The Case for Lobbies

I have served as a Senator of the United states since January 1959. Previously, I was elected four times to the U.S.House of Representatives; and before that, I served terms in the General Assembly of Ohio and in appointive office in the state government. I have encountered thousands of lobbyists and have known scores of them well. Most of them I respect and trust. Some I would throw out of my office on sight.

More than 50 years in public life have taught me that lobbying can be good or bad, constructive or corrosive. It's all in the eyes of the beholder and in the hands of the practitioner. Periodically, stories explode in the press charging sundry trickery and irregularities jointly to lobbyists and public officials--as in the Bobby Baker business, or in the more recent allegations concerning Senator Thomas Dodd's close relations with a lobbyist for foreign firms. Public and Congressional uproars follow. All of (continued on page 178) The Case for Lobbies (continued from page 165) the abuses of lobbying--real and potential and, in some cases, imagined--are aired. Sweeping changes in the laws regulating lobbying and the registration of lobbyists are demanded and shotgun blasts are fired at the moral caliber of politicians and public officials.

I'll get to the lobbying laws in a minute. Obviously, they should be strengthened and tightened. But I'll say right now that I am fed up with thundering editorial writers who relish every occasional proof or charge of corruption in lobbyist/officeholder relationships as a golden opportunity to tarbrush all public servants as too feeble-minded or too loose morally to resist the blandishments of shrewd operators and conniving seekers of privilege. Let me straighten that out quickly. Most of us are honest people trying to serve the public as best we can. We are not sitting ducks for lobbyists on the hunt. Nor do most lobbyists think we are. Most of them are honest, too, as are most editorial writers.

Lobbying essentially is grinding an ax. It is pushing your own or someone else's cause. More frequently, lobbyists represent corporations, unions or associations. This is promotional work, public relations and advertising--bundled together to put pressure on public officials. But, let's face it: It's also the exercise of the right to petition--a right guaranteed all Americans in the First Amendment to the Constitution of our country. If inconvenience sometimes accompanies that right, I am willing to abide it.

The way some practice it, lobbying is hocus-pocus: a fat expense account and a big front; flattery and favors to score points for your client or cause. However, with most lobbyists working on Capitol Hill and concerned with legislative matters, it is a job done responsibly and with conviction. One person, or an association representing millions of persons, can constitute a lobby.

We inherited the practice of lobbying from the British. It started a good three centuries ago, when Englishmen seeking special privileges from Members of Parliament customarily gathered in the outer lobbies of the House of Commons to buttonhole various M.P.s.

As in so many things, it remained for Americans to perfect and expand the practice into an institution. It has been said, with only slight exaggeration, that there are more lobbyists in Washington than lobsters in New England, and if lobbyists were suddenly evacuated from the nation's capital, there would be very few guests--and even fewer hosts--at cocktail parties.

The "lobbying problem," as some Members of Congress insist on calling it, is as old as our Government; indeed, older. Lobbyists fluttered around at the first sign the 13 colonies gave of seeking independence from the mother country. In those Colonial days, New England merchants opposed to separation from Great Britain wined and dined delegates en route to the First Continental Congress, hopeful that some good mutton and huge quantities of spirits would exorcise that radical spirit of independence.

The spiritual descendants of these early merchants--now banded together in the National Association of Manufacturers and United States Chamber of Commerce--still cry out against radicalism. They testify before Congressional committees and lobby among Representatives and Senators against Medicare, Federal aid to education, the war on poverty, the Great Society--against all sorts of liberal legislation and other proposals that offend their sense of good Americanism. Though this is their right, their lyrics are boring. They have been singing the same song too long.

Our patriot fathers in the Continental Congress and in succeeding Congresses also had their encounters with lobbyists. The first business lobby was Alexander Hamilton's Philadelphia Society for the Promotion of National Industry. This group was interested in tariff legislation. Long before the Civil War started, petitioning the Government was on its way to becoming the gigantic activity that it is today. Daniel Webster and other Senators of an earlier era wrote supporting letters for lobbyists that no Senator of modern days would write. At least I hope not.

