How lobbyists took over Washington

It wasn't always this way!

I have known Brody and Luke Mullins for a very long time. They are both Washington mainstays — two of the best investigative reporters in the business.

Which meant I was VERY much looking forward to their new book: “The Wolves of K Street.” It’s the history of lobbying in Washington, a story of how unelected power brokers took over politics and policy.

If you want to truly understand how Washington works, you have to understand the growth of the lobbying industry — and how they influence what you think (and how you vote).

I reached out to Brody to talk about his book. Our conversation — conducted via email and lightly edited for flow — is below.

Enjoy!

Chris: Why this book — at this moment?

Brody: Several years ago, I began looking into a powerful young drug-company lobbyist named Evan Morris whose life took a tragic turn on an exclusive golf course outside of Washington. Working at the Wall Street Journal, I found out that the lobbyist had been engaged in a kickback scheme with one of the many political strategists the company employed in its Washington, DC lobbying office. 

Over a decade, he and the other consultant had made off with roughly $25 million from the drug company. When the company got wind of the financial shenanigans, the company launched an investigation, discovered some questionable financial transactions and called in Morris for an interview. Not long after the interview began, Morris bolted the meeting. 

He sped off in his Porsche to the Robert Trent Jones Golf Club about 45 minutes from Washington, a club so exclusive that it limits its membership so no one ever has to wait to tee off. On the drive to the course, he stopped to buy a gun. After he arrived at the golf course, he played a round, bought a $2,000 bottle of wine from the bar, retired to a fire pit near the 18^th green and lit a cigar.

After finishing the bottle of wine and cigar, he took out his iPhone and sent a series of text messages to his wife, who had been frantically trying to track him down. Morris texted his wife the name and contact information for the family’s lawyer, accountant and life insurance agent. His wife sent Morris pictures of their two young children. 

Morris sent a final message: “I want to be done with this shit.”

Then he fired a test shot into the fire pit, put the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. 

It was a human tragedy. Morris left behind a wife, his children and what seemed like a promising and lucrative career as a corporate executive and Democratic fundraiser. 

For me, the lobbyist’s death was more than a sad story about a suicide. The story of Morris’s spectacular rise and fall in Washington helps show readers how lobbying has changed and how political power in Washington has shifted to corporate powerbrokers who can have more influence on public policy than government officials themselves. 

In other words, the story of how this up-and-coming lobbyist was able to swindle $25 million from his company shows how lobbying has changed over the years. That is the story we aim to tell.

Chris: How has lobbying changed?

Brody: When my brother Luke and I started working on this book, we thought that corporations had always held tremendous power in Washington – and that lobbying was an insider game played by well-connected corporate lobbyists who used cozy relationships developed over steak dinners and rounds of golf to get sweetheart deals for their well-heeled clients. 

We were wrong.

A few large corporations dominated the country in the period between the Civil War and World War II — think Standard Oil, JP Morgan, the railroad titans and other large corporate trusts. In the early part of the 1900s, Congress enacted anti-trust laws and established the Federal Trade Commission in order to restrain the growth and influence of large U.S. corporations. 

From FDR’s New Deal in the 1930s to LBJ’s Great Society in the 1960s, companies had very little influence in Washington. Few companies even had Washington lobbyists and there were few trade associations. Corporate executives largely thought the making of laws and federal regulations was something that people in Washington handled and that they had no business meddling in.

During that period, the size and reach of the federal government grew exponentially. Nearly every major federal agency, department and bureaucracy was created in this period, from the Securities and Exchange Commission to the National Highway Safety Administration. For the most part, industry didn’t fight the new rules and regulations. After all, the economy grew steadily during most of the 20^th century and corporations were making money.

That all changed in the 1970s. When stagflation put the U.S. economy in a nosedive, corporate profits evaporated and business executives began looking at Washington and the federal government as the root of their corporate woes. For the first time, companies began investing in Washington to push back on existing regulations and block new ones from being created. Companies hired lobbyists, opened offices in Washington to mount opposition to new regulations and began opening up political actions committees (PACs) to build relationships with both Democratic and Republican members of Congress. 

At first, successful corporate lobbyists had to know one of three people in Washington: The president, the Speaker of the House or the Senate Majority Leader. At the time, those three men were responsible for creating most of the laws in the country. But after Watergate, reformers elected to Congress sought to clean up Washington by moving power from the White House to Congress and from congressional leaders to committee and subcommittee chairman. By the early 1980s, more than 200 members of Congress held an important roles in shaping legislation as a chairman or ranking member of a committee or subcommittee.

Suddenly, having relationships with just three important lawmakers was not enough. Companies needed ties with all sorts of lawmakers on important committees.  This caused the number of lobbyists to explode as companies, trade associations and other industry groups needed access to all sorts of congressional panels. 

