Quotes & Sayings About Lobbyists

I have seen the times when the grassroots has moved the Congress. We listen way more often to our constituents than the lobbyists. And the grassroots are going to have to do it. — John Linder

President Bush insisted today that he was not caving in to big money contributors, big-time lobbyists, and overall industry pressure when he broke a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. But the air was thick today with accusations from people who believe that's exactly what happened. — Dan Rather

The ability of big money to shape perceptions - where you have four anti-climate lobbyists for every single member of the House and Senate - is a big factor. — Al Gore

These were lobbyists - many of them compensated quite handsomely not to react as human beings. — Ron Suskind

Real lobbying reform must end the practice of corporate lobbyists writing our laws. — Marty Meehan

I've never needed a lobbyist personally to put my case. I'd rather put my case myself. But I don't understand how other people look at things. A lot of people in business haven't been involved in politics. They are frightened of ministers and the whole procedure. It's not something to be frightened of. It's something to go in and realise that people who go into politics, regardless of being Labor, Liberal or Nationals, primarily go in to serve the community. — Clive Palmer

Iowa has sent notice that the Republican nominee for the next president of the United States will not be chosen by the media. Will not be chosen by the Washington establishment. Will not be chosen by the lobbyists. But will be chosen by the most incredible powerful force, where all sovereignty resides in our nation by we the people. — Ted Cruz

The corporations have become our government. They're not just influential. Department by department, you name it, they put their people in high government positions, they have 10,000 PACs and 35,000 lobbyists, so there's no more opening to be heard. — Ralph Nader

Many of the earmark request forms are actually filled out by lobbyists and then just turned in by the member's staff to the appropriations committee. — Jeff Flake

After all, they (the pro-vaccine lobbyists) say to themselves, you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. But the eggs being broken are small, helpless, and innocent babies, while the omelette is being enjoyed by the pediatricians and vaccine manufacturers. — Harris L Coulter

There is something uniquely depressing about the fact that the National Portrait Gallery's version of the Barack Obama 'Hope' poster previously belonged to a pair of lobbyists. Depressing because Mr. Obama's Washington was not supposed to be the lobbyists' Washington, the place we learned to despise during the last administration. — Thomas Frank

Coal and oil lobbyists added fossil fuels to a bill aimed at helping American manufacturers, so they too could claim 'manufacturing' tax deductions. — Bernie Sanders

GM [genetically modified] plants are virtually everywhere in the US food chain, but don't have to be labeled, and aren't. Industry lobbyists intend to keep it that way. — Barbara Kingsolver

Too often government responds to the whispers of lobbyists before the cries of the people. — Andrew Cuomo

I have had lobbyists, and I have had some very good ones. They could do anything. — Donald Trump

The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation. — Ron Wyden

My sense of American politics is that most of our politicians are for sale, whether they are out and out crooked, or simply beholden to corporate interests because they've taken so much money from their lobbyists. — Kam Williams

Giving people favors is a time-honored way of gaining loyalty. Pharmaceutical reps do it. The salespeople manning cosmetic counters do it. Lobbyists do it. Men with big crushes on impossibly beautiful women do it. Gifts work on our feelings in a couple of ways: they change the way we experience something, and they push our "reciprocate!" button. When we have the mandate to be objective and an incentive not to be, our biases often win the day-even if we don't think they will. Favors deeply affect our preferences and our loyalties. — Dan Ariely

The small stuff matters. The company that became the largest and most powerful in history isn't a military contractor or a car company. It isn't the result of savvy lobbyists in Washington, or the happenstance of controlling the supply of petroleum, or some kind of cabal that is beyond the understanding of ordinary people. The largest and most powerful company in history is built by each of us handing over three single dollar bills over and over again. — Charles Fishman

We work for the families back home, we do not work for the lobbyists that prowl the halls of the capital building, do not forget who we work for. — Brian Schweitzer

We have organized lobbyists in favor of Israel. You can't open your mouth. I can call the president of the United States anything in the book, but if you say one thing about Israel, and you're off limits. — Helen Thomas

Today the game is rigged - rigged to work for those who have money and power. Big corporations hire armies of lobbyists to get billion-dollar loopholes into the tax system and persuade their friends in Congress to support laws that keep the playing field tilted in their favor. Meanwhile, hardworking families are told that they'll just have to live with smaller dreams for their children. — Elizabeth Warren

Jack Abramoff is going to testify against some of the other weasels in Congress. A lobbyist testifying against congressmen? How many Bibles are going to burst into flames in that courtroom? — Jay Leno

