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

such as ones involving Jack Abramoff, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, and Bob Ney and
others, and which featured words such as "bribery", "lobbyist", "member of Congress"
and "prison" tending to appear together in the same articles. Negative publicity can sully
lobbying's image to a great extent: high-profile cases of lobbying fraud such as
Abramoff's; dubious father-son exchange-of-favors ties; public officials such as Newt
Gingrich being accused and then denying accusations of having done lobbying and
earning $1.6 million from "strategic advice". There are a variety of reasons why lobbying
has acquired a negative image in public consciousness. While there is much disclosure,
much of it happens in hard-to-disclose personal meetings, and the resulting secrecy and
confidentiality can serve to lower lobbying's status.
Revolving door
Since the 1980s, congresspersons and staffers have been "going downtown"—
becoming lobbyists—and the big draw is money. The "lucrative world of K Street"
means that former congresspersons with even "modest seniority" can move into jobs
paying $1 million or more annually, without including bonuses for bringing in new
clients. The general concern of this revolving-door activity is that elected officials—
persons who were supposed to represent the interests of citizens—have instead
become entangled with the big-money interests of for-profit corporations and interest
groups with narrow concerns, and that public officials have been taken over by private
interests.
In July 2005, Public Citizen published a report entitled "The Journey from
Congress to K Street": the report analyzed hundreds of lobbyist registration
documents filed in compliance with The Lobbying Disclosure Act and The
Foreign Agents Registration Act among other sources. It found that since
1998, 43 percent of the 198 members of Congress who left government to join
private life have registered to lobby. A similar report from the Center for Responsive
Politics found 370 former members were in the "influence-peddling business", with 285
officially registered as federal lobbyists, and 85 others who were described as providing
"strategic advice" or "public relations" to corporate clients. The Washington Post
described these results as reflecting the "sea [of] change that has occurred in
lawmakers' attitudes toward lobbying in recent years." The report included a case study
of one particularly successful lobbyist, Bob Livingston, who stepped down as Speakerelect
and resigned his seat in 1999. In the six years since his resignation, The
Livingston Group grew into the 12th largest non-law lobbying firm, earning nearly $40
million by the end of 2004. During roughly the same time period, Livingston, his wife,
and his two political action committees (PACs) contributed over $500,000 to the
campaign funds of various candidates.
Numerous reports chronicle the revolving door phenomenon. A 2011 estimate
suggested that nearly 5,400 former congressional staffers had become federal
lobbyists over a ten-year period, and 400 lawmakers made a similar jump. It is a
"symbiotic relationship" in the sense that lobbying firms can exploit the "experience and
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