Word: lobbyist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...practitioners like to imply that they have more clout than they truly do. In the post-Watergate era, power has been fractionated on Capitol Hill. Where a few powerful committee chairmen once held sway, Congress has become a loose federation of 535 little fiefdoms. This has made a lobbyist's job more difficult, but it hardly means that Congress has been ! liberated from the thrall of special interests. Well- intentioned congressional reform has been subverted over the years by the proliferation of lobbyists and the spiraling cost of election campaigns, two trends that go together like a hand...
...every lobbyist made out in the wheeling and dealing, by any means. Some were a little too greedy. The banking lobby pushed an amendment that would actually increase its tax breaks for bad-debt reserves. The lobbyists figured that they were just making an opening bid; their real aim was to protect existing tax breaks. To their surprise, however, the amendment passed in the confusion of an early Ways and Means Committee drafting session...
Some Congressmen may try to avoid lobbyists, but many have come to depend on them. "God love 'em," quips Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy. "Without them we would have to decide how to vote on our own." Sarcasm aside, lobbyists do serve a useful purpose by showing busy legislators the virtues and pitfalls of complex legislation. "There's a need here," says Anne Wexler, a former Carter Administration aide turned lobbyist. "Government officials are not comfortable making these complicated decisions by themselves." Says Lobbyist Van Boyette, a former aide to Senator Russell Long of Louisiana: "We're a two-way street...
Helping Congressmen get re-elected is an increasingly popular device. Veteran Washington Lobbyist Thomas Hale Boggs Jr. is on no fewer than 50 "steering committees" set up to raise money for congressional election campaigns. By night, Good Ole Boy Boggs can be found shmoozing at Capitol Hill fund raisers, where lobbyists drop off envelopes containing checks from Political Action Committees (PACs) at the door before digging into the hors d'oeuvres. By day, Boggs lobbies Congressmen, often the same ones for whom he has raised money the night before. Lately high-power political consulting firms such as Black, Manafort & Stone...
Even the most reputable influence peddlers use their political connections to build leverage. As director of the 1984 G.O.P. Convention, Lobbyist William Timmons, a quietly genial man who represents such blue- chippers as Boeing, Chrysler, ABC and Anheuser-Busch, controlled access to the podium. G.O.P. Senators lobbied him for prime-time appearances. A Wall Street Journal reporter described Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, who was running for re-election in the fall of 1984, thanking Timmons a bit too effusively for allotting time for him to address the convention. "You told me you'd give me a shot," gushed...