence

115 points by selmnoo 13y ago

fchollet 13y ago
As a non-american, can anybody explain to me how "lobbying", defined as "spending money to 'influence' public representatives in the favor of a private entity", differs from the old-school concept of "corruption"? I'm genuinely interested.
- wetafur 13y ago
  I guess it's a way to make corruption more transparent. Contributions are public.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    If by 'public' you mean 'public, but in a way that ensures the information is not particularly useful'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee Have fun following the paper trail when donation disclosure can be delayed, and you can accept donations to your committee from other committees, creating as long and obfuscated a donation trail as you like, and then take the pooled-together corruption money and use it for anything you want. I suppose it is still better than secret compensation under the table for favors, though. In some sense.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 13y ago
    Government is one way to ensure criminals (politicians) report (some of) their earnings.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  Corruption: You give money, etc., to the public representative to influence their action. Petition: You expend resources to advocate your views to a public representative. Lobbying: You expend resources to have a third party advocate your views to a public representative. Lobbying is a form of petition. It sometimes draws attention because corruption becomes a technique -- just as is the case sometimes with direct petition -- but it is as different from corruption as direct petition is.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    Well, many lobbyists advocate your views by giving money, goods or services to public representatives... but I suppose it is distinct in that you are not the one directly offering the bribes and 'favors'.
    - ChrisPebble 13y ago
      A lobbyist giving money, goods, or services directly to a representative for their personal use would still be corruption. The distinction usually is that you offering to spend money on their behalf for a campaign but if they directly benefit from money or a gift that sort of behavior is usually prosecuted.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
        > The distinction usually is that you offering to spend money on their behalf for a campaign Which is also usually corruption and a violation of campaign finance laws which prohibit coordination between unlimited "independent" expenditures and candidates or campaign committees controlled by them.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > Well, many lobbyists advocate your views by giving money, goods or services to public representatives... Sure, that's a tactic that happens in lobbying, just as its a tactic that happens in people directly advocating their own views. I am not saying that lobbying is free of corruption. But the reason the two often go together isn't that lobbying is fundamentally corruption, its that lobbying is an expensive form of petition, which makes its community of users overlap considerably with the set of people/groups with the resources to effectively engage in corruption independently of whether or not they were using an intermediary to do advocacy to public representatives.
      - curiouscats 13y ago
        It seems to me the truth of corruption versus petition is if the politician sells their vote for cash or actually listens to the merits and makes a decision. Now that is hard to judge from the outside, but that is the real difference. I suspect many people believe those in power now are mostly selling their vote for cash not making decisions based on the merit and just happening to side with those giving piles of cash because they heard those people give explanations of why favoring them was a good move for the country.
- mullingitover 13y ago
  Its a lot like the difference between torture and enhanced interrogation.
- at-fates-hands 13y ago
  The main difference is that lobbying is seen as a indirect influence, where people being influenced don't have a "direct" gain from the money they receive from lobbying groups like the NRA and others. For example, lobbying would be when the NRA gives tons of donations to the local republican candidate or party. The party can then use those funds to buy commercials and other advertising. Corruption can be seen when someone directly benefits from money changing hands. Corruption would be where the NRA actually writes a huge check to a congressman so they vote a certain way on a bill. There would be a direct benefit since the only person getting the money is the politician. It's a thin line for sure, but the difference is who benefits and is it directly or indirectly? Remember the old saying, "follow the money"? That's how you define it.
  - RogerL 13y ago
    That (giving donations) is not lobbying. Lobbying is hiring[0] a professional advocate who then argues for the merits of specific legislation to the representatives. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- espeed 13y ago
  Lobbyists help draft legislation, raise campaign funds, and produce propaganda. The "Lobbying Restriction" in the IRS 501(c)(3) tax code even describes lobbying as "carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation" (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/501.shtml http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/501.shtml). And if a politician isn't cooperating, lobbyists will often throw their weight behind the challenger in next election. Changing this system is Lawrence Lessig's prime objective... * We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim (http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...) * On Aaron Swartz and the unstoppable walk to political reform (http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_the_unstoppable_walk_to_political_reform http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_the_unstoppable_wal...)
