"On March 20, President Obama issued an executive memo stating that law-abiding, compliant, registered lobbyists are not needed or wanted to discuss stimulus-related projects.

The memo banned oral and telephonic communications with lobbyists on stimulus-related projects and has naturally progressed into lobbyists being shut out of meetings with agency personnel on non-stimulus-related meetings. What is shameful is that they don’t ask if you are a felon, a sexual predator or a terrorist; but if you are a compliant lobbyist, then the administration doesn’t want anything to do with you.

As the president of the American League of Lobbyists (ALL), I am obviously appalled by this unprecedented, unconstitutional reach by the administration to ban lobbyists, their clients and, ultimately, the millions of people they represent from petitioning the government.

What the government has failed to realize is that it is ultimately damaging its own decisionmaking process by not getting all of the critical information available to make the “merit-based decisions” it so proudly talks about. If the administration put aside all the lobby-bashing rhetoric for one second and looked at where much of the information comes from in this town, it would realize it is from the lobbying community!"

Get the Story:
Dave Wenhold: Obama’s lobbying ban could be first step (The Hill 5/13)