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Companies and groups last year increased their spending on Washington lobbying to a level not seen in nearly a decade, according to the latest disclosures.
The outlays to influence the federal government hit $3.47 billion in 2019, the biggest total since 2010’s spending of $3.51 billion. The annual figures, shown in the chart below, come from a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of lobbying disclosures filed through last week.
The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and subsequent efforts to “get extenders and clarifications passed” have been big drivers in the rise in lobbying spending since 2016, said Jeff Hauser, founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, which aims to track corporate political influence and is part of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a left-leaning think tank. There also has been considerable lobbying around drug pricing, tariffs and other trade issues, immigration and Big Tech matters.
Hauser also said the Trump administration seems to be signalling that “lobbying is nothing to be ashamed of” as many former lobbyists have executive-branch jobs, and at the same time more people might be disclosing their lobbying activities now that former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort is in prison after failing to register as a foreign agent.
So how does the increase in lobbying spending square with President Donald Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp?”
“I think Trump is redefining what the term ‘swamp’ means,” Hauser said. “It was initially understood to be excessive influence of money on politics, but I think the term has morphed in how it is understood on the right. Now it means entrenched people in Washington, especially progressives.”
The White House and Trump’s re-election campaign didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
A recording that surfaced last week sheds light on some current approaches to Washington lobbying, even as it mostly got attention for its implications in Trump’s ongoing impeachment trial. The tape — which was released by a lawyer for Lev Parnas, an indicted associate of Rudy Giuliani — features donors to a Trump super PAC making requests such as backing for a 500-mile highway that would be used just by self-driving trucks, a New York Times report said. Another donor pushed the president to further limit steel imports.
When using numbers adjusted for inflation, lobbying spending last year rose to an eight-year high, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Meanwhile, the number of registered lobbyists hit a six-year high in 2019, though the center has warned that there is rampant “shadow lobbying” in Washington, meaning undisclosed activities.
The peak lobbying spending in 2009 and 2010 was driven in large part by efforts to influence “Obamacare” and the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, as well as cap-and-trade legislation and the Employee Free Choice Act, the Revolving Door Project’s Hauser said.