Lobbying had become so entrenched in Washington and in state legislatures--and lobbyists so abundant--by the middle of the 19th Century that concerned legislators of that early date were already looking for an out. When Samuel Colt wanted to renew the patent on his revolver in 1855, he set up headquarters in various hotels. Food and wine were made available in prodigal quantities. He paid a "contingent fee" of $10,000 to a Congressman to refrain from attacking the bill that would extend his patent. Elaborately decorated revolvers were distributed to legislators. And, for those gentlemen who were not interested in guns, he kept a supply of "three charming ladies"--known as "spiritualists"--available to ply their craft for the enlightenment of Congressmen. There were also some nonspiritual types for Congressmen who knew how to vote correctly. The tradition established by Colt flourished so successfully that the lobbying scandals of the late 19th Century could fill quite a number of volumes.

From that period emerged the most simple and effective solution to the lobbying problem ever proposed. The influential Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri, truly a great U.S. Senator, was feeling the heat from lobbyists seeking a profitable shipbuilding subsidy. To their surprise, Senator Benton quickly agreed to help. But he pressed one condition: "When the vessels are finished, they will be used to take all such damned rascals as you out of the country."

If this was a practical idea then, it is obsolete today. There aren't enough ships. Besides, lobbying is a big business and it is here to stay. More than 5000 ex-Congressmen, lawyers, former Government officials, business representatives, union officials and public-relations men are now lobbying in Washington. There are more than 300 registered lobby groups. Nearly $5,000,000 a year is acknowledged as being paid out in direct lobbying expenses. And this is only a fraction of the total spent to influence support for various legislative proposals.

Additional thousands of individuals and millions of dollars are wrapped up in indirect lobbying--the "new lobbying"--consisting mostly of nationwide public campaigns to arouse concern over specific issues and let loose a flood of mail, telegrams and phone calls to Congressmen and Senators.

Pressure mail from citizens stirred up by the professional propagandists of the "new lobby" is, of course, easy to spot. Some time ago, I received thousands of letters from various cities in Ohio, each envelope being addressed "Hon. Stephen A. Young." The lobbyist directing the campaign was careless about my middle initial, which happens to be M. Also, inclusion of the specific legislative number of the bill in question indicates that the letter was probably written at the urging of a Washington lobbyist. (Frankly, most Senators do not know--nor do we try to know--the numbers assigned to various House or Senate bills.) Similarly, a flood of letters or postcards urging a specific position on an issue, all written in the same style and phraseology, reveals an organized pressure campaign.

Of course, 20,000 letters obviously written in response to pressure from chamber-of-commerce officials, union officials or other organizations are less effective than a few hundred letters written personally, expressing the view and belief of the writer himself. I know that my Senatorial colleagues, like myself, pay great attention to individual letters and telegrams that appear to truly represent the views of the writers. Sometimes detailed personal arguments and observations can be very convincing.

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In the public mind, lobbying has a sinister association. It evokes pictures of slick promoters hovering around Congressional and Federal agency offices, the green corners of large-denomination bills poking invitingly out of their pockets to lure weak or dishonest public officials. It's a great picture and a dramatic one, occasionally buttressed by (continued on page 266) The case for Lobbies (continued from page 178) some sensational revelation. But, basically, it's wrong. Most lobbyists are scrupulous persons who confront a Congressman openly with a point of view--and often with important information on legislative matters. There is nothing sinister about them. Most lobbyists wouldn't dare offer a bribe for a vote. The majority probably never even think of doing so. Most couldn't pull it off if they tried. Any lobbyist stupid enough to attempt a bribe would find few, if any, takers. A couple of gas-industry blockheads tried it about ten years ago on the late Senator Francis Case, a conservative, thoroughly honest South Dakota Republican. They proposed $2500 ostensibly as a campaign contribution to sew up the wrong man. Senator Case exposed them publicly. The facts are, without a doubt, that probably every U. S. Senator would have rejected such an offer instantly. The result in the gas case was that President Eisenhower was forced by the pressure of public opinion to veto the legislation the gas lobby had so heavy-handedly espoused.

