The Washington connection

By way of summary at the end of Chapter 3, the author talks about a number of avenues of influence or what he calls The Washington Connection: ways in which corporations influence the government. Let us take specific note of seven ways.

The first one he notes is access. Through campaign contributions and other methods, corporations are able to gain access to public officials more often than the average citizen. This means that corporations at least have a better chance of having their case heard.

Secondly, there are advisory committees to government agencies. The fact is that the government does not have fact gathering apparati in a number of fields. And so, government agencies appoint committees to provide information and advice. Often, these committees contain many people from the industry involved. The information they provide are used in making public policy. Now, obviously, if the information that government agencies are getting is from the industry involved, then the perspective from which they get the information is likely to be one-sided. For example, if the government needs information on nuclear power, it most likely will call upon nuclear engineers for advice. However, these engineers come from the industry involved. The government does not usually consider the opinion of the private citizen, although the concerns that pregnant women have who live near Three Mile Island or other nuclear power facilities might well need to be taken into account. So the advice the government gets is often stacked in favor of the corporation.

A third avenue that Nadel mentions is one he calls musical chairs or the revolving door effect. Many times individuals are employed in an industry, then get called upon to work as the head of an agency or on a regulatory commission, and then return to the industry in question. These people are going to be returning to work in the same industry they may be regulating. How independent can the thinking of these people be? Are they going to make a decision against the interest of that industry if they are eventually going to have to get another job in that industry? So this musical chairs or revolving door effect is a two-way traffic pattern between industry and government in which people go from working in the industry to working in the government, and back to working for the industry again.

An example of this is the personal interchange program that some corporations have had. Sometimes a corporation may lend personnel to the government and the corporation may even pay them while they hold that government position. The corporation might say: "Look, we're being very patriotic. We're paying people to work for the government." However, others would suggest that these people have the interests of the corporation in mind. Often, such a bias may not be that obvious. It's simply that these people share the culture of the corporation as to what sort of decisions should be made. Many times they may just have a way of thinking that doesn't take the public interest into account.

Fourthly, he talks about the high demand that exists for former members of the House or Senate to serve as lobbyists. Many times, when people retire from the House or Senate, they become lobbyists for major corporations. Now, first of all, these people know a great deal about the laws that have been passed relating to their new employer's industry, and they know the inside dealings that went into making these laws. What's more, former representatives and senators maintain the privilege of going on to the floor of their old chambers. That means that during a vote on a bill, they can go on the floor and lobby current senators or representatives as the case may be. No other lobbyists can do this. So these former legislators have a greater ability to influence the process than someone who doesn't have the privilege of the floor, or the other connections they do. Thus ex-senators and ex-representatives are often valued as lobbyists.

The fifth avenue of Washington influence is lobbying itself, and especially grassroots lobbying. This is something we have already discussed at some length.

Sixth of all there is the symbiotic relationship between lobbyists, members of congressional committees and executive agency personnel. In other words, the Washington triangles or iron triangles.

The seventh avenue of the Washington connection is court action. The fact is that corporations can pay a lot more for legal work than the government. Many times corporate lawyers don not aim at winning a case, but simply at delaying government action. Let's say a corporation has an advertisement on television that the Federal Trade Commission feels is misleading to the general public. The FTC may issue a ruling for the corporation to withdraw that advertisement from the air. The corporation then gets its lawyers to seek a temporary injunction against that ruling until a hearing on the ruling can be held. In the meantime, the advertisement remains on television. Then, the corporation's lawyers use various legal tactics to keep delaying the date of the hearing. There are lots of ways lawyers can do this. Let's say the hearing finally comes up a year later. Before the hearing actually begins, the corporate lawyers announce that they are going to withdraw their objections and that the corporation will follow the FTC's ruling and withdraw the ad. They know they don't have a leg to stand on in court. Has the corporation lost? No. While all this has been going on, the advertisement has been on television for a whole extra year. So even though the corporation is eventually going to lose the case, it winds up winning by delaying things.

~ From: How Corporations Influence the Government ~