Wrapping Up

Interest group politics is inevitable.

Madison again:

As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.

 ...

Those who hold and those who are without property have ever formed distinct interests in society. Those who are creditors, and those who are debtors, fall under a like discrimination. A landed interest, a manufacturing interest, a mercantile interest, a moneyed interest, with many lesser interests, grow up of necessity in civilized nations, and divide them into different classes, actuated by different sentiments and views. The regulation of these various and interfering interests forms the principal task of modern legislation, and involves the spirit of party and faction in the necessary and ordinary operations of the government. 

Hamilton argues against representation by occupational category:

It is notorious that there are often as great rivalships between different branches of the mechanic or manufacturing arts as there are between any of the departments of labor and industry; so that, unless the representative body were to be far more numerous than would be consistent with any idea of regularity or wisdom in its deliberations, it is impossible that what seems to be the spirit of the objection we have been considering should ever be realized in practice.

 ABRAHAM LINCOLN DID LOBBYING.

And the First Amendment specifically protects the right to petition government:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Ethics Code for Lobbyists

Abramoff

After Abramoff came reforms (Drutman 226) with loopholes, as National Journal reports:

The 2007 rules pre­vent a lob­by­ist for a cor­por­ate cli­ent from plan­ning or pay­ing for a law­maker’s trip. But the same rules al­low such a trip if it’s paid for by a for­eign gov­ern­ment. So while it does re­main il­leg­al for, say, a Google lob­by­ist to plan and ac­com­pany a law­maker on a free trip abroad, if that same lob­by­ist does so on be­half of Tur­key, it’s per­fectly leg­al. And if that lob­by­ist hap­pens to have both cor­por­ate and for­eign-gov­ern­ment cli­ents (as most do), they can still go abroad so long as it’s a coun­try and not a com­pany foot­ing the bill.

And that’s only one of the loop­holes the in­flu­ence in­dustry has ex­ploited to help law­makers score free travel. Today, a wide net­work of non­profits — many with a clear agenda and some with ex­cru­ci­at­ingly tight ties to Wash­ing­ton’s biggest lob­by­ing op­er­a­tions — are put­ting to­geth­er in­ter­na­tion­al con­gres­sion­al ex­cur­sions. Some of these pa­per non­profits have no staff or space of their own; they simply share with a sis­ter or­gan­iz­a­tion that lob­bies. Yet eth­ics of­fi­cials in Con­gress have deemed them to be in­de­pend­ent enough. In one in­stance, a lob­by­ist lit­er­ally re­gistered a new non­profit — in his own of­fice — that went on to pay for con­gres­sion­al travel abroad.

Big cor­por­a­tions bank­roll some non­profits, whose trips, in turn, can fea­ture stops at the busi­nesses of their cor­por­ate fun­ders. As a bo­nus, the grow­ing use of 501(c)(3) non­profits, which oc­cupy the same char­it­able rung of the tax code as soup kit­chens and the Amer­ic­an Red Cross, means that the wealthy and cor­por­ate donors un­der­writ­ing con­gres­sion­al travel can do so in secret and get a tax write-off along the way.

Revolving door loopholes

Transparency loopholes

Reform:  a low-priority issue for the public

Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ new lobbying firm may be legal, but that doesn’t make it right

U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins’ decision to launch a lobbying and political strategy company before leaving office is deeply distasteful.

Jenkins set up her new firm in mid-November. “I’m pleased to share,” she wrote on Facebook, “that I have recently established LJ Strategies LLC, a consulting firm providing strategic analysis, comprehensive federal and state government relations, political consulting and association management.”

Federal law prohibits Jenkins from personal lobbying her former House colleagues for a year after she leaves office early next year. But she is free to lobby on state issues at any time.

Turning public service into lobbying cash is always a concern. But Jenkins’ decision to start a lobbying company before she even leaves Congress turns a troublesome revolving door into a wide open window of potential conflicts of interest. 

Butina/NRA Update

Tim Dickinson at Rolling Stone:

On Thursday in federal court in Washington, D.C., the jailed Russian national Maria Butina pleaded guilty to conspiring against the United States under the direction of a Russian official.

According to the feds, Butina’s partners in this conspiracy included the official (widely identified as the former Russian senator and central banker Alexander Torshin) and Person 1, known to be Butina’s boyfriend and longtime GOP operative Paul Erickson.

The “Statement of Offense” released by the court reads in part: “With U.S. Person 1’s assistance and subject to Russian Official’s direction, Butina sought to establish unofficial lines of communication with Americans having power and influence over U.S. politics. Butina sought to use those unofficial lines of communication for the benefit of the Russian Federation.”

Judge Tanya Chutkan found Butina competent to deliver her plea Thursday and warned her she could be deported after sentencing. Summarizing the charges against Butina, Judge Chutkan spoke of Butina leveraging her contacts with a gun rights organization in an attempt to influence “Political Party #1” — the GOP.

The guilty plea adds a criminal overlay to the years-long effort by Butina and Torshin to infiltrate the National Rifle Association, leveraging the gun group’s leadership and its annual conventions to gain influence with top Republicans and the Trump family. A Rolling Stone expose in April detailed the history and scope of the operation. Torshin has since been hit by sanctions and barred from entering the United States. Butina was arrested in July and has been jailed without bail since.

Thoughts from CMC alum Tina Nguyen 

Revolving Door

Byron Tau at The Wall Street Journal:

Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is weighing the creation of a consulting firm when he leaves government after being ousted by voters in last month’s midterm elections.

Mr. Rohrabacher, who has represented a California district in Congress for three decades, has told senior staff and other acquaintances in recent weeks that he plans to form a company called R&B Strategies with top aide Paul Behrends, according to people familiar with the matter.