Incidents like this are rare. On the whole, lobbying is a respectable practice. In fact, it is often a useful one. Senators and Representatives cannot hope to know everything about all the major legislation they have to consider, unless the proposal goes through one of the two or three committees of which the legislator is a member. Scores of major bills and thousands of lesser ones are introduced each year. We are not Renaissance men. We often rely on information and recommendations of other committees--and frequently on data from lobbyists. As a Senator, I always appreciate useful, reliable information from experts, and some lobbyists are experts in their fields. They are usually devoted entirely to one issue or cause, and facts on their subject spew from them as from a computer.

Often, the contribution of lobbyists to the successful passage of important legislation is considerable. It was, after all, civil rights lobbies that developed much of the hard, factual material that helped build support for civil rights legislation. Education lobbies helped pass breakthrough programs in school aid at all levels. Advocacy by lobbies for the elderly, the trade-union movement and other liberal groups made Medicare possible--after a 20-year struggle.

Ironically, it was a lobby's bungling--not the genius of Congress--that, more than anything, made Medicare a stronger, better measure than it otherwise would have been. That the lobby in question was one of the slickest, best-financed in the nation--the American Medical Association--only heightens the irony. The A. M. A. spent millions of dollars (it has been the "spendingest" lobby in Washington in recent years) to convince Americans that Medicare would lead them down the dreaded road to socialized medicine. This scare campaign finally lost its bite, and the A. M. A. took a new approach. In late 1964 and early 1965, it unleashed a radio-TV-newspaper-magazine blitz, covering Capitol Hill like a fog, to convince legislators and the public that the Medicare bill advocated by the Johnson Administration should be defeated because it did not cover doctors' bills.

The A. M. A. was right. It made its case so well that Congress, instead of killing the bill, as the A. M. A. wished, added to the measure an optional provision covering doctors' bills. As a supporter of Medicare for more than 20 years, I found myself silently thanking the A. M. A. for its unwitting assistance. In my opinion, over the years the A. M. A.'s House of Delegates, the lobby's ruling clique, has misrepresented most of those who comprise its membership.

Not only do the Goliaths of lobbying trip occasionally over the intricate wires of their own strategy but now and then they are felled by a determined David with a sling of justice. The powerful American Meat Institute threw all the techniques of modern lobbying into its campaign against a humane-slaughter bill in 1958--advertising, professional lobbyists, public-relations campaigns, even a suite of lavish entertainment rooms at a leading Washington hotel. Among legislators, this sort of social lobbying is called the "indigestion circuit." Its premise is that the way to a Congressman's vote is through his stomach. The lamb intended for the slaughter was the Humane Society of the United States, chief backer of the bill. With modest funds and no paid lobbyists, the Humane Society and its army of amateurs--Americans whose common cause was simple, humane concern--loosed an unprecedented flood of mail on Congress and stormed Capitol Hill with ardent, dedicated members. They reached both the public and the Congressional conscience with articles and photos of the needlessly cruel treatment of animals in slaughterhouses and packing plants; struggling, screaming hogs pulled by moving cables through the shackling pen, then aloft to the killing floor; dumb cattle stunned by the brutal polcax before the death blow. They urged, as a simple alternative, electrical stunning methods and anesthetization. Congress was impressed by their sincerity and their good sense. The House passed the Humane Slaughter Bill by an overwhelming voice vote, and the Senate quickly registered its approval, 72-9. David had flattened Goliath.

In Washington, there's a lobby for just about everything--the doctors, the businessmen, the unions, the farmers. The American Legion, when it relaxes from asserting its 150-percent red-blooded Americanism, does a responsible job for veterans. There are lobbies, too, for hundreds of smaller special-interest groups.