The Prime Minister, a specialist in calling in the locksmith after the horses had fled - the whole herd in fact - and the barn in ruins, ended the week with a great raft of ethics proposals for cabinet, leadership candidates, backbenchers and lobbyists. I think it is more than fair to ask: Why wait for the middle of his third term to institute what the public would have welcomed at the beginning of his first? — Rex Murphy

Democracy is only good for a society where individuals are educated and have the ability to differentiate right from wrong without any influences from the outside. India is the biggest democracy in the world, yet, why is it so venal, divided and poor? America is the greatest democracy of the world, yet, it only has two main political parties, which are heavily influenced by lobbyists from religious groups, and powerful institutions like businesses, trade unions and think-tanks. In contrast, China is a nation ruled by one party, yet it has prospered during the last three decades, which is nothing less than a miracle. No other country on earth has ever achieved that feat. No system is good or bad for all. I am not saying democracy is bad, but it is not good for all. It can be good or bad for certain periods of time, circumstances and societies. There is no such thing as one idea fits all."

FROM MY NO.7 BOOK COMING SOON.... — Tim I. Gurung

The trickle-down experiment that began in the Reagan years failed America's middle class. Sure, the rich are doing great. Giant corporations are doing great. Lobbyists are doing great. But we need an economy where everyone else who works hard gets a shot at doing great! — Elizabeth Warren

I will never be an insider. I want to be the champion of people who don't have insiders and lobbyists supporting them. — Pat Quinn

Within the narrow confines of Permanent Washington - the journalists, lobbyists, and congressional lifers who are the city's avatars of centrism and continuity - Ford is considered the beau ideal of American leadership. — Timothy Noah

Having been a lobbyist myself you can't overstate how easy it is to get things done your way. It's a complicated policy and many lobbyists are trying to wreck amendments as we speak. — Bryony Worthington, Baroness Worthington

They were easy to distinguish from one another, these two groups. The voters wore frowns and invariably seemed lost. The lobbyists were the ones with the Cheshire Cat grins who navigated the halls more confidently than even the newly elected. — Hugh Howey

Recently, lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry wrote a prescription drug bill that increased their profits and did nothing to help seniors. The result: seniors are stuck with a confusing prescription drug plan that does little to help them with their costs. — Marty Meehan

Most financiers, corporate lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants are competing with other financiers, lawyers, lobbyists, and management consultants in zero-sum games that take money out of one set of pockets and put it into another. — Robert Reich

Poor people have sh*tty lobbyists. — Jon Stewart

Even though the Koch brothers' businesses put 4.4 million people at risk with pollutants, the Kochs have poured millions into lobbyists' coffers and political contributions to ensure their bottom line stays unchanged by the most basic safety precaution. — Robert Greenwald

While big-business leaders and firms can be highly productive, servants of consumers in a free market economy, they are also all too often, seekers after subsidies, contracts, privileges, or cartels furnished by big government. Often, business lobbyists and leaders are the sparkplugs for the statist, interventionist system. — Murray Rothbard

Yesterday, John McCain actually said that if he's president that he'll take on, and I quote, 'the old boys network in Washington.' Now I'm not making this up. This is somebody who's been in Congress for twenty-six years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign. And now he tells us that he's the one who's gonna' to take on the old boys network. The old boys network? In the McCain campaign that's called a staff meeting. Come, on! — Barack Obama

The average American doesn't realize how much of the laws are written by lobbyists. — Eric Schmidt

In his first speech as Speaker, Boehner thanked his loved ones - tobacco lobbyists, the oil companies, the CEOs. — Jay Leno

When there's a vacuum of public input, lobbyists usually fill it. But when there's public input, the people usually win. — Morgan Carroll

Lobbyists know that a 0 percent tax rate on capital income is not, in fact, the lowest possible rate. There can be negative tax rates. There can be subsidies. There can be allowances for depreciation. Lobbyists are adaptive creatures. — Joel Achenbach

Doesn't the Federal Farm bill help out all these poor farmers?
No. It used to, but ever since its inception just after the Depression, the Federal Farm Bill has slowly been altered by agribusiness lobbyists. It is now largely corporate welfare ... It is this, rather than any improved efficiency or productiveness, that has allowed corporations to take over farming in the United States, leaving fewer than a third of our farms still run by families.
But those family-owned farms are the ones more likely to use sustainable techniques, protect the surrounding environment, maintain green spaces, use crop rotations and management for pest and weed controls, and apply fewer chemicals. In other words, they're doing exactly what 80 percent of U.S. consumers say we would prefer to support, while our tax dollars do the opposite. — Barbara Kingsolver