A spokesman for Mr. Rohrabacher, who represents Orange County, said the lawmaker hasn’t decided what he will do, but the spokesman didn’t deny the conversations and said forming a company is one of many options the congressman is considering.

The spokesman, Ken Grubbs, said Mr. Rohrabacher’s only definite plans are to move to Maine after the current session of Congress ends in early January and newly elected lawmakers are sworn in.

Mr. Rohrabacher is one of the many lawmakers expected to go to work in lobbying or consulting when they leave government in January. Dozens of Republicans retired or lost their seats this year, making for a crowded post-government employment market for many lawmakers.

Philip Wegmann at The Washington Examiner:

Rep. Lynn Jenkins, R-Kan., is leaving Congress, but she's not going very far. She is cashing out and turning to lobbying after a decade in Congress.

Unfortunately, this isn’t unusual: the career arc of many a politician runs from Capitol Hill through K Street. The difference is Jenkins isn’t waiting around. She announced the opening of her own lobbying shop with six weeks left as representative for the 2nd Congressional District of Kansas.

This gives Jenkins time to attract potential clientele during while still voting on issues of import.

Ethics laws prohibit Jenkins from making lobbying contacts for a year after leaving office. But she can still run a lobbying shop and supervise and employ lobbyists.

“This is an egregious abuse of the revolving door,” Craig Holman of Public Citizen told McClatchy, “I suspect she’s being coached as to how to dance around the law, but it certainly violates the spirit of the revolving door law itself.”

Giuliani Time

Kennath P. Vogel at NY Times:

The special counsel’s investigation was grinding relentlessly onward, with President Trump’s former national security adviser pleading for leniency in his case and his former fixer about to be sentenced for his crimes. But Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, was in Manama, Bahrain, on Tuesday, meeting with the king and the interior minister of an important United States ally in the Middle East.

The government-run Bahrain News Agency featured a photo of Mr. Giuliani meeting in a royal palace with King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa. The story said the king discussed “Bahraini-U. S. relations” with Mr. Giuliani, who was described as leading a “high-level U.S. delegation.”

But Mr. Giuliani was not in Bahrain, a country with a record of human rights abuses, on official business. He was there to seek a lucrative security consulting contract with the government.

The trip was part of a concerted push Mr. Giuliani has undertaken in the last few weeks to win business from governments around the world — including in Africa and South America — for a firm he owns called Giuliani Security and Safety.

In his role representing Mr. Trump in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, Mr. Giuliani is not a government employee, and is not subject to government ethics rules, including prohibitions on outside work.

But as his visit to Bahrain showed, Mr. Giuliani’s various interests can lead to confusion over the nature of his role. And foreign officials who have reason to want to get in or stay in the Trump administration’s good graces could view hiring Mr. Giuliani’s firm as a good way of doing so, according to ethics watchdogs.

Shakeup at L.A. County Sheriff's Department Draws Ire of Unions

Alex Villanueva began his term as Los Angeles County Sheriff by immediately removing 18 top executives within the department. He has told all lieutenants, captains and commanders on his staff to hand in forms that detail their years of experience. The fill-in-the-blank résumés will be used to determine whether the officials will remain in their position, or be reassigned, including to lower levels for a set period of time. In an even more jarring move, Villanueva has told the supervisors to temporarily remove a part of their uniforms some of them have worked decades to earn: the gold pins on their collars to indicate their rank. While Villanueva said these moves are intended to shake up conventional thinking among the top brass, others believe it is not only demoralizing but potentially dangerous. "If we had a riot... there would be chaos. There would be no leadership. There would be confusion about who's in charge," said Lt. Brian Moriguchi, president of the Professional Peace Officers Association, the union that represents sergeants, lieutenants and other department staff. The PPOA directly opposed Villanueva's election. This move does not directly affect rank-and-file deputies, whose union, the Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, supported Villanueva's campaign. With these moves, Villanueva is making good on his campaign promise to shake up the department. In a historic upset, he beat incumbent Sheriff Jim McDonnell, the first time an incumbent sheriff in L.A. had lost their seat in more than a century. Villanueva, a Democrat, characterized McDonnell as a Republican (although he is an independent), capitalizing on the county's disdain for President Trump. "We owe a lot of [our success] to Trump... Where did Democrats in L.A. County have to go to express their displeasure with Trump?" said Javier Gonzalez, the campaign strategist for Citizens PAC, a group that channeled funding from labor organizations, including the Services Employees International Union, to promote Villanueva.

Illegal coordination between Trump and NRA

Trump's campaign is being accused of illegally coordinating with the NRA. During the election the campaign hired an ad placing agency, American Media & Advocacy Group, which is affiliated with the agency hired by the NRA. Their ads were signed off by the same person and their was no real separation between who was working on the ads.

Targets of U.S. Sanctions Hire Lobbyists With Trump Ties to Seek Relief

In fact, the reception was part of an aggressive $8 million lobbying and public relations campaign that used lobbyists with ties to the Trump administration to try to ease concerns about the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, whose government was facing threats of additional sanctions from the Trump administration for human rights abuses and corruption.

The lavish cocktail party was one example of a lucrative and expanding niche within Washington’s influence industry. As President Trump’s administration has increasingly turned to sanctions, travel restrictions and tariffs to punish foreign governments as well as people and companies from abroad, targets of those measures have turned for assistance to Washington’s K Street corridor of law, lobbying and public relations firms.

Wrapup I

A remarkable moment this morning:




The NRA and Maria Butina

Saudi Arabia

• Cultivating Kushner
• Exploiting Veterans

 Lobbying for Dictators

Bias

From Berry & Wilcox, p. 227:

"How great is the bias of the interest group society, and what are the consequences of that bias?"

From September 13:

"The flaw in the pluralist heaven is that the heavenly chorus sings with a strong upper-class accent." E. E. Schattschneider, The Semi-Sovereign People (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960).