- hga 13y ago
  It's worth asking, "who's corruption"? I highly recommend the book "Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets" ( http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343/ http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Po...), which along with many things I've observed for a long time (e.g. the path and timing of Microsoft's travails, not to mention many of the details of a trial so bad the appeals court removed the trial judge while ratifying too much of his work), makes a compelling case a lot of this is a protection racket. "Nice company you have here, would be a shame if anything happened to it...."
  - nitrogen 13y ago
    What I heard about the MS antitrust case was that the judge lost his temper because Microsoft was being petulant and uncooperative, giving Microsoft an excuse to have him replaced by someone who wouldn't break up the company.
- hollerith 13y ago
  Those who lobby the US government must "register" (declare to a US governmental agency they are lobbyists). This registration includes disclosing all of the entities being lobbied for. Most lobbying does not including campaign contributions. Where campaign contributions are made, they must be reported and there are strict rules against the contributions personally benefiting the person running for office or his friends and family.
  - crusso 13y ago
    The rules are fairly meaningless: http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/03/28/reid-scandal-deepens-campaign-cash-paid-granddaughter-hits-31000 http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/03/28/reid-scandal-deepens-ca... They are obviously not strict enough or they have no teeth. This kind of thing happens all the time. You read an article here or there about obvious corruption but then you very rarely see follow-through against the politicians. These ethics rules are written, revised, and enforced by the politicians themselves. What do we really expect? It's kind of like the debacle of insider trading being allowed by members of Congress. Outright criminality that would land many in the private sector in jail (Martha Stewart), but we put up with it from our elected representatives.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >Most lobbying does not including campaign contributions. Where campaign contributions are made, they must be reported and there are strict rules against the contributions personally benefiting the person running for office or his friends and family. Yes, because formally registered lobbyists have not also done under the table deals since time immemorial...
- naaaaak 13y ago
  Lobbying is a way to influence government, except only interests with lots of money can do it. The influence is so great, pretty much whoever has the most money has the most say. Sound like bribery? It is, but it was made legal. Don’t worry - if you don’t have money, you can influence government by voting! But who or what you vote on is dictated by a lobbyist. In other words, they set the table and you get to decide which side you sit on. Don’t like what you see? You can walk out in the rain with the other Americans who don’t bother voting. Great example: 2008 financial crisis. Ordinary citizens were opposed to giving the banks bailouts, like 99% to 1% in polls. The banks beat the will of the people because they are heavy contributors to both major parties. Don’t worry - most of the important politicians behind that move are still in power, because there are a lot of stupid voters in this country. Good thing we also take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to voting and force the will of the (proven stupid) masses on all individuals. And that’s why lobbying works and won’t ever change. You want representation in this country? You better have money.
- snowwrestler 13y ago
  Lobbying costs money because everything costs money. Let's say you don't want oil companies to drill in ANWR. You give some money to the Sierra Club, who uses it to pay their staff to fight bills that would allow drilling. Those salaries would be reported in part as lobbying expenditures. There is a constant confusion between campaign contributions and lobbying. They are distinct. Most campaign donations do not come from lobbyists, and most lobbyists do not contribute much money to campaigns. Lobbying does not involve any exchange of value. Even buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony.
  - sliverstorm 13y ago
    buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony Well, that puts a cramp in dating. No more, "I owe you one, let me buy you dinner"
  - Zigurd 13y ago
    > Lobbying does not involve any exchange of value. That's quite a whopper. Instead of buying your congressman dinner, how about hiring his son or nephew for a "job?" It took me about 2 minutes of searching to find a huge report on how congressmen pipeline campaign funds to relatives "working" as "campaign consultants." Holding a bake sale for the Sierra Club is just a time-waster to keep the peons busy while the real Washington is playing a whole different game, by different rules, with several orders of magnitude more money.
    - snowwrestler 13y ago
      If money always wins in Washington, why isn't there drilling in ANWR right now? I picked that example for a reason. Because everything costs money, it's possible for every side of every argument in Washington to level accusations of corruption. That does not mean that they are all right. And, money is hardly the only corrupting influence in human affairs. Religion, racism, sexism, xenophobia, environmentalism, empathy, and a whole host of other emotions and beliefs power the fights at the federal level. In fact the adjudication of these competing beliefs is the express purpose of our system of government.
- walshemj 13y ago
  Because in the English language raisng an issue with your reprasentitive is called lobying - it comes from the "Central Lobby" in the houses of parliment its where the general public can meet thier MP - The USA uses a lot of the same parlimentry language. Those pious white house pentions are lobbying
