The 508(c)(1)(a) Initiative Workshop

officials in Washington for specific
legislation. A lobbyist may put together a
diverse coalition of organizations and
people, sometimes including lawmakers
and corporations, and the whole effort
may be considered to be a lobby; for
example, in the abortion issue, there is a
"pro-choice lobby" and a "pro-life lobby".
An estimate from 2007 reported that
more than 15,000 federal lobbyists were
based in Washington, DC; another
estimate from 2011 suggested that the
count of registered lobbyists who have
actually lobbied was closer to 12,000.
While numbers like these suggest that
lobbying is a widespread activity, most
accounts suggest that the Washington
lobbying industry is an exclusive one run
by a few well-connected firms and
players, with serious barriers to entry for
firms wanting to get into the lobbying
business, since it requires them to have
been "roaming the halls of Congress for
years and years."
Different Types of Lobbying
The Focus of Lobbying Efforts
Generally, lobbyists focus on trying to
persuade decision-makers: Congress,
executive branch agencies such as the
Treasury Department and the Securities
and Exchange Commission, the
Supreme Court, state governments
(including governors). Federal agencies
have been targeted by lobbyists since
they write industry-specific rules;
accordingly, interest groups spend
"massive sums of money" trying to
persuade them to make so-called
"carve-outs" or try to block specific
provisions from being enacted. A large
fraction of overall lobbying is focused on
only a few sets of issues, according to
one report. It is possible for one level of
government to lobby another level; for
example, the District of Columbia has
been lobbying Congress and the
President for greater power, including
possible statehood or voting
representation in Congress; one
assessment in 2011 suggested that the
district needed to rethink its lobbying
strategy, since its past efforts have only
had "mixed results". Many executive
branch agencies have the power to write
specific rules and are a target of
lobbying. Federal agencies such as the
State Department make rules such as
giving aid money to countries such as
Egypt, and in one example, an
Egyptian-American businessman named
Kais Menoufy organized a lobby to try to
halt U.S. aid to Egypt. Since the
Supreme Court has the power of judicial
review and can render a congressional
law unconstitutional, it has great power
to influence the course of American life.
For example, in the Roe v. Wade
decision, it ruled on the legality of
abortion. A variety of forces use
lobbying tactics to pressure the court to
overturn this decision.
Lobbyists represent their clients' or
organizations' interests in state capitols.
An example is a former school
superintendent who has been lobbying
state legislatures in California, Michigan
and Nevada to overhaul teacher
evaluations, and trying to end the "Last
In, First Out" teacher hiring processes;
according to one report, Michelle Rhee
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