From Callahan, p. 288:

"The claim that philanthropy advances pluralism is largely persuasive.  But pluralism is not the same as civic equality.  While philanthropists may support lots of different views and ideas, we're still talking about an America where public debates have become heavily choreographed by wealthy actors without real constituencies."

Types of inequalities

Wealth
Education and participation





The Public and Private Sectors




From the Census:

• Of the 3,142 counties in the United States, median household income declined in 222 counties (7.1 percent), while median household income increased in 521 counties (16.6 percent) when comparing 2013-2017 five-year estimates with 2008-2012 estimates. For the 2013 to 2017 period, among the geographic areas with 10,000 people or more, the locations with the highest and lowest median household incomes were:
• By county and county equivalent: Loudoun County, Va.; Fairfax County, Va.; Howard County, Md.; Falls Church City, Va.; and Arlington County, Va., were among the highest counties by median household income.

Who Speaks for the Future?

Google Lobbying Update

From CBS:

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is defending his company's efforts to protect the privacy of users and denying accusations of political bias as he testifies before Congress Tuesday morning. The hearing in the House Judiciary Committee began at 10 a.m., with House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy telling Pichai that there is a "widening gap of distrust" between tech companies and the American people. McCarthy also said he is concerned Google's business practices may have been influenced by employees' political bias against conservatives.

The chairman of the committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Virginia, told Pichai, "I think it is fair to say that most Americans have no idea the sheer volume of information that is collected. Today, I hope to get answers on the extent of data collection and use by Google."

The committee's top Democrat, New York Rep. Jerrold Nadler called the notion of bias a "delusion" and "right-wing conspiracy theory." Nadler says Tuesday's hearing is the House Judiciary Committee's fourth one to address political bias. He says lawmakers should instead examine issues such as the spread of misinformation and Russia's efforts to influence U.S. elections online.

Harvard Orientation for Freshman Lawmakers Faces Criticism

Incoming Democratic lawmakers criticized the lack of labor representation at Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics Bipartisan Orientation Program, a traditionally unconventional affair that has hosted more than 700 Members of Congress since 1972. Hosted last week, the optional event is pitched as a way for incoming lawmakers to learn about life on Capitol Hill. The event included sessions with former lawmakers, lobbyists, and CEOs (including Boeing chair Dennis Muilenburg). Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley, and others were angered by the lack of labor leaders present and comments made by certain panelists on issues of importance to them. Rep.-elect Rashida Tlaib was told by GM CEO Mary Barra that laid off workers who live in her Detroit-based district could still seek employment at a plant in Flint, more than an hour's drive away.

Switzerland Gun Policy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjlT4BME2aE&feature=youtu.be

More Followups

Via Jessie:

Lorraine Woellert and Sarah Owermohle at Politico:

Facing lawsuits from parents of teenage vaping-product users and threats of crackdowns from regulators over kid-friendly packaging and flavors, Juul Labs has gone on a hiring spree on K Street, ramping up its lobbying spending fourfold in recent months.

The San Francisco company that’s become synonymous with vaping — “juuling” is now a verb — has hired political hands in Washington and started a political action committee that has donated to members of Congress and state attorney-general candidates.
Twenty years after four big tobacco companies reached a massive settlement with 46 states over smoking-related health problems and marketing issues — which was followed by a series of tighter restrictions and led to the rapid decline of the industry in the United States — Juul is frantically trying to avoid a similar fate.

“You’ve got the impression that they’re scrambling. I would be,” said Liz Mair, a spokesperson for Vapers United, a coalition of e-cigarette users and vape shops.

Jeff Stein at The Washington Post:

Harvard’s orientation for new members of Congress is pitched as a way for incoming lawmakers to learn about life on Capitol Hill, but some new Democrats broke with precedent and criticized it. The protests from these freshman Democrats, including Rep.-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), reflect the left pull of the party, as well as their rejection of some practices once regarded as part of the bipartisan consensus.

After dinner Tuesday, lawmakers attended a session where they introduced themselves. The event included remarks by former congressman Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), who was described in an itinerary provided to The Washington Post by Harvard as vice chair in the Institute of Politics and a former member of Congress. Delahunt also founded a lobbying firm, the Delahunt Group, which in 2018 lobbied for Fuels America, a biofuel lobbying group, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

On Wednesday, new lawmakers also attended “White House Congressional Relations: How to Advocate for Your Priorities.” The panel listed as speakers Dan Meyer and Anne Wall, president and vice president, respectively, of the Duberstein Group. The Duberstein Group, a multimillion-dollar lobbying firm, has lobbied for the Bank of Mellon New York, Comcast, S&P Global and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, and other large corporate interests, the Center for Responsive Politics says.

On Thursday, former congressman Joseph J. Heck (R-Nev.) spoke at an event called “Navigating Washington and Capitol Hill.” After losing his seat, Heck joined the firm RedRock, according to Roll Call. He has lobbied on behalf of the American Osteopathic Association; TRAX International, a government tech firm; and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The former lawmakers' ties to lobbying firms were not disclosed on the calendar of events provided to The Post by the Harvard Institute of Politics. In a text message, a spokesman for Harvard’s Institute of Politics said freshman lawmakers “get a binder upon arrival that include lengthy bios of all participants, including their businesses.”

At The New York Times, David D. Kirkpatrick et al, write about the ties between Jared Kushner and MBS:

The prince and his advisers, eager to enlist American support for his hawkish policies in the region and for his own consolidation of power, cultivated the relationship with Mr. Kushner for more than two years, according to documents, emails and text messages reviewed by The New York Times.

