Lobbying is really the Washington issue that keeps on giving. There's a
dozen ways at least to approach the subject, and the previous posts have
hit on many of its most interesting points. Turkmeniscam is a great conversation starter about lobbying. But it also does one thing that is
really tough to do: provide the details, the intricacies, as Ari points out,
of the lobby business.

Almost all lobbying is fairly standard-issue stuff. You make your case to
the members or staff about your client's issue. End of story. It's only when
you reveal how people do that, the game plans they intend to use, the
parties they plan to sponsor, that the story gets really interesting.

In its purest form, a lobbyist is simply a proxy for a constituent; the
lobbyist is just a lot more efficient. So you can't circumscribe a
constituent's ability to talk to his or her member. Which means lobbying is
clearly here to stay, no matter who becomes president.

But there are huge complications with a "proxy" analysis, and they are
apparent pretty quickly. For example, the constituent is often a large
corporation, with a lot more money than the average Joe. And the lobbyist is
quite possibly a close friend of Congressman X, and the better the lobbyist,
the more he or she can charge, which makes them a very expensive proxy out
of reach for most Americans. And on and on.

I don't see lobbyists as another branch of government, I see them as a
mirror-image of Congress, a free-lancing underbelly since perhaps 90 percent
of lobbyists originally worked on the Hill. They're extensions of staff,
with their own financially-induced points of view. So how do you level the
playing field?

Clearly, the first step is disclosure, but it has to be meaningful
disclosure. Who did you meet with and what did you discuss? How long was the
meeting? Disclosure needs to include grassroots lobbying as well,
something, as Sam points out, that is not covered under the current law.
The 2007 Ethics Law requires more timely filing. And there are no more free
meals for staff and members ‹ unless, of course, it's a 'fundraising' event,
and you're going to give them a $500 to $5,000 check, in which case you can
pay for the meal and drinks.

Unscrupulous lobbyists might try to call a one-on-one meeting with a Member
a "fundraiser," because it's well worth a $1,000 to share drinks and a steak
dinner. Not only do you get an attentive member, but a relaxed one as well.
But those "micro-fundraisers" won't pass the smell test, and no ethics
lawyer would advise a lobbyist to try one. And there's the fear that a
story like that would end up as front page news.

Which brings me to my last point, which is that while sunshine is surely the
best disinfectant, it doesn't mean much if there's no one to write about the
meetings, the potential quid-pro-quos, the iron triangle of lobbyists'
contributions to members, members' earmarks to clients, and clients' fees to
lobbyists. The biggest threat to democracy is not rampant lobbying, but a
financially-weakened press corps, whose Washington staffs shrink every day,
and which are left to do little but chase press releases, not look into the
potential corruption that can so easily leak into the legislative process.