This is one of the truths of the influence industry in Britain: lobbyists are central to the process of government. To see lobbyists as separate and external to the system is a mistake. Rather than being parasitical, lobbyists should more accurately be viewed as essential to it, subsidising it even. As lobbying activity has increased, so our government has become ever more dependent on lobbyists to function. 'Our vaunted constitution is really a framework of lobbying', Austin Mitchell MP remarked twenty years ago.18 — Tamasin Cave

We have depended on government for so much for so long that we as people have become less vigilant of our liberties. As long as the government provides largesse for the majority, the special interest lobbyists will succeed in continuing the redistribution of welfare programs that occupies most of Congress's legislative time. — Ron Paul

The role of campaign contributions in our political system and the role of lobbyists have now reached levels that are quite unhealthy for the operations of our democracy. But the antidote, as in past eras of lobbyist excess, is for more involvement by citizens to build pressure on members of the House and Senate to serve the public interest. — Al Gore

What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists. — Paul Krugman

Inequality also distorts our democracy. It gives an outsized voice to the few who can afford high-priced lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions, and runs the risk of selling out our democracy to the highest bidder. And it leaves everyone else rightly suspicious that the system in Washington is rigged against them - that our elected representatives aren't looking out for the interests of most Americans. — Barack Obama

The White House softball team played the pro-marijuana lobbyists' team and lost 25-3. Still no word yet on which side President Obama played for. — Jay Leno

Some of the environmental lobbyists of the Western nations are the salt of the earth, but many of them are elitists. They've never experienced the physical sensation of hunger. They do their lobbying from comfortable office suites in Washington or Brussels. If they lived just one month amid the misery of the developing world, as I have for fifty years, they'd be crying out for tractors and fertilizer and irrigation canals and be outraged that fashionable elitists back home were trying to deny them these things. — Norman Borlaug

If you look at all the lobbyists in Washington, this is not a democracy. This is ruled by special interest groups. That includes the military, the pharmaceutical industry, the people who produce mechanized debt, GMO foods. We are prisoners. — Deepak Chopra

Cap and trade generates special interests, lobbyists, and trading schemes, yielding non-productive millionaires, all at public expense. The public is fed up with such business. Tax with 100% dividend, in contrast, would spur our economy, while aiding the disadvantaged, the climate, and our national security. — James Hansen

There are good people in the lobbying industry. Lobbyists can serve a very useful purpose. — Kevin Spacey

...it was easy to forget that Washington was just another glum city of government, like Albany or Sacramento, legislators and lobbyists and bureaucrats and their clerks working and reworking the sodden language of government in order to distribute the spoils. — Ward Just

Global poverty is the product of reversible policy failures overseen by politicians, past and present. The poorest of the poor don't vote in American or European elections. They don't make donations to political parties or hire lobbyists in D.C., London or Canberra. — Hugh Evans

Too many economists excuse their practical failure by saying "the politicians (or bureaucrats) didn't do exactly what I recommended." Just as medical practitioners must allow for the fact that their patients may not take all the pills they prescribe, or follow all the advice they are given, so economics practitioners need to foresee political and administrative pressures and make their plans robust to changes that politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists are likely to impose. — Paul Klemperer

The judge turned his back towards me, sitting back on his judge's chair, while I was in the witness stand being questioned. The whole courtroom was full of these anarchists, leftists, communists and Jewish lobbyists. — Ernst Zundel

Our current tax code is one that was designed by and for the benefit of politicians and lobbyists. It punishes achievement and rewards laziness. It punishes the voting blocks unimportant to politicians, and rewards voting blocks who keep them in office. — Neal Boortz

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell needs to get business lobbyists in a car and drive them around with a gun to their heads for an hour, explaining: We can give you regulatory reform, OSHA reform, tax relief, tort reform. But if we give you immigration, we won't be in a position to give you anything else, ever again, and you'll have to take your chances with Nancy Pelosi. The Chamber of Commerce has got to learn: You can't have it all. — Ann Coulter

Factory-farm lobbyists are so powerful and so well funded and they do everything in their power to hide the truth about farming. They keep the farms and slaughterhouses in places that most people never visit; they execute huge marketing campaigns in an effort to make animal production look like a happy, nice, benign institution. — Moby

Lobbyists in Washington are making six figure salaries selling our government out to the corporate interests and we just sit and smile as if nothing is happening while the poor folks are getting poorer and their pharmaceutical bills rise. — Hal Holbrook

