Lobbying guidelines criticized

A 14-page White House memo designed to clarify the conditions under which federal officials can meet with lobbyists to discuss the $787 billion economic stimulus package has failed to appease critics of the policy.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) guidance attempts to clarify a previous memo issued by the White House that prohibited federal officials from meeting face to face with lobbyists to discuss particular projects competing for economic recovery money.

{mosads}That drew howls of complaints from lobbyists and even some government watchdogs that said the policy was overly restrictive and could violate First Amendment rights to petition the government.

Groups like the American League of Lobbyists (ALL), American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) are considering suing the federal government to block the new policy.

The latest OMB memo explicitly states that government officials should not avoid meeting with lobbyists. Lobbyists, the guidance states, can bring “helpful information that facilitates agencies’ evaluation of policies and projects on the merits.”

The purpose of the original memo was to provide transparency of communications with lobbyists “to further accountability and merit-based decision-making by agencies, and not to bar such communications,” the guidance states.

The meetings must be disclosed to the public, and federal officials are still restricted from discussing specific projects with lobbyists in person. Lobbyists can provide written communications about particular requests, which federal agencies are required to post online.

Company executives, grant writers and regulatory lawyers who don’t meet the federal definition of a lobbyist can meet with federal officials and discuss projects.

The guidance has not lessened the worries of the coalition of groups that have campaigned against the restrictions.

Lobbyists complain that the policy has had a chilling effect that makes the policy even more restrictive than intended, despite the new guidance from OMB that clarifies that lobbyists sometimes have a useful role to play.

Having to record and post lobbying contacts online discourages government officials from meeting lobbyists at all, according to Dave Wenhold, president of the American League of Lobbyists (ALL).

“The process is too burdensome for them to meet with us. To me, that’s no way to run a government,” Wenhold said.

Wenhold, co-founder of Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies, said he has heard fellow lobbyists say they are being shut out of the process surrounding stimulus funds entirely. Many agency officials have told lobbyists that they do not have enough resources to comply with the new disclosure process, so they choose not to meet with K Street representatives at all, Wenhold said.

Watchdogs like CREW agree that the new policy unfairly focuses on lobbyists, and believe that in other ways the new policy actually limits transparency.

“CREW’s concerns remain the same after reading the memoranda. The policy is still both unnecessarily restrictive and under-inclusive at the same time. Only meetings with lobbyists will be disclosed — not meetings with those who would otherwise hire lobbyists,” said Melanie Sloan, CREW’s executive director.

Michael Macleod-Ball, ACLU’s chief legislative and policy counsel, agreed. He said the memo would not produce transparency.

“Barring [lobbyists] from communication does not equal transparency. More reporting equals transparency. I think that is something we can all agree on,” Macleod-Ball said.

According to the guidelines, meetings and communications regarding the recovery package from lobbyists are the only ones that warrant disclosure. That means a CEO could conceivably meet with a federal official.

“Since only meetings with lobbyists are disclosed, meetings with corporate officers, businesspeople and others asking for money will remain undisclosed,” Sloan said.

Several lobbyists have told The Hill that the policy could set up a shadow advocacy business of lawyers and executives whose conversations with government officials go unrecorded even though lawyers and corporate executives contribute to political campaigns just like lobbyists do.

Not requiring these meetings to be made public could undermine the memo’s original goal of reassuring the public that the special interests that pay for political campaigns don’t play an enlarged role in determining how billions of dollars in stimulus money are spent.

The coalition of ACLU, ALL and CREW is mulling filing a lawsuit against the new rules. Its representatives hope to meet with White House officials next week to discuss the restrictions.

Meanwhile, federal agencies have begun to post the new lobbyist disclosures required by President Obama’s original memo. For example, the Transportation Department posted a March 25 memo from the Ferguson Group on behalf of Stamford, Conn., that includes specifications and photos of several rail projects the town says are in need of stimulus funding.

Other agencies have been less forthcoming with details. The Army Corps of Engineers noted meetings it has had with the American Association of Port Authorities where officials discussed the stimulus in “general policy and programmatic terms,” according to the disclosure.