If you may recall, President I didn't elect (P.I.D.E.)Obama had promised during his campaign that lobbyists "won't find a job in my White House." The Boston Globe reported today that P.I.D.E. Obama "would allow lobbyists on his transition team as long as they work on issues unrelated to their earlier jobs."
Obama's transition chief laid out ethics rules -- which also bar transition staffers from lobbying the administration for one year if they become lobbyists later -- and portrayed them as the strictest ever for a transfer of presidential power.
But independent analysts said that the move is less than the wholesale removal of lobbyists that he suggested during the campaign -- and shows how difficult it will be the lessen the influence of more than 40,000 registered lobbyists, who have become almost a fourth branch of government. (I believe P.I.D.E. Obama will find other difficulties to enact his Messiac (new word) message of "change." Instead the word may be changed to veer.)
"That is a step back and there is no other way of seeing it," said Craig Holman, who lobbies on governmental affairs for the watchdog group, Public Citizen.
During his campaign, Obama declared: "I have done more to take on lobbyists than any other candidate in this race. I don't take a dime of their money, and when I am president, they won't find a job in my White House."
That left unclear (how conveniently) whether he was referring to the relatively small number of staffers in the West Wing or to the hundreds of political appointees throughout an administration. Obama campaign's website said a lobbyist could join the administration as long as they didn't work on "regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years." He also proposed that political appointees would be prohibited from lobbying the executive branch for the remainder of the administration if they left.
During the campaign, Obama's anti-lobbyist rules also weren't ironclad. (But his flock were too enamored with his blinding aura.) His staff included some lobbyists, though his aides said they stopped all such activities once they joined the campaign full-time. He accepted fund-raising help from lobbyists registered with states and took money from associates and family members of federal lobbyists.
Hmmmmmmmm...sounds like the change may need a voucher....