Alexi Giannoulias' top aide was a longtime BP lobbyist. — Mark Kirk

If we'd had government on [today's] scale in the 1840s, the stagecoaches would have hired lobbyists to get a bill passed that railroads could not travel faster than a horse because it would be an unfair competitive advantage. — Newt Gingrich

If you're looking for someone to go to Washington, to go along to get along, to get - to agree with the career politicians in both parties who get in bed with the lobbyists and special interests, then I ain't your guy. — Ted Cruz

The military-industrial complex corporations never complain of higher prices for bombs, planes, drones, and missiles. They benefit when prices rise and when cost overruns are covered with more money from the US Treasury. Those who profit are the greatest champions of the military readiness and armed conflict. They are represented by lobbyists who greatly influence both political parties. Corporate war profits and high union wages bring about remarkable cooperation between the two parties despite the political rhetoric suggesting passionate disagreement. And these militaristic policies are defended with patriotic zeal, and in appeals regarding our moral obligation to take care of all the world's needs and to meet our obligation to spread our "goodness" around the world. — Ron Paul

I've made it clear that I'm not taking special interest PAC money or accepting donations from lobbyists - ever. I want to represent the interests of the citizens. — Stephen Pagliuca

Because the Second Amendment is an incomprehensible mess, because too many lobbyists have argued that it is an absolute protection of actions and items never considered at the time of our nation's founding, and because there is a clear state interest in protecting the lives of its citizens, the words must be removed from the Constitution. — Kurt Eichenwald

The blight of office cubes housing lawyers and lobbyists had popped up like chokeweeds in the manicured lawn of the family homestead. — B.V. Lawson

Lobbyists are in many cases expert technicians and capable of explaining complex and difficult subjects in a clear, understandable fashion. They engage in personal discussions with Members of Congress in which they can explain in detail the reasons for positions they advocate. Because our congressional representation is based on geographical boundaries, the lobbyists who speak for the various economic, commercial, and other functional interests of this country serve a very useful purpose and have assumed an important role in the legislative process. — John F. Kennedy

The air is dirty because of the electricity monopolists. They have powerful money lobbyists. — Sam Wyly

Lobbying is a legitimate profession ... Many congressional spouses act as lobbyists. — Patricia Schroeder

The Bankers' New Clothes makes a simple, powerful argument: that banks need to raise more capital. It is entirely persuasive that the extent of their leverage makes the financial system fragile, and it clearly and patiently demolishes all the counter-arguments made by the banks and their lobbyists. — Diane Coyle

Mostly, the people in "the room" are paid lobbyists representing interests that could afford to pay them. No wonder policy isn't being made that helps smaller, independent musicians or those unaffiliated with a larger entity. — Erin McKeown

Nowhere else in the world do the laws on firearms become the playthings of politicians and lobbyists intent on manufacturing cultural conflict. Nowhere else do elected officials turn the matter of taking a gun to church into a searing ideological question. But then, guns are not a religion in most countries. — E. J. Dionne

Barack Obama's large contributor was Goldman Sachs - same thing on the Republican side. If you go to both their conventions, you see the same lobbyists paying off both sides so they win either way. — Jesse Ventura

In the 1970s, 3 percent of retiring members became lobbyists. Thirty years later, that number has increased by an order of magnitude. Between 1998 and 2004, more than 50 percent of senators and 42 percent of House members made that career transition. — Lawrence Lessig

Lobbyists really are experts in their fields and know what they are talking about. That's why the government always listens to them as they tell the government what it's doing wrong and what it should be doing instead ... — Gail Collins

The institution of the family has very few friends in Washington. There are lobbyists in Washington for every possible entity, from the possum-growers of America to every kind of crazy thing. There's somebody in Washington paid to advance the cause of that particular business, but there's not a lot of support for the family. — James Dobson

The corporations who invest in lobbyists, it pays in terms of tax loopholes, tax subsidies, all the rest. It pays. Clearly, the money has a big effect. — Mark Shields

Lobbyists have more offices in Washington than the President. You see, the President only tells Congress what they should do. Lobbyists tell'em what they will do. — Will Rogers

If you can't drink a lobbyist's whiskey, take his money, sleep with his women and still vote against him in the morning, you don't belong in politics. — Brian Redman

Eliminate lobbyists. Eliminate polls. It might even eliminate Congress. If we can know the will of the people at any time, without filter, without misinterpretation or bastardization, wouldn't it eliminate much of Washington? — Dave Eggers

Lobbying is not a bad thing. I'm not trying to say that we shouldn't have lobbyists or we shouldn't have lobbying to petition our government. It's in the Constitution, and it's something that should be honorable and good. — Jack Abramoff