A delegation of Saudis close to the prince visited the United States as early as the month Mr. Trump was elected, the documents show, and brought back a report identifying Mr. Kushner as a crucial focal point in the courtship of the new administration. He brought to the job scant knowledge about the region, a transactional mind-set and an intense focus on reaching a deal with the Palestinians that met Israel’s demands, the delegation noted.

Even then, before the inauguration, the Saudis were trying to position themselves as essential allies who could help the Trump administration fulfill its campaign pledges. In addition to offering to help resolve the dispute between Israel and the Palestinians, the Saudis offered hundreds of billions of dollars in deals to buy American weapons and invest in American infrastructure. Mr. Trump later announced versions of some of these items with great fanfare when he made his first foreign trip: to an Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh, the Saudi capital. The Saudis had extended that invitation during the delegation’s November 2016 visit.

“The inner circle is predominantly deal makers who lack familiarity with political customs and deep institutions, and they support Jared Kushner,” the Saudi delegation wrote of the incoming administration in a slide presentation obtained by the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, which provided it to The Times. Several Americans who spoke with the delegation confirmed the slide presentation’s accounts of the discussions.
...
“Kushner made clear his lack of familiarity with the history of Saudi-American relations and he asked about its support for terrorism,” the team noted in the slide presentation prepared for Riyadh. “After the discussion, he expressed his satisfaction with what was explained about the Saudi role in fighting terrorism” and what the Saudis said was their international leadership in fighting Islamist extremism.

Followups

Yianni asked a great question about ambassadors and the revolving door. Dan Coats, currently the Director of National Intelligence, is an illustrative example.  From a 2017 AP story about his appointment:

Former Senator Dan Coats, in line to be national intelligence director, has swung back and forth between government service and lobbying, the type of Washington career that Donald Trump has mocked.

The Indiana Republican, 73, has made four spins through the capital’s revolving door and become wealthy in the process. Since the early 1980s, Coats has either served in government or earned money as a lobbyist and board director. His most recently available Senate financial disclosure, from 2014, shows he had a net worth of more than $12m.

In and out of government, Coats dealt with intelligence, which he would oversee for the Trump administration if confirmed by the Senate. Announcing his selection on Saturday, Trump cited Coats’ “deep subject matter expertise and sound judgment” and government service but did not mention his lobbying.

When Coats first left the Senate in 1999, he abided by the legally required year-long cooling off period before joining a firm that lobbied his former colleagues on behalf of foreign clients.

He resumed government service in 2001 as ambassador to Germany under President George W Bush. In 2005, Coats returned to the US as a lobbyist on behalf of some of the country’s biggest companies, including the defense contractor Lockheed Martin. Five years later, he successfully ran for his old Senate seat.

“This is exactly how people outside of Washington think Washington works,” said Meredith McGehee, a chief at the government watchdog group Issue One.

For those of you writing your last paper on the DiSalvo book, this piece on the Janus decision might be helpful.

The key holding of Janus—deeming the activities of public-sector unions to be inherently political—has momentous consequences under well-established caselaw. First Amendment precedents prohibiting compelled speech are broad and may invalidate any coerced payments to public-sector unions or similar groups.

With Abood overruled as a precedent, what’s next? If the compelled payment of agency fees violates the free speech rights of government employees, taxpayer subsidies of public sector unions should likewise be unconstitutional. In Janus, the Court compared public sector unions to a political party, and indicated that the First Amendment would not permit a state law requiring all residents to sign a document expressing support for a political party’s platform. Compelled financial support is equally problematic, the Court held in Janus, echoing prior holdings in Knox and Ellis v. Railway Clerks: [5]

Mike Spies at Mother Jones:

The National Rifle Association spent $30 million to help elect Donald Trump—more than any other independent conservative group. Most of that sum went toward television advertising, but a political message loses its power if it fails to reach the right audience at the right time. For the complex and consequential task of placing ads in key markets across the nation in 2016, the NRA turned to a media strategy firm called Red Eagle Media.
One element of Red Eagle’s work for the NRA involved purchasing a slate of 52 ad slots on WVEC, the ABC affiliate in Norfolk, Virginia, in late October 2016. The ads targeted adults aged 35 to 64 and aired on local news programs and syndicated shows like Jeopardy! and Wheel of Fortune. In paperwork filed with the Federal Communications Commission, Red Eagle described them as “anti-Hillary” and “pro-Trump.”

The Trump campaign pursued a strikingly similar advertising strategy. Shortly after the Red Eagle purchase, as Election Day loomed, it bought 33 ads on the same station, set to air during the same week. The ads, which the campaign purchased through a firm called American Media & Advocacy Group (AMAG), were aimed at precisely the same demographic as the NRA spots, and often ran during the same shows, bombarding Norfolk viewers with complementary messages.“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a situation where illegal coordination seems more obvious,” says a former chair of the Federal Election Commission.

The two purchases may have looked coincidental; Red Eagle and AMAG appear at first glance to be separate firms. But each is closely connected to a major conservative media-consulting firm called National Media Research, Planning and Placement. In fact, the three outfits are so intertwined that both the NRA’s and the Trump campaign’s ad buys were authorized by the same person: National Media’s chief financial officer, Jon Ferrell.
“This is very strong evidence, if not proof, of illegal coordination,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. “This is the heat of the general election, and the same person is acting as an agent for the NRA and the Trump campaign.”

Guns IV

Investments:

• Capital Gains
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
• Trade and volatility

Guns and Opinion

• Historical opinion data
• The Intensity Gap (Spitzer 166-167)
• From NYT:

But David Farmer, who led the Maine effort for universal background checks in 2016, said that supporters of gun rights can be particularly persuasive once a concrete proposal is unveiled. In Maine, polling support for the measure declined between introduction and the final vote, before failing, 52-48.