- declan 13y ago
  Your bio says you live in Texas and are the founder of the art website www.wysp.ws. Let's say a congresscritter introduces a bill in the U.S. Congress requiring art websites to verify the age of their users so Junior can't access DeviantART or somesuch. "WE MUST DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" intones Rep. Deanna DeGatte (D-Colo.) on the floor of the House of Representatives, and then the president says he thinks it's a good idea. If you hire your college buddy who now works in DC and regularly goes drinking with DeGatte's chief of staff, because this stupid law would put you out of business, is it lobbying or corruption? Or is corruption when mainstream art galleries, who are facing Internet corruption, hosted a fundraiser for DeGatte, and then she introduced her bill a day later? Hint: Consider the difference between offensive and defensive lobbying.
- glaugh 13y ago
  Lawrence Lessig argues (I think persuasively) that lobbying should be classified as a form of corruption. It's not as egregious as directly paying someone off, but in the end the influence of lobbying is pernicious and pervasive. Highly recommend his book about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost
- thefreeman 13y ago
  Do they not have lobbying in non-american countries (legitimate question)? It is basically the way that our government is run by corporations, rather then the people they govern. It is one of the main reasons I detest politics. I naively assumed it was present everywhere; but it's good news if it turns out that is not the case.
- igl 13y ago
  That probably depends on how much you skew your morals.
higherpurpose 13y ago
What upsets me most is that now they're using lobbying for stuff that are clearly against our interest, such as diluting privacy restrictions and fighting against restrictions on Internet surveillance, even though in their press releases they make it sounds like they would do the opposite, and would fight against Internet surveillance: http://www.vice.com/read/are-google-and-facebook-just-pretending-they-want-limits-on-nsa-surveillance http://www.vice.com/read/are-google-and-facebook-just-preten...
- rikk 13y ago
  Don't be gullible. You shouldn't take the antics of reporters seeking page views on face-value, this bill is unreasonable and idiotic: "The bill would place many of our members in an impossible, Catch-22 situation—be held in contempt of court or be disqualified from contracts with the State of Arizona or any political subdivision" They are supporting a well thought out bill instead: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/02/its-time-to-reform-government.html?m=1 http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/02/its-time-to-r... https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-strongly-supports-sensenbrenner-leahy-bill-reforming-nsa-surveillance https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-strongly-support...
- camus2 13y ago
  is public / general interest the sum of all private / personal interests? that's a fundamental question.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
rayiner 13y ago
There is a lot of misinformation about lobbying. My wife used to be a lobbyist, so let me dispel some myths: 1) Lobbyists costs a lot of money. The amount Facebook spent on WhatsApp is equivalent to fifty times the annual lobbying revenues of the top 10 DC lobbying firms combined. 2) Lobbying money goes to politicians pockets. American politicians are some of the most thoroughly scrutinized on the planet. Lobbying money doesn't go under the table to some politician. It usually doesn't even go to campaign contributions. The major source of campaign contributions is rich peolple making personal donations, not lobbyists. Lobbying money goes towards advocacy. For example, a lobbyist might commission a survey to show a politician that a particular position, advantageous to a client, is politically popular. They may also propose draft legislation, connect politicians with experts, etc. What Google is doing is a good example of the bread and butter of lobbying: simply helping politicians understand the prevailing point of view of an industry. 3) Lobbying is the same as corruption. The vast majority of lobbying is about helping politicians find votes. Its about showing how what's good for an industry is good for constituents. The message is overwhelmingly not "if you vote for this, there is money in it for you" but "voting for this will save 100 jobs in your district." Do lobbyists help corporations exercise substantial political power? Yes. But most of the american labor force works for large corporations. Their livelihoods and that of their kids depend on these corporations. Their healthcare and retirement depend on them. Corporations don't need to corrupt the political system to wield power.
- fchollet 13y ago
  > 1) Lobbyists costs a lot of money. The amount Facebook spent on WhatsApp is equivalent to fifty times the lobbying revenues of the top 10 DC lobbying firms combined. Then again, the amount FB spent on WhatsApp is twice the cost of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most expensive scientific facility every built. And roughly the same as the final cost of the experimental fusion reactor ITER, the holy grail of energy sources. Comparing things to the WhatsApp acquisition price does not tell you much.
  - notatoad 13y ago
    Comparing things to the whatsapp acquisition tells you a lot. If it can be compared to $19bn, it's a lot of money.
deleted 13y ago
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jejones3141 13y ago
If the government were confined to its proper function, companies would not have to attempt to influence it.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  If the government has any function, actors subject in any way to its authority, whether individuals in their personal capacity or collections of individuals acting for a common purpose like companies, will retain an interest in influencing how it performs those functions. Not to mention that if government is confined in its function by some external constraints, those same actors will have an interest in influencing whomever is imposing that constraint -- which, in a very real sense, is the most powerful part of the real government, even if goes by some other name -- to align the constraint with the actors' interests.
