I love disclosure, especially with regard to lobbying, but I’ve often argued that lobbying disclosure requirements ought to be placed on Congress, rather than on the firms and companies doing the lobbying.
This story in Texas shows why. Establishment Republicans are upset about a conservative group. The AP reports:
See, the group is noting how lawmakers vote and telling voters. That’s lobbying, according to two establishment Republicans:
Rep. Jim Keffer, chairman of the powerful energy resources committee, and Rep. Vicki Truitt, chairwoman of the pensions committee, filed the complaint against Empower Texans, also known as Texans for Fiscal Responsibility. The lawmakers allege that the group’s president, Michael Quinn Sullivan, failed to register as a lobbyist and that the nonprofit failed to file a required campaign finance activity disclosure….
The lawmakers said Sullivan is acting as a lobbyist and that the Empower Texans scorecard represented a campaign activity that required registration with the Ethics Commission.
This reminds me of Connecticut, where state officials, upset that the Catholic Church was dissenting, tried to use lobbying laws to muzzle priests. The Church held a rally against a state law trying to dictate how Catholic parishes control their finances, and then, I wrote at the time:
Registering to lobby is no small matter of filling out a form and paying a fee. Registered lobbyists must, thrice a year plus once a month while the legislature is in session, file detailed reports on all their activities and expenditures related to lobbying. They are also required, whenever lobbying, to wear a badge identifying themselves as lobbyists.
I asked the Office of State Ethics about the ramifications of dubbing the diocese a lobbying organization. Would priests need to fasten “LOBBYIST” badges to their vestments whenever speaking from the pulpit about the death penalty, abortion or future state attempts to micromanage parishes? Who would enforce this? Would the state deploy ethics officers to regulate Masses so that no unauthorized lobbying occurred?
Would the diocese Web nerd need to clock in as a lobbyist for the time it takes him to write, “Tell the Governor to Repeal the Death Penalty” and upload that message to the site? A spokeswoman said, “We really don’t have opinions that specifically address those matters.”
Just as economic regulation often protects existing businesses from competition, political regulations can serve to protect incumbent politicians from public scrutiny.