“We know for a fact we lost the argument at the kitchen table and the bar and the bowling alley,” he said. “The gun enthusiasts were talking to their friends and relatives and neighbors. They felt about it in a way that was so passionate that they won those one-on-one encounters, and they were very successful in bringing in people to their side.”

The enthusiasm of gun rights activists doesn’t show up just in personal conversations. Over the last few decades, they have been more likely to speak to their legislators or give money to gun-related political groups, according to research from the Pew Research Center. Those actions have sent a signal to legislators that there is robust opposition even to laws that show strong public support in polls.

Parties and Gun

The Red Shift:

• The South goes GOP
• GOP declines in metro areas

Timeline (See also Spitzer 227)

1968

LBJ pushes or the Gun Control Act of 1968. It prohibits all convicted felons, drug users and the mentally ill from buying guns; raises the age to purchase handguns from a federally licensed dealer to 21; and expands the licensing requirements to more gun dealers and requires more detailed record-keeping.


1986

Congress passes the Firearm Owners Protection Act (Spitzer 191-195). Prompted by complaints that the federal government has been abusing its power to enforce gun laws, the law limits the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms from inspecting gun dealers more than once a year, with follow-up inspections allowed only if multiple violations are found. An amendment is also passed banning civilian ownership of machine guns manufactured after May 19, 1986. Weapons made and registered before that date are not affected. The law specifically forbids the government from creating a national registry of gun ownership.  How did it pass a Democratic House? (Spitzer 193) There were still a lot of Southern Democrats.

Bill Clinton briefly threads the needle:

1993

Bill Clinton signs the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 -- named after White House press secretary James Brady, who was permanently disabled from an injury suffered during the attempted murder of President Ronald Reagan. (Brady died in 2014)  The law, which amends the GCA, requires that background checks be completed before a gun is purchased from a licensed dealer, manufacturer or importer. It establishes the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which is maintained by the FBI.

1994

The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 produces a 10-year federal ban on the manufacture of new semi-automatic assault weapons. The law lists 19 weapons with the features of assault rifles, including the AR-15, certain versions of the AK-47, the TEC-9, the MAC-10 and the Uzi --  weapons of drug gangs. The act also bans large-capacity ammunition magazines, limiting them to 10 rounds. The law does not apply to weapons that were already in legal possession, and there are easy ways to adapt new weapons to avoid the prohibitions. See a U.S. Department of Justice Fact Sheet.

2003

In a victory for the NRA, Congress passes the Tiahrt Amendment to a federal spending bill. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), prohibits law enforcement from publicly releasing data showing where criminals bought their firearms.

2004

The 10-year sunset provision of the assault weapons ban runs its course, and the law is not renewed by Congress. Repeated efforts to renew the ban fail.

2005

President George W. Bush signs the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which grants gun manufacturers immunity from civil lawsuits filed over crimes committed with firearms. The law killed a legal strategy being pursued by gun-control advocates to hold manufacturers responsible for the negative effects of their products. A similar strategy had proved effective against tobacco companies.

What about 2018?

Evidence from Internet?  Meh!
Bad news for gun control people:  only 10% called gun policy the key issue.  Good news for gun control people: 70% of that group voted Democratic.  A fair number of D ads featured the issue:

PETA says stop using Anti-Animal Idioms

PETA has released a list of non-anti-animal idioms for people to use. This stirred up much controversy on Twitter.
Washington Post

Impending UTLA strike

The United Teacher's of Los Angeles (UTLA) is planning a strike for January if no agreement can be set on contract negotiations. This threat comes as current Superintendent Austin Beutner is trying to completely restructure Los Angeles schools with the backing of wealthy philanthropists like Eli Broad.

Washington Post

Saudi-funded lobbyist paid for 500 rooms at Trump’s hotel after 2016 election

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/saudi-funded-lobbyist-paid-for-500-rooms-at-trumps-hotel-after-2016-election/2018/12/05/29603a64-f417-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a58d2b8192bd

Foreign Influence Update

David A. Fahrenthold and Jonathan O'Connell at The Washington Post:

Lobbyists representing the Saudi government reserved blocks of rooms at President Trump’s Washington, D.C., hotel within a month of Trump’s election in 2016 — paying for an estimated 500 nights at the luxury hotel in just three months, according to organizers of the trips and documents obtained by The Washington Post.

At the time, these lobbyists were reserving large numbers of D.C.-area hotel rooms as part of an unorthodox campaign that offered U.S. military veterans a free trip to Washington — then sent them to Capitol Hill to lobby against a law the Saudis opposed, according to veterans and organizers.

At first, lobbyists for the Saudis put the veterans up in Northern Virginia. Then, in December 2016, they switched most of their business to the Trump International Hotel in downtown Washington. In all, the lobbyists spent more than $270,000 to house six groups of visiting veterans at the Trump hotel, which Trump still owns.
...

“It made all the sense in the world, when we found out that the Saudis had paid for it,” said Henry Garcia, a Navy veteran from San Antonio who went on three trips. He said the organizers never said anything about Saudi Arabia when they invited him.

He believed the trips were organized by other veterans, but that puzzled him, because this group spent money like no veterans group he had ever worked with. There were private hotel rooms, open bars, free dinners. Then, Garcia said, one of the organizers who had been drinking minibar champagne mentioned a Saudi prince.

“I said, ‘Oh, we were just used to give Trump money,’ ” Garcia said.

Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco at The Daily Beast:

Paul Erickson, a longtime Republican politico whose Russian girlfriend is in jail on charges she acted as a covert foreign agent, has been informed that he may face similar accusations. The Daily Beast reviewed a “target letter” that federal investigators sent Erickson’s lawyer, which said they are considering bringing charges against him under Section 951 of the U.S. code—the law barring people from secretly acting as agents of foreign governments.