- crusso 13y ago
  Well, I'd revise that to say: If the government were confined to its Constitutional restraints, companies would have much less reason to even want to influence it. It's the very size and scope of the government and acceptance into all aspects of our lives that gives it power. That power is what lobbyists broker for companies.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    If we held the federal government to strict constitutional constraints, we'd just do all this at the state level.
    - crusso 13y ago
      Not at all. If, say, healthcare were not being taken over by the Federal government, it doesn't mean that all states would attempt to completely take over healthcare within their borders. They certainly weren't doing so before 2008. Bottlenecking all of that power in Washington DC just makes it a more attractive target. If lobbyists had to maintain control across 50 states, the bar would be raised. In many cases, states would decide on ethical restraints upon lobbyists that would allow us to experiment with ways to control the damage that they do.
redwood 13y ago
I've thoroughly enjoyed watching House of Cards. Sure it's not accurate, exactly. But what it does emphasize so well is the difference in pursuing money versus power. The latter can be bought by wooing lobbyists. Money itself is harder to gain and generally more associated with the developing world's modes of corruption. Are they so different? Not exactly. However one difference is power is less easily extractive than wealth. As an example: A wealthy corrupt official will likely pull money out of the system and into their own private offshore account. A politician using lobbying money to ascertain power in exchange for political direction is not banking money outside the system. Of course the lobby-backing commercial interests are, indirectly. But at least these companies are focused on more than sheer family-enrichment. Still, I wish we had a better system.
magicalist 13y ago
This thread so far has been pretty disappointing, reacting to the headline only, slashdot-style. The article is actually a pretty interesting look at what it takes to get people in Washington to start considering a different point of view, for good or ill. The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market (beholden to the users, not the businesses it finds for them), but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence (even if that influence is just "that position now seems reasonable to me"). My initial reaction is to find lobbying distasteful in the same way I find marketing distasteful. An idea or product should stand on its own merits. Of course, it never works out that way: you might want to be noble and not introduce a new bias into the public, but people already have a host of biases, and to get them to even consider something new, you often have to help them get there. The emails they got under a FOIA request are also interesting in that light[1]. The Post tries a bit to make them sound somewhat scandalous, and I know we're trained by the media to only be interested in smoking guns, but it's interesting in precisely how mundane and completely reasonable lobbying can be, while still being about shaping the entire dialog to be more favorable. That said, there are some really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA as > "And, in what Google saw as a direct threat to the open Internet, major lobbies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America were mounting a legislative campaign to place restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies." ugh. Kind of weird, too, as in the past the Washington Post has given good coverage of SOPA protests and why anyone would be protesting it... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-google-worked-behind-the-scenes-to-invite-federal-regulators-to-conferences/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-g...
- declan 13y ago
  > really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA Yep. I think any article that describes SOPA as merely "placin[ing] restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies" is begging to be criticized, especially here on HN. It makes you wonder what else it gets wrong! On the Post's SOPA point: First, it's been illegal to sell pirated works since the Copyright Act of 1790, as amended. Second, it's been a felony to distribute (as in, not selling but merely sharing) pirated works since the NET Act of 1998. Third, as far as I can tell, Google has no problem with those long-standing restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies. Fourth, that "restrictions" language mischaracterizes the many unrelated problems with SOPA. I can tell the Post put a lot of work into the article, and it was a good read, even though it buried the lede (Microsoft's PAC is larger), made factual errors (companies don't donate to PACs), missed a big reason Google was able to reach out to libertarian/conservative groups (it toned down its misguided lobbying for aggressive Net neutrality regs/laws), spent too much time on a conference barely distinguishable from dozens of others (organized by an academic center that had for years publicly disclosed it received funding from Google), and claimed that limiting government surveillance draws "unexpected bedfellows" (left-right pro-4A coalitions linking ACLU and conservatives date back at least 20 years). Disclaimer: I know most of the folks interviewed in this article and spent a decade in DC. Fortunately I'm now in the SF bay area and doing something rather more productive. :)
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115 points by selmnoo 13y ago

