RALEIGH – A Senate bill to reform North Carolina’s lobbying laws passed without a dissenting vote a few weeks ago, and now awaits House consideration. The measure – which would eliminate loopholes in current disclosure laws, cap personal gifts, and impose a “cooling off” period before a lawmaker could become a lobbyist – enjoys the support of a broad-based coalition. It has received favorable press. Lobbying reform, in other words, appears to have unstoppable momentum.
Appearances can be deceiving. Many lawmakers and lobbyists favor the changes, in the former case either because of principle or pragmatic concerns about public opinion and in the latter case for the additional reason that it might well save them money.
But others don’t. These foes aren’t very public about their concerns. That doesn’t mean they won’t affect the final outcome.
On disclosure, the only real disaffection I’ve picked up is its target. The bill would require lobbyists to report all of what they spend to influence the course of legislation. It does not require officials to report what they receive in gifts.
Should it? I don’t think so. Lobbying is different from political campaigns, where candidates have the reporting responsibility. After all, they initiate their campaigns and thus make the decision themselves to enter into the public arena. It makes sense for candidates to be the ones to report the assistance they subsequently receive. With lobbying efforts, however, the lobbyists and their principals are the ones initiating the activity and thus injecting themselves in the public sphere. They should report.
The real sticking point is the issue of capping the value of meals, trips, and other gifts to legislative or executive-branch officials. There is a lot of vague talk about “unintended consequences” (this from the same bunch that enacts multi-billion-dollar budgets without reading them). There is also some suggestion that capping personal gifts is an infringement on the right to free speech and that it might hamper the business community’s efforts to engineer pro-growth policies.
Let’s take each in turn. Sure, any government action bears with it an underappreciated risk of unintended consequences. This happens because governments do things coercively. If you force prices to be lower or wages higher than they would be in the market, you don’t change the underlying economic realities. You just create artificial shortages of goods or jobs. With lobbying reform, however, a change in appearance – lawmakers no longer getting valuable gifts – would be a welcome change even if some insiders continued to cultivate influence in ways more difficult to track or restrain.
As for the freedom to speak, it isn’t abridged by lobbying reform. There is no limit proposed on spending to research, print, or disseminate information. To say it violates the First Amendment to ban the gift of a $3,000 junket to a public official is to abuse constitutional principle and the English language.
Finally, as discussed at greater length in a JLF paper released today, there is no evidence at all for the proposition that permissive lobbying laws are in the interest of the “business community” broadly defined. Most states in our region have lower taxes, less regulation, and more lobbying restrictions. I’m not arguing there is necessarily a causal link, but at least it would be difficult to assert that loose lobbying laws cause a more pro-growth economic climate.
The cause of lobbying reform will prevail as long as debate continues. The case against it is weak and superficial – perhaps explaining why it is rarely advocated in public.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.