The letter also said the government may bring a conspiracy charge against Erickson, who is the boyfriend of accused foreign agent Maria Butina. The letter, which was sent in September by investigators working out of the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, does not accuse Erickson of any crimes or guarantee that he will face charges.

Eric Tucker, Desmond Butler, and Chad Day at AP

Spinning off from the special counsel’s Russia probe, prosecutors are ramping up their investigation into foreign lobbying by two major Washington firms that did work for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation had been quiet for months since special counsel Robert Mueller referred it to authorities in Manhattan because it fell outside his mandate of determining whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia.

But in a flurry of new activity, Justice Department prosecutors in the last several weeks have begun interviewing witnesses and contacting lawyers to schedule additional questioning related to the Podesta Group and Mercury Public Affairs, the people familiar with the inquiry said. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the ongoing work.

Armin Rosen at Tablet:

The lobbyists that Qatar hired to improve the emirate’s image among American Jews were earning far more from their relationship with Doha than previously known. These were the same figures who managed the fallout of a still-unaired but much whispered-about undercover documentary produced by Al-Jazeera about pro-Israel groups in Washington, D.C.

The new details about the lobbyists’ payment came out on Oct. 26 when Nick Muzin, a former senior staffer for Republican Sens. Tim Scott and Ted Cruz-turned lobbyist for Qatar, filed a disclosure under the Foreign Agents Registration Act reporting $3.9 million in additional payments related to his work for Doha. Muzin, as Tabletreaders will recall, was first retained by Qatar in September of 2017. The payments listed on Muzin’s FARA filing come from Blue Fort Public Relations LLC, “a private firm that is incorporated in Qatar with offices in London, U.K., and Washington, D.C., to foster commercial and international investment-related outreach opportunities for private companies and investors from Qatar into the United States,” according to the filing. Of that $3.9 million, $2.3 million was paid to Lexington Strategies, a firm owned by Joey Allaham, a kosher restaurateur with business links to prominent Qataris who later joined Muzin in lobbying on Qatar’s behalf. According to the filing, the payments from Blue Fort came in September and October of 2017.

Event

Guns III

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The Carmen Group and the Revolving Door

Foreign Lobbying

A name in the news today:


Saudi Arabia



===========================================================

Gun Statistics Overview

School Shootings:  update of data on p. 105 of Spitzer

Emantic Bradford and a problem with the "good guy with a gun"

But.... Why is violent crime down?

• BJS data
• FBI: Reported violent crime

NRA

More on government subsidies (Spitzer 132-134) and NRA is not alone.

The gun rights lobby

Membership and selective incentives (Berry & Wilcox 51-53)

How international outreach exposed NRA to infiltration

Overall public opinion favors gun control

But there is an intensity gap

Manafort and Double Jeopardy

Next week the Supreme Court will consider Gamble v. United States, a case asking wether or not federal and state prosecution for the same offense constitutes, "double jeopardy," which the fifth amendment protects against. This case, if it changes precedent, would obliterate any state attempts to prosecute Paul Manafort in the event of a presidential pardon.

Washington Post

Lis sur mes lèvres!

From Matt Ludlam:

Matthew Dalton and  Noemie Bisserbe report at the Wall Street Journal:

French President Emmanuel Macron delayed a planned tax increase on fuel, handing a victory to a grass-roots protest movement that has massed across France to challenge his agenda.

Faced with another weekend of destructive protests by the “gilets jaunes”—or yellow vests—Prime Minister Édouard Philippe told a news conference Tuesday the tax hike would be pushed back six months. The worst riots to hit Paris in decades erupted during antigovernment protests Saturday, leaving the city’s shopping and tourist center dotted with burning cars and broken storefronts. Protesters vandalized the Arc de Triomphe, rattling Mr. Macron’s administration and the nation.

“No tax is worth threatening the unity of the nation,” Mr. Philippe said.

The protests have become a test of Mr. Macron’s resolve to forge ahead with his broader agenda, particularly his pro-business overhaul of the French economy. Tuesday’s concession marked the first time the Macron government has blinked since the former investment banker took office in the spring of 2017.

The French leader has eschewed the consensus-building approach of his predecessors. Instead he wielded his executive powers and his large majority in Parliament to defy the political opposition, unions and other groups as he stripped away job protections and wealth taxes that help underpin France’s social model.

In recent months, however, Mr. Macron’s approval ratings have plummeted and lawmakers in his own party have begun calling on him to display flexibility as the gilets jaunes protests have piled up. Polls show that more than 70% of the public supports the gilets jaunes.

George H.W. Bush Resigns from the NRA, 1995

Following is the letter of resignation by former President George Bush to the National Rifle Association: May 3, 1995

Dear Mr. Washington,

I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as "jack-booted thugs." To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as "wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms" wanting to "attack law abiding citizens" is a vicious slander on good people.

Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country -- and serve it well he did.
In 1993, I attended the wake for A.T.F. agent Steve Willis, another dedicated officer who did his duty. I can assure you that this honorable man, killed by weird cultists, was no Nazi.

John Magaw, who used to head the U.S.S.S. and now heads A.T.F., is one of the most principled, decent men I have ever known. He would be the last to condone the kind of illegal behavior your ugly letter charges. The same is true for the F.B.I.'s able Director Louis Freeh. I appointed Mr. Freeh to the Federal Bench. His integrity and honor are beyond question.

Both John Magaw and Judge Freeh were in office when I was President. They both now serve in the current administration. They both have badges. Neither of them would ever give the government's "go ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law abiding citizens." (Your words)

I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.'s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns.

However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us.

You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre's unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list.

Sincerely, [ signed ] George Bush

ALEC

Berry and Wilcox (pp. 36, 65) mention the American Legislative Exchange Council, which received a good deal of Scaife money.