As a non-american, can anybody explain to me how "lobbying", defined as "spending money to 'influence' public representatives in the favor of a private entity", differs from the old-school concept of "corruption"? I'm genuinely interested.

wetafur 13y ago
I guess it's a way to make corruption more transparent. Contributions are public.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  If by 'public' you mean 'public, but in a way that ensures the information is not particularly useful'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_action_committee Have fun following the paper trail when donation disclosure can be delayed, and you can accept donations to your committee from other committees, creating as long and obfuscated a donation trail as you like, and then take the pooled-together corruption money and use it for anything you want. I suppose it is still better than secret compensation under the table for favors, though. In some sense.
- TheSpiceIsLife 13y ago
  Government is one way to ensure criminals (politicians) report (some of) their earnings.
dragonwriter 13y ago
Corruption: You give money, etc., to the public representative to influence their action. Petition: You expend resources to advocate your views to a public representative. Lobbying: You expend resources to have a third party advocate your views to a public representative. Lobbying is a form of petition. It sometimes draws attention because corruption becomes a technique -- just as is the case sometimes with direct petition -- but it is as different from corruption as direct petition is.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  Well, many lobbyists advocate your views by giving money, goods or services to public representatives... but I suppose it is distinct in that you are not the one directly offering the bribes and 'favors'.
  - ChrisPebble 13y ago
    A lobbyist giving money, goods, or services directly to a representative for their personal use would still be corruption. The distinction usually is that you offering to spend money on their behalf for a campaign but if they directly benefit from money or a gift that sort of behavior is usually prosecuted.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > The distinction usually is that you offering to spend money on their behalf for a campaign Which is also usually corruption and a violation of campaign finance laws which prohibit coordination between unlimited "independent" expenditures and candidates or campaign committees controlled by them.
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > Well, many lobbyists advocate your views by giving money, goods or services to public representatives... Sure, that's a tactic that happens in lobbying, just as its a tactic that happens in people directly advocating their own views. I am not saying that lobbying is free of corruption. But the reason the two often go together isn't that lobbying is fundamentally corruption, its that lobbying is an expensive form of petition, which makes its community of users overlap considerably with the set of people/groups with the resources to effectively engage in corruption independently of whether or not they were using an intermediary to do advocacy to public representatives.
    - curiouscats 13y ago
      It seems to me the truth of corruption versus petition is if the politician sells their vote for cash or actually listens to the merits and makes a decision. Now that is hard to judge from the outside, but that is the real difference. I suspect many people believe those in power now are mostly selling their vote for cash not making decisions based on the merit and just happening to side with those giving piles of cash because they heard those people give explanations of why favoring them was a good move for the country.
mullingitover 13y ago
Its a lot like the difference between torture and enhanced interrogation.
at-fates-hands 13y ago
The main difference is that lobbying is seen as a indirect influence, where people being influenced don't have a "direct" gain from the money they receive from lobbying groups like the NRA and others. For example, lobbying would be when the NRA gives tons of donations to the local republican candidate or party. The party can then use those funds to buy commercials and other advertising. Corruption can be seen when someone directly benefits from money changing hands. Corruption would be where the NRA actually writes a huge check to a congressman so they vote a certain way on a bill. There would be a direct benefit since the only person getting the money is the politician. It's a thin line for sure, but the difference is who benefits and is it directly or indirectly? Remember the old saying, "follow the money"? That's how you define it.
- RogerL 13y ago
  That (giving donations) is not lobbying. Lobbying is hiring[0] a professional advocate who then argues for the merits of specific legislation to the representatives. [0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobbying_in_the_United_States
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espeed 13y ago
Lobbyists help draft legislation, raise campaign funds, and produce propaganda. The "Lobbying Restriction" in the IRS 501(c)(3) tax code even describes lobbying as "carrying on propaganda or otherwise attempting to influence legislation" (http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/501.shtml http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/26/501.shtml). And if a politician isn't cooperating, lobbyists will often throw their weight behind the challenger in next election. Changing this system is Lawrence Lessig's prime objective... * We the People, and the Republic we must reclaim (http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_the_republic_we_must_reclaim http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_we_the_people_and_t...) * On Aaron Swartz and the unstoppable walk to political reform (http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_the_unstoppable_walk_to_political_reform http://www.ted.com/talks/lawrence_lessig_the_unstoppable_wal...)
hga 13y ago
It's worth asking, "who's corruption"? I highly recommend the book "Extortion: How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets" ( http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Pockets/dp/0544103343/ http://www.amazon.com/Extortion-Politicians-Extract-Money-Po...), which along with many things I've observed for a long time (e.g. the path and timing of Microsoft's travails, not to mention many of the details of a trial so bad the appeals court removed the trial judge while ratifying too much of his work), makes a compelling case a lot of this is a protection racket. "Nice company you have here, would be a shame if anything happened to it...."
- nitrogen 13y ago
