Lobbying

Hook

Brief explanation of lobbying: Companies pay a team to talk to congresspeople to try to get them to pass laws that are favorable to the company. As a form of leverage, they may also work with the press or start an organization in a congressperson’s home state to convince voters not to elect the congressperson in the future.

Student activity: Do you think lobbying is a form of free speech or legalized corruption? Stand up and move towards the left side of the room if you think lobbying is free speech, and move towards the right side of the room if you think lobbying is legalized corruption. If you’re pretty sure about your position, go all the way to the wall, but if you’re not as sure, stay closer to the middle of the room.

Call on several students to explain why they chose to stand in their position.

Have the students return to their seats.

Lobbying Mini-Lesson

The word “lobbyist” was originally used to describe people who waited in the lobby of Congress or of the President’s hotel to talk to them and try to change their mind about issues. Now, “lobbyist” more generally refers to any individual who spends a significant amount of time or money to influence the decisions of congresspeople or other government officials.

Companies and industries can hire people to represent them as lobbyists, giving gifts and spending time with people in government to persuade them to vote on certain actions. Lobbyists in this way bring about change in laws. Lobbying is effective and has brought about change, and money can affect not only the quality of lobbyists, but it also more deeply determines the amount of sway these companies and professional interests can have.

There are policies that try to stop insider trading and the monetization of professional relationships. This is achieved by having “cooling off periods” that prevent people who worked in public office (government positions) from immediately joining lobbying groups. This stops them from using inside information and capitalizing on relationships with government. Some lifelong bans also exist with looser restrictions that only apply to specific contracts or issues. However, lobbying is still criticized for existing at all, with many critics saying this practice is legalized corruption.

As an example of Lobbying, let’s look at the National Potato Council, or NPC. The NPC as an organization represents potato growers and tries to secure better laws that will help protect them and control their income, as many of them are owned and controlled by just four companies. The NPC actively lobbies in Washington, and works off of public donations. While they are a special interest group, they fight against companies that try to keep control of prices and continue to make more at growers’ expenses. The NPC has also been criticized for lobbying for the classification of potatoes as vegetables in school lunch programs in order to increase demand, a classification that partially contradicts scientific nutrition principles.

Textual Analysis

Share the following anti-lobbying passage with students:

Historically, scholars, practitioners, and even leaders of state expressed concerns over the ubiquitous role lobbying plays in influencing government officials (Mack, 1989; Silberfeld, 2006). Concerns over lobbying’s influence on government officials may be bolstered by a body of empirical research supporting the idea that firms’ lobbying can sway government officials to act in ways that benefit lobbying firms (Kaiser, 2010; Shaffer, 1995). 
Connaughton discussed how quickly votes can change in Congress with the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, a bill that would make it harder to prove securities fraud for Wall Street bankers. Connaughton was able to help convince President Clinton to veto the bill, but it was overruled in congress, even by Senator Ted Kennedy, who supported the veto at first: “Even Ted Kennedy, the great champion of civil rights and liberties, who has assured plaintiffs’ groups that he was with them, flipped and went along with the corporate coalition and voted to override Clinton’s veto” (Connaughton, 2012, Pg 101, 110). “Money is the basis of almost all relationships in DC…The rest of the country may be divided into red and blue, but DC is green (that is, covered in money), and cheerfully so” (Pg 11).

Ask students to highlight or point out these three things in the above passage:

Share the following pro-lobbying passage with students:

“Lobbying is advocacy of a point of view, either by groups or individuals. A special interest is nothing more than an identified group expressing a point of view — be it colleges and universities, churches, charities, public interest or environmental groups, senior citizens organizations, even state, local or foreign governments. While most people think of lobbyists only as paid professionals, there are also many independent, volunteer lobbyists — all of whom are protected by the same First Amendment.”
“Lobbying is a legitimate and necessary part of our democratic political process. Government decisions affect both people and organizations, and information must be provided in order to produce informed decisions. Public officials cannot make fair and informed decisions without considering information from a broad range of interested parties. All sides of an issue must be explored in order to produce equitable government policies.”

From https://www.lobbyinginstitute.com/about

Ask students to highlight or point out these three things in the above passage:

Structured Academic Controversy

Structured Question: On balance, does lobbying strengthen democracy?

Instruct the students to form pairs. Give each pair a copy of the SAC handout PDF, which contains instructions for the debate activity. They will research both sides of the lobbying controversy, then join with another pair to form a group of 4. The pairs will each debate one side of the issue, then switch and debate the other side. After this, they will work as a group of 4 to come to a consensus about lobbying’s effect on Democracy.

SAC-HandoutsDownload

Synthesis

Have the class reconvene to synthesize ideas through a teacher-facilitated discussion. Write their ideas down on the whiteboard using a T-chart or another form of visual organizer. What can students agree on? What additional evidence would help the class come to a consensus?

Exit

Have each student write their own short statement about lobbying’s effect on democracy based on the debate and discussion. They should mention at least one piece of evidence from each side to show that they understand the nuance of the issue.