Lee Fang and Nick Surgey at The Intercept:

THE AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL is holding a conference in Washington, D.C., this week, providing a venue for lobbyists to meet behind closed doors with newly elected state legislators.

The group, which is celebrating its 45th year, has long shaped state law, designing bills that imposed three-strikes mandatory sentencing, restricting the minimum wage, curbing municipal broadband, and other shared goals in areas of interest to corporate America and the GOP. Earlier this year, the group put on a corporate-sponsored anniversary celebration at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, which featured White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and other administration officials.

Many of the major donors to the conservative bill-writing organization, however, have decided to quit their membership, expressing fear that the group has become too associated with the toxic politics of the far right.

The latest companies to discontinue financial support for ALEC include AT&T, Dow Chemical, and Honeywell, spokespersons for the companies told The Intercept.
The news comes on the heels of an announcement two months ago that Verizon, another major donor, decided to leave ALEC.

The group has been roiled by negative stories over several years. Verizon announced it was ending its support following a hate-fueled speech by anti-Muslim activist David Horowitz at ALEC’s annual meeting in August. Horowitz, who is well known for taking extremist views on a range of topics, used the platform at ALEC to attack marriage equality and suggested that the Constitution’s three-fifths compromise was not about black people.

Senators Rebuke Trump with Yemen Vote

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46376807?fbclid=IwAR3MDqAgPycAINGwWbQgNkSJdBgGMMfU48Yen9OjRl6cL0hrBYb67tTZEBM

Guns and Poses

Common Cause

A nonprofit

Climate Change

• Lobbying
• Public Opinion
• Recent report
• POTUS response

About the Second Amendment

A dissert from Spitzer's argument

1871  Union veterans found NRA because they are disappointed by the lack of marksmanship by their troops. The goal of the group was to “promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis,” one of the veterans wrote in a magazine editorial, according to the NRA.




US v. Cruikshank (1876) -- limits reach of Second Amendment

A bit of history that gun advocates like to point out:

1927 — Congress passes the “Nonmailable Firearms Act of 1927, making it illegal to use the U.S. mail to ship “pistols, revolvers, and other firearms capable of being concealed on the person.”

1934 — The National Firearms Act, the first comprehensive federal gun control legislation, is enacted, aimed at cracking down on the bloody gangland era of Al Capone, John Dillinger and others. The law imposed a $200 tax, which was considered prohibitive at the time, on machine guns and shotguns and rifles with barrels shorter than 18 inches. It also required the federal registration of these types of firearms.

>
1
938 — The Federal Firearms Act of 1938 takes effect, requiring firearms licenses for gun dealers, manufacturers and importers.

1939 — The U.S. Supreme Court, in U.S. v. Miller, rules that a short-barrel shotgun is not a weapon protected under the Second Amendment.

1968 — The assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, the Rev. Martin Luther King and Sen. Robert Kennedy lead to the Gun Control Act of 1968. It created new categories of firearms crimes, banned the sale of firearms and ammunition to felons and other prohibited groups of people, and imposed federal jurisdiction over “destructive devices,” including bombs and grenades, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

1986 — The Firearm Owners’ Protection Act amends the 1968 law, relaxing some gun control measures.

1993 — The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 requires federal background checks before a firearm can be purchased from a federally licensed dealer, manufacturer or importer. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which is maintained by the FBI, conducts the checks. The law is named after James Brady, who was seriously wounded in an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981 when he was serving as White House press secretary. Reagan and two others also were shot. Brady died in 2014.

1994 — Congress passes a 10-year ban on the manufacture, transfer and possession of new semi-automatic assault weapons. The measure applied only to weapons manufactured after the ban was enacted, and it expired in 2004. Numerous efforts to renew it have failed.

2003 — The Tiahrt Amendment, proposed by Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican, bars the ATF from publicly releasing information about where criminals bought their firearms.

2005 — President George W. Bush signs the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, prohibiting gun manufacturers and dealers from being named in civil lawsuits in federal and state courts when crimes are committed involving their firearms.

2008 — In the District of Columbia v. Heller, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that Americans have a constitutional right to keep handguns and commonly used firearms in their homes for self-defense.

Last Assignment

Pick one of the items below.

• Write an update to chapter 10 of the DiSalvo book.  Explain developments since its 2015 publication that bear on its analysis and conclusions.
• Pick an organization that plays a big role in the debate over firearms.  What top priorities should it pursue in 2019?  Explain what strategies and tactics it should employ. (Your answer may involve legislation, regulation, litigation, or public relations.)
• Berry and Wilcox (p. 239) write that government "should ensure that disadvantaged sectors of society that are inadequately represented by interest groups receive support to improve their representation in the political process."  Identify an example (not including campaign finance) of a program to do so. (See here for ideas. Also see here and here.)   Appraise and explain how it fared.
• Pick any topic related to the course readings, subject to my approval.

Instructions:

• Document your claims. Do not write from the top of your head. 
• Essays should be typed (12-point), double-spaced, and no more than four pages long. I will not read past the fourth page. Please submit papers as Word documents, not pdfs. 
• Cite your sources with endnotes in Chicago/Turabian style. Endnote pages do not count against the page limit. 
• Watch your spelling, grammar, diction, and punctuation. Errors will count against you. 
• Turn in essays to the class Sakai dropbox by 11:59 PM, Friday, December 14. I reserve the right to dock late essays a gradepoint for one day’s lateness, a full letter grade after that. 

Welcome to Capitol Hill, Where the Revolving Door Never Stops

Lobbyists are greeting the new House majority. Theodoric Meyer and Marianne Levine at Politico:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has yet to officially secure the speaker’s gavel, and it’s still unclear which newly elected members of Congress will land key committee slots or other positions of power in next year’s Democratic House. But after a midterm campaign in which prominent progressives refused to take corporate donations — and with Democrats weighing new ethics and lobbying rules in 2019 — lobbyists are trying to get a jump-start on buddying up to members of the new majority.