  What I heard about the MS antitrust case was that the judge lost his temper because Microsoft was being petulant and uncooperative, giving Microsoft an excuse to have him replaced by someone who wouldn't break up the company.
hollerith 13y ago
Those who lobby the US government must "register" (declare to a US governmental agency they are lobbyists). This registration includes disclosing all of the entities being lobbied for. Most lobbying does not including campaign contributions. Where campaign contributions are made, they must be reported and there are strict rules against the contributions personally benefiting the person running for office or his friends and family.
- crusso 13y ago
  The rules are fairly meaningless: http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/03/28/reid-scandal-deepens-campaign-cash-paid-granddaughter-hits-31000 http://nation.foxnews.com/2014/03/28/reid-scandal-deepens-ca... They are obviously not strict enough or they have no teeth. This kind of thing happens all the time. You read an article here or there about obvious corruption but then you very rarely see follow-through against the politicians. These ethics rules are written, revised, and enforced by the politicians themselves. What do we really expect? It's kind of like the debacle of insider trading being allowed by members of Congress. Outright criminality that would land many in the private sector in jail (Martha Stewart), but we put up with it from our elected representatives.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >Most lobbying does not including campaign contributions. Where campaign contributions are made, they must be reported and there are strict rules against the contributions personally benefiting the person running for office or his friends and family. Yes, because formally registered lobbyists have not also done under the table deals since time immemorial...
naaaaak 13y ago
Lobbying is a way to influence government, except only interests with lots of money can do it. The influence is so great, pretty much whoever has the most money has the most say. Sound like bribery? It is, but it was made legal. Don’t worry - if you don’t have money, you can influence government by voting! But who or what you vote on is dictated by a lobbyist. In other words, they set the table and you get to decide which side you sit on. Don’t like what you see? You can walk out in the rain with the other Americans who don’t bother voting. Great example: 2008 financial crisis. Ordinary citizens were opposed to giving the banks bailouts, like 99% to 1% in polls. The banks beat the will of the people because they are heavy contributors to both major parties. Don’t worry - most of the important politicians behind that move are still in power, because there are a lot of stupid voters in this country. Good thing we also take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to voting and force the will of the (proven stupid) masses on all individuals. And that’s why lobbying works and won’t ever change. You want representation in this country? You better have money.
snowwrestler 13y ago
Lobbying costs money because everything costs money. Let's say you don't want oil companies to drill in ANWR. You give some money to the Sierra Club, who uses it to pay their staff to fight bills that would allow drilling. Those salaries would be reported in part as lobbying expenditures. There is a constant confusion between campaign contributions and lobbying. They are distinct. Most campaign donations do not come from lobbyists, and most lobbyists do not contribute much money to campaigns. Lobbying does not involve any exchange of value. Even buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony.
- sliverstorm 13y ago
  buying dinner for a member of Congress is a felony Well, that puts a cramp in dating. No more, "I owe you one, let me buy you dinner"
- Zigurd 13y ago
  > Lobbying does not involve any exchange of value. That's quite a whopper. Instead of buying your congressman dinner, how about hiring his son or nephew for a "job?" It took me about 2 minutes of searching to find a huge report on how congressmen pipeline campaign funds to relatives "working" as "campaign consultants." Holding a bake sale for the Sierra Club is just a time-waster to keep the peons busy while the real Washington is playing a whole different game, by different rules, with several orders of magnitude more money.
  - snowwrestler 13y ago
    If money always wins in Washington, why isn't there drilling in ANWR right now? I picked that example for a reason. Because everything costs money, it's possible for every side of every argument in Washington to level accusations of corruption. That does not mean that they are all right. And, money is hardly the only corrupting influence in human affairs. Religion, racism, sexism, xenophobia, environmentalism, empathy, and a whole host of other emotions and beliefs power the fights at the federal level. In fact the adjudication of these competing beliefs is the express purpose of our system of government.
walshemj 13y ago
Because in the English language raisng an issue with your reprasentitive is called lobying - it comes from the "Central Lobby" in the houses of parliment its where the general public can meet thier MP - The USA uses a lot of the same parlimentry language. Those pious white house pentions are lobbying
declan 13y ago
Your bio says you live in Texas and are the founder of the art website www.wysp.ws. Let's say a congresscritter introduces a bill in the U.S. Congress requiring art websites to verify the age of their users so Junior can't access DeviantART or somesuch. "WE MUST DO IT FOR THE CHILDREN! THINK OF THE CHILDREN!" intones Rep. Deanna DeGatte (D-Colo.) on the floor of the House of Representatives, and then the president says he thinks it's a good idea. If you hire your college buddy who now works in DC and regularly goes drinking with DeGatte's chief of staff, because this stupid law would put you out of business, is it lobbying or corruption? Or is corruption when mainstream art galleries, who are facing Internet corruption, hosted a fundraiser for DeGatte, and then she introduced her bill a day later? Hint: Consider the difference between offensive and defensive lobbying.
glaugh 13y ago
Lawrence Lessig argues (I think persuasively) that lobbying should be classified as a form of corruption. It's not as egregious as directly paying someone off, but in the end the influence of lobbying is pernicious and pervasive. Highly recommend his book about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic,_Lost
thefreeman 13y ago
Do they not have lobbying in non-american countries (legitimate question)? It is basically the way that our government is run by corporations, rather then the people they govern. It is one of the main reasons I detest politics. I naively assumed it was present everywhere; but it's good news if it turns out that is not the case.
igl 13y ago
That probably depends on how much you skew your morals.

