On PBS there is a Moyer & Company promo in which
a woman laments that we (the American Everyman) don’t have a lobbyist working
for us in Washington, D.C.
I did a search and found out at http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby that
there were 12,655 Federal registered lobbyist in 2011 with combined
expenditures of $3.31 billion dollars. (You’ll find a lot of interesting
information at http://www.opensecrets.org)
Lobbies by definition are special interest groups whether
they are the American Association of Retired Persons ($15 million spend in 2011http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000023726&year=2011),
Pfizer Inc. ($1 million spend in 2011 http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=H04)
or The National Association of Broadcasters ($13.9 million spend http://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/firmsum.php?id=D000000202&year=2011,
and on and on and on. A lobby’s business is looking out for their own issues.
The United States once experimented with a group of
multi-issue lobbyists. The thought was that one person could look after the
interests of a diverse group of people. So our population was divided up and
assigned lobbyists. These multi-issue lobbyists were called Senators and Representatives.
Apparently that experiment did not work out as expected. But maybe it’s time to reset that
idea of representing a diverse group of people.
George W. Parker