Newt Gingrich says he wasn’t a lobbyist, and the Washington Post’s lobbying reporter Dan Eggen agrees, along with his colleague Karen Tumulty:
And what constitutes lobbying?
“Anything that looks like, smells like, walks like an attempt to influence legislation on behalf of a client for money,” Evans said. He added that, internally, the organization applied what it called “the Washington Post test: If The Washington Post considered it lobbying, so did we.”
At best, Gingrich’s claims are half true, and that says more about how over-narrow and unhelpful the “Washington Post test” is.
Gingrich was paid by the drug industry on the Medicare drug bill, and he worked hard to convince Republican congressmen to pass the bill, which the drug industry supported. That sounds like “an attempt to influence legislation on behalf of a client for money” to me. Undoubtedly it counts as “evidence to the contrary” of Gingrich’s claims that he never lobbied.
The “Washington Post test,” however, seems to be much easier to pass. Consider this: the Post has taken as fact President Obama’s claims on lobbyist cash. Lobbying reporter Eggen wrote “As he did in 2008, Obama has made a point of refusing to accept donations from lobbyists….”
But as with Gingrich’s claim, this Obama claim is only true with an over-narrow definition of lobbyist. Obama has taken cash from state-level lobbyists, from CEOs of lobbying firms, from people whom we know lobby the administration on behalf of their clients, from lobbyists who just deregistered, and from VPs for government relations. Many of these people, like Gingrich, seem to engage in activities that meet the legal definition of “lobbying activity,” but they aren’t registered with Congress as lobbyists, and that seems to be the “Washington Post Test.”
Give the Post points for treating Obama and Gingrich equally (had Eggen called Gingrich a lobbyist, I’m sure I’d right now be blogging about partisan double standards), but I wish the Post would make their test a bit harder.
