Google's New Lobbying Power in Washington

*SECADM writes "Learning from Microsoft's error, Google is building a lobbying power house in Washington." From the Washington Post article: Two years ago, Google was on the verge of making that Microsoft-like error. Davidson, then a 37-year-old former deputy director of the Center for Democracy & Technology, was the search-engine company's sole staff lobbyist in Washington. As recently as last year, Google co-founder Sergey Brin had trouble getting meetings with members of Congress. To change that, Google went on a hiring spree and now has 12 lobbyists and lobbying-related professionals on staff here — more than double the size of the standard corporate lobbying office — and is continuing to add people.

Comments

Lobbyist.

[jshriverWVU]

Besides the typical point of view that Lobbyist are basically rich people with an agenda paying off congressman to get legislation passed in their favor. What is the real "legal" definition of what a lobbyist is supposed to do? You'd think if their sole purpose is to pay off people it would be illegal. Any pro's/con's in this?

Re:So?

[gartogg]

Actually, I've never had a problem getting a meeting with my representative - have you ever tried to do so? It would be a shame if you were just talking out of you ass...

what a lobbyist is and why they're important

[JimBobJoe]

What is the real "legal" definition of what a lobbyist is supposed to do?

A professional who informs democratically elected representatives about issues.

While these professionals have to be paid somehow, and the root of their pay makes them beholden to some interest or another, what a legislator needs to do and understand is simply too complex without receiving counsel and guidance otherwise.

I live in Columbus near the Ohio statehouse and since I have a lot of knowledge about identity theft, privacy and driver's license security issues, I often show up at the statehouse and give testimony on a bill. I'm essentially a college student with a job with no set hours, so it's not hard for me to do. I can meet up with a legislator or make a committee meeting (which are always held during the day) with no trouble. People who might have the knowledge or expertise but have regular jobs will find that difficult.

But what I do I do for free, because I want to see Ohio have better laws on things that I feel passionate about or interest me. I can only devote so much time to it.

The other day, I testified on an identity theft bill. I was talking about a major problem with some state websites and I wanted to show the committee what the problem is--so I asked if there were a projector available to hook my laptop to.

The assistant to the chair of the committee said he's never asked for a projector before--and he's done the job for 3 years now.

That scared me. It doesn't take much computer knowledge to put together a powerpoint presentation, and we all know (stereotype alert) that low-tech types like powerpoint. It implied to me that the people who would often speak in front of this committee didn't have a very good knowledge of computing.

I did get my projector, and made my presentation (which included talk about "brute force" techniques.) The next week, a state senator's office called--the senator read my written testimony and asked during that committee hearing what was the difference between brute forcing a password and phishing. No one was there who could answer the question.

It's clear to me that Ohio needs to have a professional lobbyist walking around the statehouse who knows computer security issues and who could spend his time getting legislators up to speed. While lobbyists are often political mercenaries, they do fulfill a certain role that no one else can.

Re:So?

[Short Circuit]

The company has thousands of shareholders and hundreds of major investors and thousands of employees who also have a voice The shareholders and investors (Technically, shareholders are investors, but we're not talking about accounting here...) depend on Google to carry its own interests. The point of buying shares in a company is typically to take advantage of that company's good market and management, not to take on an active role in aiding that company. It's just not cost effective to do it that way; the cost of effective lobbying* far exceeds the gain in stock value one might see as a result.

* Writing a letter and making phone calls is not an effective way to influence your representatives. I've written hundreds of letters and made around twenty phone calls to my representatives, and I only know of one time where one of my representative voted in favor of my position. $2,000 from a PAC is more likely to change their vote than a fifty cent letter or a free email and fax. I still write, though, because I have to do something, don't I?

Re:So?

[swillden]

$2,000 from a PAC is more likely to change their vote than a fifty cent letter or a free email and fax. I still write, though, because I have to do something, don't I?

This brings up a point that I've been thinking about for a while. Bear with me for a moment while I walk you throught my thought process.

If the regular constituents each put up a buck towards a given issue/bill they care about, we could *easily* outspend the PACs by an order or magnitude. There are a lot more of us. That leads me to suggest that when you write that letter, you should include a check for $5 -- if all letter-writers did that, their contributions would probably come close to matching the PACs.

The problem with that idea is that if you do that, the representative has your $5 whether he votes the way you like or not. PACs have the advantage that they're offering lare enough quantities of money that they can negotiate: "We have this donation for you, Senator, assuming that you'll support our cause". I don't know that they can directly say things like "We'll contribute $2K to your campaign if you vote for bill X", but they can certainly imply it (and maybe they can say it!).

You could try to do the same with your small donation, but it seems much less likely to actually get the representative's attention. That brings me to my idea: I wonder if it would be possible to set up a sort of non-PAC whose only goal is to improve the bargaining position of voters. This non-PAC wouldn't actually accept and give donations, and it wouldn't have positions on any specific issues. Rather, it would be a sort of an escrow fund to accumulate individual voter contributions, and forward them en-masse to specific candidates who showed support for the voters' key issues. It would also provide reports to the representatives of the donations its holding and the issues/bills that are important to the donors.

I imagine this system as a web site. You register your name and address, pick your issue/bill, state what your position is, what representative you want to influence, in what time frame you'd like to see action, and use Paypal or whatever to provide a donation. The system would aggregate your donation with like-minded voters and send a letter to the representative (while probably also sending a similar letter on behalf of voters who have the opposite position). If the representative acts the way you want, the system would disburse the money to the representative, filing any needed paperwork on your behalf (if any, I don't think there is) and send you a receipt documenting your donation for tax purposes. If the representative votes "wrong", or fails to act within your specified time frame, the system would return your money to you and send a letter to the representative pointing out the financial support he/she has lost due to his action or inaction on a particular issue. I think it should be up to the donor to make the final determination of whether or not the representative acted "correctly". The system should probably also allow a representative to make a statement about his/her intent and actions to be distributed to the voters who have pending donations, to help them determine if his/her work is in line with their preferences.

Such a system feels a lot like buying congressional votes, but I think that's exactly how the system works anyway, just less transparently and less accessibly to the man on the street.