Mr. President, the buzz saw that your healthcare bill ran into wasn't lobbyists and special interests it was tens of millions of American's who were saying, 'Stop!' — John Boehner

There is more to American politics than fat cats and their political friends. There are serious-minded liberals who fight the good fight on many issues, ecologically oriented politicians who remain true to their cause, and honest people of every political stripe who are not beholden to any wealthy people. But there are not enough of them, and they are often worn down by the constant pressure from lobbyists, lawyers and conventional politicians. — G. William Domhoff

Lobbyists didn't descend from a spaceship. They evolved organically from the way we do business. — Christopher Buckley

The court follows elite opinion, not public opinion. And Democratic leaders in Congress and Republican leaders in Congress follow elite opinion as well. It's what I've called "the Washington cartel." It's career politicians in both parties. It is lobbyists and giant corporations. — Ted Cruz

Lobbyist influence comes from access, not money. — Barack Obama

Under a system in which no single question is submitted to the electorate for direct decision, an ardent minority for or against a particular measure may often count for more than an apathetic majority. — Patrick, Baron Devlin

Desperate times require desperate measures. What Lincoln and the Lobbyist for the Amendment and the Manager of the Amendment and himself, what they did to get this passed was not illegal. It was murky, but what they did was noble and grand. How they went about it was somewhat murky, but nothing they did was really illegal. — Steven Spielberg

So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians'] — Stephen Colbert

Today it is difficult to find leaders who are independent of the forces that have brought us our problems: The Congress, the bureaucracy, the lobbyists, big business, and big labor. — Ronald Reagan

Young women need to know that abortion rights and abortion access are not presents bestowed or retracted by powerful men (or women) - Presidents, Supreme Court justices, legislators, lobbyists - but freedoms won, as freedom always is, by people struggling on their own behalf. — Katha Pollitt

Many other raw food products--notably poultry from CAFOs--typically carry a much higher threat to human health in terms of pathogen load, and yet the government trusts us to render it safe in our own humble kitchens. But it's easy to see how impossibly strict milk rules might gratify industry lobbyists, by eliminating competition from family producers. — Barbara Kingsolver

What does a political revolution look like? It means that 80 percent of the people vote in national elections, not 40 percent. It means that billionaires can't make unlimited campaign contributions and buy and sell politicians. It means that the U.S. government represents the needs of all the people, not just the 1 percent and their lobbyists. — Bernie Sanders

There are no lobbyists for the American Dream. — Arianna Huffington

The government regulates them, or chooses not to, approves or blocks their mergers and acquisitions, and sets their tax policies (often turning a blind eye to the billions parked in offshore tax havens). This is why tech companies, like the rest of corporate America, inundate Washington with lobbyists and quietly pour hundreds of millions of dollars in contributions into the political system. Now they're gaining the wherewithal to fine-tune our political behavior - and with it the shape of American government - just by tweaking their algorithms. — Cathy O'Neil

The partnership is part of a flourishing industry that pairs plaintiffs' lawyers with state attorneys general to sue companies, a collaboration that has set off a furious competition between trial lawyers and corporate lobbyists to influence these officials. — Anonymous

All American politicians are bought and paid for by American lobbyists. We no longer have representative government here. We breed monsters like Kissinger and Nixon and Ronnie Reagan. Our senate and congress are run by pay-offs and special interest money. And the fun part is that most Americans are asleep about it. Give 'em a new SUV and a good J-Lo or Tom Cruise kung-fu flick and a few jolly abortion clinic bombing news clips on the six o'clock news and everybody seems to stay content. Wasn't it Churchill that said any society gets exactly the government it deserves? — Dan Fante

Washington, of course, aside from being one of the most mismanaged, crime-ridden cities on the planet, is a place where 535 federal legislators and about 38,000 lobbyists work at confiscating and redistributing the incomes of the American people. — Charley Reese

Air Force officials appear to be more concerned with appeasing the powerful Religious Right lobbyists who have argued against any guidelines that seek to respect and protect the rights of all cadets
not just those adhering to majority religious beliefs. — Barry W. Lynn

These days, nearly everyone claims to be democratic. I have even heard it claimed that the Chinese Communist Party is democratic. 'Capitalist', by contrast, is a word too often used as a term of abuse to be much heard in polite company. How do the institutions of the democratic state and those of the market economy relate to one another? Do corporations play an active part in politics, through lobbyists and campaign contributions? Do governments play an active part in economic life, through subsidies, tariffs and other market-distorting devices, or through regulation? What is the right balance to be struck — Niall Ferguson