higherpurpose 13y ago

What upsets me most is that now they're using lobbying for stuff that are clearly against our interest, such as diluting privacy restrictions and fighting against restrictions on Internet surveillance, even though in their press releases they make it sounds like they would do the opposite, and would fight against Internet surveillance: http://www.vice.com/read/are-google-and-facebook-just-pretending-they-want-limits-on-nsa-surveillance http://www.vice.com/read/are-google-and-facebook-just-preten...

rikk 13y ago
Don't be gullible. You shouldn't take the antics of reporters seeking page views on face-value, this bill is unreasonable and idiotic: "The bill would place many of our members in an impossible, Catch-22 situation—be held in contempt of court or be disqualified from contracts with the State of Arizona or any political subdivision" They are supporting a well thought out bill instead: http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/02/its-time-to-reform-government.html?m=1 http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2014/02/its-time-to-r... https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-strongly-supports-sensenbrenner-leahy-bill-reforming-nsa-surveillance https://www.aclu.org/national-security/aclu-strongly-support...
camus2 13y ago
is public / general interest the sum of all private / personal interests? that's a fundamental question.
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rayiner 13y ago

There is a lot of misinformation about lobbying. My wife used to be a lobbyist, so let me dispel some myths: 1) Lobbyists costs a lot of money. The amount Facebook spent on WhatsApp is equivalent to fifty times the annual lobbying revenues of the top 10 DC lobbying firms combined. 2) Lobbying money goes to politicians pockets. American politicians are some of the most thoroughly scrutinized on the planet. Lobbying money doesn't go under the table to some politician. It usually doesn't even go to campaign contributions. The major source of campaign contributions is rich peolple making personal donations, not lobbyists. Lobbying money goes towards advocacy. For example, a lobbyist might commission a survey to show a politician that a particular position, advantageous to a client, is politically popular. They may also propose draft legislation, connect politicians with experts, etc. What Google is doing is a good example of the bread and butter of lobbying: simply helping politicians understand the prevailing point of view of an industry. 3) Lobbying is the same as corruption. The vast majority of lobbying is about helping politicians find votes. Its about showing how what's good for an industry is good for constituents. The message is overwhelmingly not "if you vote for this, there is money in it for you" but "voting for this will save 100 jobs in your district." Do lobbyists help corporations exercise substantial political power? Yes. But most of the american labor force works for large corporations. Their livelihoods and that of their kids depend on these corporations. Their healthcare and retirement depend on them. Corporations don't need to corrupt the political system to wield power.

fchollet 13y ago
> 1) Lobbyists costs a lot of money. The amount Facebook spent on WhatsApp is equivalent to fifty times the lobbying revenues of the top 10 DC lobbying firms combined. Then again, the amount FB spent on WhatsApp is twice the cost of the Large Hadron Collider, the largest and most expensive scientific facility every built. And roughly the same as the final cost of the experimental fusion reactor ITER, the holy grail of energy sources. Comparing things to the WhatsApp acquisition price does not tell you much.
- notatoad 13y ago
  Comparing things to the whatsapp acquisition tells you a lot. If it can be compared to $19bn, it's a lot of money.

