Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is being criticized for her recent condemnation of lobbyist donations to political campaigns, given the large donations she has received from lobbying groups during her senatorial campaigns.
Warren details her plans to end lobbying campaign donations and holds lobbyists responsible for what she perceives as government corruption, in an op-ed published on Monday. “My plan lays out nearly a hundred ways that we can change our government to fix this problem — from improving public integrity rules for federal officials in every branch of government to ending lobbying as we know it,” Warren wrote, “fixing the criminal laws to hold corrupt politicians to account, and ensuring our federal agencies and courts are free from corrupting influences.”
Warren outlines a scathing opinion of all lobbyists, proposing several times to end lobbying entirely and suggesting strict government regulation. “Paid lobbyists are hired for one objective: to advance the interests of their clients,” Warren stated. “Allowing individuals who are paid to influence government officials on policy to also give gifts or funnel money to the political campaigns of those same officials sounds like legalized bribery. My plan not only bans lobbyists from making political contributions, it also bans them from bundling donations or hosting fundraisers for political candidates.”
According to the FEC, however, Warren received large donations from lobbyists for both her 2018 and 2012 campaigns for senate. As lobbying disclosure reports confirm the FEC information, Warren’s campaign has not denied the lobbyist donations, but noted the amounts were much less than the millions she’s been able to raise in small, grassroots donations. “Instead of cynically attacking a handful of old donations dwarfed by millions of grassroots contributions in order to deflect from their own practices, every candidate for President should step up, reject federal lobbyist contributions, and support Elizabeth’s comprehensive anti-corruption platform, which would end it permanently,” said Warren’s deputy press secretary Saloni Sharma.
Donations taken from lobbyist and lobbyist firms over two election cycles totaled just under $100,000, according to the FEC. Robert Crowe, a previous Warren donor who works for lobbying firm Nelson Mullins, did not approve of her plan to end lobbyist donations. “I’m not happy with the overall plan,” he said. “I think the whole thing is silly.”
Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell similarly found Warren’s call to end lobbyist and high-dollar donations to be inconsistent with her past. “Warren didn’t seem to have any trouble taking our money in 2018, but suddenly we were power brokers and influence peddlers in 2019,” Rendell, who has worked as a lobbyist, wrote in an op-ed earlier this month. “The year before, we were wonderful. I co-chaired one of the events for the senator and received a glowing, handwritten thank-you letter from her for my hard work.”
Rendell further pointed out that although Warren has avoided large donations and lobbyists in her bid for the presidency, she did begin her campaign with a $10.4 million transfer from her Senate reelection campaign. More than $6 million of that transfer, Rendell noted, came from donations of $1,000 or more.
