Almost as if it were trying to give fodder to Bernie Sanders’ campaign, the Democratic National Committee made it official this month that it welcomed campaign contributions from lobbyists. This reverses the official policy off the Obama DNC.
But if you paid close attention in the Obama years, you noticed there never really was a ban on lobbyist donations.
- Obama’s DNC took money from state-level lobbyists, who even listed “lobbyist” as their occupation in FEC forms.
- Obama’s DNC took money from corporate executives who we know, for a fact, lobbied the White House for policies to benefit their company — but who were not registered to lobby. Vint Cerf of Google is one example.
- Obama’s DNC took donations from the people who ran the lobbying offices of major corporations. Adam Golodner, for instance, runs Cisco’s lobbying office. He was a registered lobbyist until Obama took office. He kept meeting with the White House on tech policy, and he supervised the lobbyists of his company. Not a lobbyist though!
- Partners and Presidents of lobbying firms gave to Obama’s DNC. For instance, Jonathan Sallett, a partner at the powerful Glover Park Group lobbying firm, gave the five-figure maximum to the DNC. Lawrence Rasky and Thomas Baerlein — the chairman and the president, respectively, of the Rasky Baerlein lobbying firm — both were big DNC donors under Obama.
- Lobbyists’ spouses (who likely share the same financial bottom line) gave plenty to the DNC during the Obama years.
- One very well-known lobbyist gave to Obama’s campaign directly, but the campaign just listed his occupation as “retired.”
- My favorite may be David McIntosh. McIntosh was an associate administrator at Obama’s EPA, and then he cashed out to become “Vice President for Federal Lobbying.” Siemens announced that on on June 9. Two weeks later, VP for Federal Lobbying McIntosh gave $2,000 to Obama. A week later, the third quarter of 2011 began, in which McIntosh was first registered as a lobbyist!
So today’s DNC is even more welcoming of lobbying money. But Obama’s DNC was hardly hostile to it. Here was the actual policy If you were actively registered as a lobbyist under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, you couldn’t give to Obama’s campaign or the DNC in your own name unless you were sneaky, or unless you temporarily deregistered.
Now the DNC is just a bit more honest about its policies.
Timothy P. Carney, The Washington Examiner’s senior political columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]. His column appears Tuesday and Thursday nights on washingtonexaminer.com.
