Posted March 7, 2008 by Tara Malloy NAM Sues to Keep Public In the DarkIn the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal and the many related (and unrelated) convictions of Members of Congress and staffers, rarely did one hear the argument that lobbyists should operate in greater secrecy or with less accountability. Yet this is precisely the position asserted by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) in its lawsuit challenging Section 207 of the recently-enacted Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA). The challenged provision requires a lobbying coalition, like NAM, to disclose in its lobbying registration those member organizations that fund and actively participate in the coalition’s legislative advocacy efforts. Prior to the passage of HLOGA, special interest groups regularly evaded lobbying disclosure by creating umbrella coalitions to conceal the real interests behind a lobbying effort. The public would receive information that an association named, for example, “Citizens for a Better Tomorrow,” was making expenditures to influence legislation, but remain in the dark about the key players who funded and ran the association. In fact, the Congressional Research Service found in 2002 that there was limited or no information available about the membership of 135 registered lobbying coalitions and associations. HLOGA attempts to change this. Section 207 requires the disclosure of all coalition members that contribute more than $5,000 in a quarter to fund the coalition’s lobbying activities and that “actively participate in the planning, supervision or control” of such lobbying. NAM now argues that this modest disclosure provision will open a Pandora’s Box of “adverse consequences” for its members, including “mob violence,” labor disputes, boycotts, shareholder suits and “other forms of harassment.” Never mind that NAM fails to offer a single instance where NAM or a member organization has suffered harassment for their lobbying activities – NAM still maintains that fear of these consequences will “chill participation by the NAM’s members who have good reason not to be publicly connected to the association’s lobbying activities,” thereby infringing upon their First Amendment freedoms. Last Friday, the Campaign Legal Center, along with Democracy 21 and Public Citizen, filed an amici brief in NAM’s lawsuit to defend the constitutionality of Section 207 of HLOGA. The amici brief argues that Supreme Court precedent makes clear that Section 207 serves the governmental interest in providing full disclosure of lobbying activity and in protecting the integrity of the legislative process. As the Supreme Court expressed in upholding the earlier Lobbying Disclosure Act: "Present-day legislative complexities are such that individual members of Congress cannot be expected to explore the myriad pressures to which they are regularly subjected. Yet full realization of the American ideal of government by elected representatives depends to no small extent on their ability to properly evaluate such pressures. …" "Toward that end, Congress has not sought to prohibit these pressures. It has merely provided for a modicum of information from those who for hire attempt to influence legislation or who collect or spend funds for that purpose."[1]
Following the principles articulated by the Supreme Court, Section 207 of HLOGA in no way restricts the lobbying activities of coalitions, nor limits the sources of their funding. The section does not even require the disclosure of individuals in a lobbying coalition, rather only organizations. Amici argue that Section 207 thus represents at most a marginal burden on First Amendment rights – one which is greatly outweighed by the state interest in achieving the “realization of the American ideal of government” through full and fair disclosure. The public deserves to know who is paying for a campaign to raise a tax, create a subsidy, or alter regulations. Organizations and corporations that stand to benefit from these changes are not entitled to bring them about anonymously. Every American has the constitutional right to petition their government, but Congress and the courts have also recognized the powerful “correlative interest of voters” in receiving the information necessary to “apprais[e] the integrity and performance of officeholders and candidates.”[2] [1] U.S. v. Harriss, 347 U.S. 612, 625-26 (1954) [2] Florida League of Prof'l Lobbyists, Inc. v. Meggs, 87 F.3d 457, 460 (11th Cir. 1996) (internal quotations omitted). |
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