The principal value of lobbying, according to both lobbyists and government officials, is the expert information lobbyists provide. The view is often stated that, with the resources they have, government officials could not effectively do their job without the expertise they obtain from lobbyists.

The public, however, has no idea how this information is used. When it turns out that a lobbyist effectively wrote a bill, argument, letter, or speech that an official presents as his own work, no matter how useful this service may be, it appears that the official is representing the lobbyist's client rather than the public.

An article in today's New York Times [1] quotes former Oregon attorney general David B. Frohnmayer on the topic, specifically with respect to a letter written by a energy industry lobbyist for a state attorney general to send to the federal Environmental Protection Agency:

“When you use a public office, pretty shamelessly, to vouch for a private party with substantial financial interest without the disclosure of the true authorship, that is a dangerous practice. The puppeteer behind the stage is pulling strings, and [the public] can’t see. I don’t like that. And when it is exposed, it makes [the public] feel used.”

This sort of puppeteering is not wrong. What is wrong is doing it secretly (as well as not allowing opponents to have their say, but that is a different issue). Attribution should be given to the true author (even if only the author of part of a document), not for copyright reasons (the true author would usually be happy to waive attribution to keep her involvement secret), but rather to make the process transparent, to let the public know who the author is. It is also important that the lobbyist's client(s) also be disclosed.

Government officials should not be ashamed of disclosing whose work they used in drafting bills, letters, and the like. If they are ashamed of disclosing the origin of the language they use, they shouldn't use it.

What they should be ashamed of is keeping the use secret. If officials and lobbyists insist that lobbyists are providing a valuable service to them and to the public, and that officials lack the resources to do the research themselves or employ experts to provide the information, then the public should know about this service and this unmet need.

Robert Wechsler
Director of Research, City Ethics

203-230-2548