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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.
He's just one US citizen. If he wants to have influence on Congress he can vote like the rest of us. The fact that he can't get personal meetings with them should be surprising or distressing, regardless of his net worth, given how difficult it would be for everyone else.
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?
It's a sad indictment of politicians that they need lobbyists to tell them what to think, rather than going out and actually talking to their constituents. Democracy is supposedly representative of the people - the skewing of this system towards serving only the wealthiest corporations is only going to take us to bad places.
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.
*gasp* Google paying out the nose for influence in Washington? Its almost like they are your standard multi billion international corporation.
Lets give it a rest already, this doesnt make Google evil. It just means that they are like any other company which is something nonfanboys have known all along. Do we need to see a headline every time a tech company hires a handful of lobbyists? What makes Google special?
Think of it this way, Members have to raise more than ever before, but they can still only raise it in relatively small amounts, so small that on single check for 2,000 has much influence when you consider that an average House race will cost in excess of 2 MILLION.
This creates a problem. The Representative must raise $2 Million, but has to do it in small amounts. This forces them to spend a disproportionate amount of time raising money, but it also lowers the influence of any one check. Members must spend endless hours calling hundreds of people to ask for $50, $100, maybe even $500 dollar contributions.
Because money is now a volume activity, all of the slashdotters who want to leap to the incorrect conclusion that all Lobbying is done through payouts from a few lobbyists are living in movieland. The reality is that the lobbyist's true power comes from being able to show a Representative how his support or opposition to a bill will make his Constituents happy - and encourage them vote for him. This reduces the Member's need to raise/spend money, and therefore is considered a great thing to the Member of Congress.
For example, Slashdotters assume that the only reason anyone would ever support the DMCA is because the RIAA paid them off. Well, as a recent consumerist report showed, the RIAA hasn't written very many big checks! However, many of the Members of Congress who are the most agressive in support of the DMCA have songwriters, movie studios, themeparks and software companies in their districts. It should come as no surprise that they want to help the people they represent keep their jobs, pay taxes, and generally be happy with their elected officals. As a side note, if you wonder how that article in Consumerist and Slashdot affected Capitol Hill, well, it didn't - because no one called in. I did an informal poll of the members who were on the top of the RIAA list as presented here on slashdot. Guess what? most offices got only a couple of calls. Here on slashdot, the DMCA is treated like it's legislation that will bring about the next anti-christ, but the rest of America doesn't actually care. If you compare the 1 or 2 calls on the DMCA with what happens when the NRA, the WWF, Sierra Club, Right to Life or NOW pushes people to call in, you begin to understand that Members aren't being paid off, they just understand that their constituents aren't appreciably harmed by the DMCA - in fact many have jobs that benefit from it. There has yet to be a Gallup Poll showing the DMCA coming in ahead of HealthCare, the War in Iraq, Education, Social Security or even the proliferation of hangnails as experienced by the elderly. So stop assuming that the only reason anyone could support a position is a payoff.
SImply put, leaping to the conclusion that anyone who dissagrees with you must be 'bought off' creates a false dicotomy. If it were literally all about the money, then there would be a lot less work for lobbyists!
A sig?!? I don't think so.....
As for crowing about how few people "call in," do Congressmembers really believe the only calls that should count are those drummed up by lobbying organizations? I'll bet most people here on Slashdot believe calling or writing a Congressmember, on any issue, would be futile / a waste of time.
Remember the anti-trust thing? Microsoft assumed that as long as they werent some contracter trying to bribe the government for pork they didnt need to lobby. Politicians love to pick on big companies, but they go after the ones that arent spending money lobbying them. MS wasnt sending out bribes so they got attacked by politicians. Google is now recongizing that they have the potential to be hounded for privacy concerns, intellectual property violations, unfairly leveraging their dominant search engine, etc. So they arent going to fall into the same trap MS did and assume that just because they arent breaking any laws grandstanding politicians and their lawyers wont go after them.
> Google is building a lobbying power house in Washington
Google is so rich they why don't they just buy Dick Chenney? They can afford him, and not like he's not for sale. He can also lend his expert skills to filling in that void left by the ever shrinking 'Don't do Evil' motto. You'll get FOXNews and the rebranded Wall Street Journal thrown in for free.
The result would be excellent PR: Within six months 56% of Americans will believe Microsoft was behind the 9-11 attacks. Look out for Photoshopped photos of Osama bin Laden swinging a chair.
You're kidding me right? The mere use of lobbyists is enough for you to decide Google's an evil company?
Have a look at the blog, you can read about what those lobbyists are up to. That's a major difference. The RIAA is evil - when they were busy turning singing into an act for hire, so they could own an artist indefinitely, do you think they were blogging about their intentions and notifying the American people? No. In fact, they did everything they could to hide it so it could torpedo its way into law before it was too late.
Evil companies and organizations like the RIAA are out there buying their way into legislation that gives them an unfair lock on all sorts of things. It's a broken system that works on money. Google is paying to keep it fair - the way it should be. It sucks it takes lobbyists to do it, but Google is working to keep the very worst ideas out of Congress. Or did you think Net Neutrality would just solve itself?