With so much activity and pressure directed at public officials, you might say, "there ought to be a law." As a matter of fact, there is. There has been a long history of attempts to regulate lobbies through investigation and legislation. In 1913, a committee of the House of Representatives investigated the National Association of Manufactures. It turned up evidence that the NAM carried several Congressmen, and the chief page of the House on its payroll--and influenced appointments to strategic committee posts. One Congressman, clearly culpable, resigned as a result. In 1928, a general lobbying probe led to the introduction of the Lobbyist Control Bill, a meritorious legislative proposal passed in the Senate but smothered in the House. Since then, there have been investigations of the utility lobbies, of the distribution of some publications of lunatic right-wing organizations, of the influence on military procurement of retired Army officers lobbying for defense contractors, and of the pressure brought by foreign lobbyists in connection with domestic legislation, to mention a few. There was one probe by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that led to the introduction of a bill by the chairman, Senator William Fulbright, to tighten registration requirements under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. But the Fulbright bill, like so many others, passed one house only to die in the other.

Responsible lobbying groups themselves have instituted procedures of self-regulation and have set high standards of conduct for their representatives. On the other hand, some groups, through their lobbyists, have committed unscrupulous distortion of facts and information for shortsighted, selfish ends. Such, I believe, was the behavior of the automobile industry in attempting to suppress information on the lack of safety features in American automobiles--and in trying to prevent passage of legislation to compel manufacturers to make their automobiles and tires less dangerous. Such, also, has been the behavior of the cigarette industry--in attempting to distort findings of objective research in the relationship between smoking and such diseases as cancer and heart trouble.

The most important single piece of legislation dealing with the matter was the Federal Regulation of Lobbying Act of 1946, which required anyone engaged in lobbying to report his expenditures and activities. However, no limit was set on the amount spent or the techniques used. The secretary of the Senate and the clerk of the House of Representatives receive and publish these reports, but they lack the staff to check them out or to assure maximum compliance. It seems to me that a much more effective way of handling this problem might be to turn the entire job over to the General Accounting Office, an agency directly responsible to the Congress, which has the necessary staff and facilities to assure compliance with the law.

Complicating the picture was a United States Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that held that a lobbyist is someone who collects or receives money for the principal purpose of influencing legislators by direct contacts--leaving uncovered and unregulated the mammoth and sometimes very effective nationwide campaigns of the "new lobby," relying mostly on the media and the mails to press a cause.

The real, general abuses in political pressure today--except for occasional cases of personal corruption--stem from these spare-no-expense, no-holds-barred publicity and public-relations campaigns that excite voters to turn the heat on legislators. Abuses of distortion, exaggeration and oversimplification are inherent in such campaigns. But little can be done about them, for to prohibit or to control them rigidly would abridge the constitutionally guaranteed rights of Americans to advocate what they believe is their interest and to oppose what they believe is not. This is a right to be protected zealously. It is precious enough to be preserved intact, despite the occasional abuses it might engender.

For decades, legislators and editorial writers have bemoaned the existence of pressure groups--an exercise in futility, for they are as inevitable as daybreak. Whether we like it or not, lobbying is here to stay. Indeed, lobbies and pressure groups are now an integral part of our political process, and I'll leave it to others to inveigh against them. In a democracy, where each citizen's view is of equal importance, like-minded individuals are bound to organize to increase the volume of their voice.

At present, the individual Senator or Representative is far from powerless when he feels pressure groups threatening legitimate necessary legislation. As a United States Senator, I have access to one of the best forums in the nation--the floor of the Senate. Without abusing the right, I can rise to my feet any time during a Senate session and bring pressure of my own on a pressure group. I can wonder if a pressure group truly represents, in its propaganda statements, the sentiments of its membership. (I am convinced some of them do not.)

Large and rich lobbies are as entitled to express their views as are small and poor ones. Though we may regret the discrepancy, we cannot muffle one without gagging the other. I have enough faith in my colleagues and in other elected officials to assume they are more impressed by the rightness of an argument than by the size, wealth and membership of its protagonists.

There is no discount on democracy. While we must police and punish corruption, we cannot and should not police free expression of ideas--or the right to petition our Government. Occasional cynical misuse of these rights is part of democracy's price. It is a very small price, however; and I, for one, will run the risk of paying it.