Lobbying has changed again in the past decade or so.  Due to a more scrutiny by the Capitol Hill press corps and vigorous opposition research by political opponents, lawmakers are no longer able to get away with doing favors for their friends on K Street. Indeed, lawmakers are loathe to support a corporate or industry priority unless it has (or they think it has) the support of a large number of the voters in their districts. Lobbyists know this. So a lot of lobbying these days is spent on broad public relations campaigns trying to get members of the public to support or oppose various industry priorities. Companies know that if a majority of voters support free trade bills or oppose liberal immigration policies, the lawmaker will follow. 

The new type of lobbying, which we refer to as the “outside game,” is where Evan Morris devoted most of his efforts and resources. But because this type of influence peddling does not need to be disclosed, exactly how this money is spent is unknown to the government, the public and even the companies themselves. That allowed Evan Morris to create fake lobbying efforts and a kickback scheme to line his own pockets. 

Chris: Lobbying and lobbyists have become bad words in the last 10-15 years. How did that happen? And does the profession deserve the negative reputation it now has?

Brody: There is nothing inherently wrong or illegal about corporate lobbying or lobbyists. In fact, lobbying and the right to “petition” the government are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The ability to make campaign donations to political candidates for office is also a protected right under the First Amendment. The Founding Fathers even foresaw that interest groups would form to try to influence public policy decisions. In the Federalist Papers, the founders called these “factions” and they envisioned a day when there would be factions that represented the interests of industry and factions that represented consumers, workers and regular Americans. These two groups and other factions were expected to be of roughly equal strength as they battled each other to shape the public policies made by the government. 

For most of our country’s history, the Founding Fathers were correct. Trade associations and industry groups battled with labor unions, environmental organizations and citizens’ groups. However, in the 50 years since corporate America first began fighting back against government regulations in the 1970s, the corporate lobby has grown so big and so powerful that it has all-but eviscerated other interest groups and voices impacting public policy. Labor unions have a fraction of the strength they enjoyed just a decade or two ago. Consumer groups don’t have the resources to fight against corporate America. Environmental and other interest groups are not as strong as they once were.

The result is that U.S. corporations and their lobbyists are often the only voice during public policy debates in Washington. As a result, for much of the past half-century, companies have had outsized influence on the rules and regulations created in Washington. 

That has caused many Democrats and an increasing number of populist Republicans to blame corporate lobbyists for many of today’s societal and economic problems.

Chris: Who is more powerful: the top lobbyist at a major firm or a rank and file member of Congress?  Why?

Brody: There is no question that corporate lobbyists have more power than rank and file members of Congress. (For one: Junior lawmakers have almost no power in Congress in the first place!) Top corporate lobbyists are the wizards behind the curtain manipulating the levers of power in Washington to get things done for corporate interests. When it comes to fundraising for elections, lawmakers rely on lobbyists and the corporate PACs they control to fund their campaigns. When it comes to drafting legislation, lawmakers and congressional aides turn to corporate lobbyists to learn complicated policy matters and write legislative language. And when it comes to their power-government careers, members of Congress and their staff know that someday they will leave government service and get much higher-paying jobs as corporate lobbyists or advisors. 

All that gives lobbyists more power and influence in Washington than most members of Congress. In the 1960s, President John F. Kennedy called on the best and the brightest in the United States to come to Washington to work for the government to make the country a better place. In a different era, Evan Morris was one of the country’s best and brightest. In college, he landed a prized internship in the White House under President Bill Clinton. There he saw first-hand the power of the presidency. But after law school, he worked as a summer associate at the powerful Washington law and lobbying firm of Patton Boggs. There he watched in awe as the masters-of-the-universe lobbyists worked behind the scenes to defeat several legislative priorities of President George W. Bush. Morris realized that real power in Washington had shifted from the government to corporate America.

So when Evan Morris graduated law school, he pursued a job not in government – but as a corporate lobbyist. 

Chris: Finish this sentence: The future of lobbying is _____.” Now explain.

Brody: The future of lobbying is “YOU.” 

The top job of a member of Congress is to get reelected. To win election, lawmakers need the support of 51% of the voters.  That means that lawmakers vote for any bill that they believe has the support of a majority of their constituents. 

Corporate lobbyists have realized this.  As a result, they are spending more and more of their time outside of Washington trying to persuade regular Americans (read: YOU) to support their priorities in Washington. When Google and the Big Tech industry wanted to block an anti-piracy law a few years back, they helped persuade millions of Internet users to call and email their members of Congress urging them to oppose the bill. (It worked). When the private-equity industry wanted Congress to block a proposed tax increase on investment managers, it drummed up support from business leaders and employees who told lawmakers that the tax hike would cost jobs in their districts. (It worked). And when cigarette manufacturers wanted to block a similar tax increase, lobbyists got retailers, police groups and civil rights organization to complain to lawmakers that the tax hike could create a black market for cigarettes that could lead to violent confrontations between African Americans and the police. (It worked.)

Members of Congress reflect the wishes of their voters. So corporations are now seeking to lobby those same voters.