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jejones3141 13y ago

If the government were confined to its proper function, companies would not have to attempt to influence it.

dragonwriter 13y ago
If the government has any function, actors subject in any way to its authority, whether individuals in their personal capacity or collections of individuals acting for a common purpose like companies, will retain an interest in influencing how it performs those functions. Not to mention that if government is confined in its function by some external constraints, those same actors will have an interest in influencing whomever is imposing that constraint -- which, in a very real sense, is the most powerful part of the real government, even if goes by some other name -- to align the constraint with the actors' interests.
crusso 13y ago
Well, I'd revise that to say: If the government were confined to its Constitutional restraints, companies would have much less reason to even want to influence it. It's the very size and scope of the government and acceptance into all aspects of our lives that gives it power. That power is what lobbyists broker for companies.
- rayiner 13y ago
  If we held the federal government to strict constitutional constraints, we'd just do all this at the state level.
  - crusso 13y ago
    Not at all. If, say, healthcare were not being taken over by the Federal government, it doesn't mean that all states would attempt to completely take over healthcare within their borders. They certainly weren't doing so before 2008. Bottlenecking all of that power in Washington DC just makes it a more attractive target. If lobbyists had to maintain control across 50 states, the bar would be raised. In many cases, states would decide on ethical restraints upon lobbyists that would allow us to experiment with ways to control the damage that they do.

redwood 13y ago

I've thoroughly enjoyed watching House of Cards. Sure it's not accurate, exactly. But what it does emphasize so well is the difference in pursuing money versus power. The latter can be bought by wooing lobbyists. Money itself is harder to gain and generally more associated with the developing world's modes of corruption. Are they so different? Not exactly. However one difference is power is less easily extractive than wealth. As an example: A wealthy corrupt official will likely pull money out of the system and into their own private offshore account. A politician using lobbying money to ascertain power in exchange for political direction is not banking money outside the system. Of course the lobby-backing commercial interests are, indirectly. But at least these companies are focused on more than sheer family-enrichment. Still, I wish we had a better system.

magicalist 13y ago

This thread so far has been pretty disappointing, reacting to the headline only, slashdot-style. The article is actually a pretty interesting look at what it takes to get people in Washington to start considering a different point of view, for good or ill. The interesting part of that is that it's completely reasonable that you have to get people thinking about things like how a search engine should function in a free market (beholden to the users, not the businesses it finds for them), but when it comes down to it, doing that is also fundamentally paying money to buy influence (even if that influence is just "that position now seems reasonable to me"). My initial reaction is to find lobbying distasteful in the same way I find marketing distasteful. An idea or product should stand on its own merits. Of course, it never works out that way: you might want to be noble and not introduce a new bias into the public, but people already have a host of biases, and to get them to even consider something new, you often have to help them get there. The emails they got under a FOIA request are also interesting in that light[1]. The Post tries a bit to make them sound somewhat scandalous, and I know we're trained by the media to only be interested in smoking guns, but it's interesting in precisely how mundane and completely reasonable lobbying can be, while still being about shaping the entire dialog to be more favorable. That said, there are some really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA as > "And, in what Google saw as a direct threat to the open Internet, major lobbies such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Motion Picture Association of America were mounting a legislative campaign to place restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies." ugh. Kind of weird, too, as in the past the Washington Post has given good coverage of SOPA protests and why anyone would be protesting it... [1] http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-google-worked-behind-the-scenes-to-invite-federal-regulators-to-conferences/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/2014/04/12/how-g...

declan 13y ago
> really bad parts here too, like describing SOPA Yep. I think any article that describes SOPA as merely "placin[ing] restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies" is begging to be criticized, especially here on HN. It makes you wonder what else it gets wrong! On the Post's SOPA point: First, it's been illegal to sell pirated works since the Copyright Act of 1790, as amended. Second, it's been a felony to distribute (as in, not selling but merely sharing) pirated works since the NET Act of 1998. Third, as far as I can tell, Google has no problem with those long-standing restrictions on the sale of pirated music and movies. Fourth, that "restrictions" language mischaracterizes the many unrelated problems with SOPA. I can tell the Post put a lot of work into the article, and it was a good read, even though it buried the lede (Microsoft's PAC is larger), made factual errors (companies don't donate to PACs), missed a big reason Google was able to reach out to libertarian/conservative groups (it toned down its misguided lobbying for aggressive Net neutrality regs/laws), spent too much time on a conference barely distinguishable from dozens of others (organized by an academic center that had for years publicly disclosed it received funding from Google), and claimed that limiting government surveillance draws "unexpected bedfellows" (left-right pro-4A coalitions linking ACLU and conservatives date back at least 20 years). Disclaimer: I know most of the folks interviewed in this article and spent a decade in DC. Fortunately I'm now in the SF bay area and doing something rather more productive. :)

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