Amazon announced Wednesday that it had hired two former chiefs of staff to members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Reps. G.K. Butterfield (D-N.C.) and Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.).

Samsung, Lyft, Spotify and Diageo, the liquor company that makes Captain Morgan rum and Smirnoff vodka, hosted a mixer the week after Election Day that drew half a dozen newly elected Democrats, according to a person who attended. Pelosi and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who was elected House majority leader on Wednesday, and congressional staffers showed up, too. 

...
Oscar Ramirez, a Democratic lobbyist who started his own firm with two partners earlier this year, said he and his partners had helped at least half a dozen House candidates who were elected this month. He’s now offering advice to them on which staffers to hire and which committees to try to join.

“We’ve had relationships with some of these new members now for over a year,” Ramirez said. “We were helping them get elected.”

 Lobbyists are closely tracking who Democrats are hiring to staff their offices and committees: “Who’s going to be the staff director? Who’s going to be the deputy staff director?” as one lobbyist put it.

...

There were 19 former Pelosi staffers who were active registered lobbyists in 2018, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, representing corporate clients including American Airlines, Facebook, General Electric, Nike and Wells Fargo.

While the number of Pelosi alumni who lobby remains relatively small, considering her decades in Washington, it has grown since she relinquished the speaker’s gavel in 2011. They include Nadeam Elshami, a former Pelosi chief of staff who’s a lobbyist at Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck; Dean Aguillen, a former director of member services for Pelosi who’s now a lobbyist at Ogilvy Government Relations; Arshi Siddiqui, a former senior policy adviser to Pelosi now at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld; Catlin O’Neill, who now works in Facebook’s Washington office; Anne MacMillan at Invariant; Alexandra Veitch, who’s a lobbyist for Tesla; Mike Sheehy, a lobbyist at Signal Group; and Tom Manatos, who lobbies for Spotify.

No More Liquor Pushcarts on the Hill

Bradford Fitch at Roll Call:

As the freshman members who will be part of the 116th Congress orient to Capitol Hill this month, there are things that have changed about the job, and things that have not. (For more on the current requirements, the Congressional Management Foundation has published a new “Job Description for a Member of Congress.”)

In the “What’s Changed?” department, the resources that help members do their jobs have simultaneously gotten better and worse.

Total support staff in the institution has been cut significantly, with some estimates at 20 percent fewer staffers. The Congressional Research Service, committee staff and technical resources (such as the Office of Technology Assessment) have been reduced. A CMF survey of senior congressional staff suggests there is a great need to improve Congress’ access to nonpartisan policy experts, technological infrastructure, and general capacity to perform its functions.
...
Members will also find fewer perks than their predecessors enjoyed. The public and the media still report on Capitol Hill like it was the 1970s, suggesting lavish trips, fancy gifts and opulent meals are the norm. One former chief of staff from that era described a Christmastime ritual of lobbyists pushing carts through congressional office buildings, passing out top-shelf liquor to senior staff office by office. “I used to fill up my liquor cabinet for a year from those visits,” he said.

Now, if a lobbyist takes a staff assistant to lunch or dinner, it could mean five years in jail and a $250,000 fine.

In the “What Hasn’t Changed?” department, the size of personal office staffs has remained the same since 1979 (which is ensconced by law at 18 full-time staffers and four part-time staff in the House).

NRA Revenue

Lorraine Woellert at Politico:

Revenue at the National Rifle Association fell by $54 million in 2017, a 15 percent decline that coincided with a record number of mass shootings in the U.S. and a rise in spending by gun-control groups.

The gun-rights group posted an even steeper drop in membership dues, which fell 22 percent, or $35 million, to a five-year low, according to documents the NRA filed with the Internal Revenue Service this month.

The group directed $27 million to its political arm, the Institute for Legislative Action, down from 2016, a presidential election year in which the institute spent more than $76 million.

Advocacy groups frequently post lower receipts in non-election years and revenue totals can fluctuate wildly from year to year, and NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam called the 2017 tax document a dated snapshot of the group’s activity.

As evidence of the group’s political clout, he pointed to this year’s jump in NRA magazine subscribers, nearly all of them dues-paying members.

“The NRA has approximately 5.5 million dues paying members today — the highest level ever in the history of our Association,” Arulanandam said in a written statement. “The historical fact is nobody has fought for and produced results in defending Second Amendment rights and American values like the NRA.” 

While gun-control groups continue to lag behind the NRA’s behemoth budget and grassroots organization, they’ve redoubled their political and fundraising efforts after a spike in the number of mass shootings and are on track to outspend gun-rights advocates in the 2018 midterm elections, according to an analysis from the Center for Responsive

“This is the first election cycle in history that gun-control groups outspent gun-rights groups,” said Anna Massoglia, a researcher with the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonprofit watchdog group. “It’s not really clear what it means yet.”

Interest Group Items, Autism, and Guns

Intro:  Actual Toy Gun Commercials




Interest Group Items

• Amnesty International v. Trump Policy on Asylum
• Public Citizen v. "Bougie Perks"
• Greenpeace v. Oreo Cookies

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Changes in Perceived Scope of Problem Triggers Attention, Which in Turn Triggers Higher Numbers

News Story This Week

Children 3 to 21 years old with autism served under Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, Part B (numbers in thousands)  Source: Digest of Education Statistics, various years.

Autistic children aged 3 to 21 receiving services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (in thousands)

Problem Definition and Issue Emergence
Anthony Downs, "The Issue-Attention Cycle"




Guns and the politics of language

Gun culture




How Oswald got his rifle: