One of the rights guaranteed in the First Amendment is the right to petition. That includes lobbying Congress. There are now some in the Congress who are seeking to limit that right by tying acceptance of TARP funds to a new regulation that such firms could not lobby Congress. The motivation for this are the efforts by businesses to lobby against card check provisions to facilitate unionizing. As the
Wall Street Journal writes,
"Firms receiving significant TARP assistance continue to lobby against the interests of hard working taxpayers," says the letter from Change to Win Chair Anna Burger. "For example, these firms continue to oppose legislation that would allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage loan terms, establish a Credit Cardholder's Bill of Rights and protect consumers from corporations that bury mandatory arbitration clauses in fine print."
Imagine that: Banks are daring to fight legislation that would reduce their profitability -- and at a time when our public officials say they are desperate for banks to earn themselves out of trouble.
The letter targets in particular the Principal Financial Group, based in Des Moines, which it says should be denied TARP money because of the "scale and scope" of its lobbying. But wait -- Citigroup spent three times more money on fourth-quarter lobbying than the $515,000 spent by Principal, the unions admit. So, what gives? It seems Principal's real sin is that it "lobbied on 26-labor related bills . . . including the Employee Free Choice Act," and it is the only TARP applicant or recipient to have disclosed doing so.
In case Mr. Geithner doesn't get the political point, the letter helpfully notes that "there is now a Congressional effort underway to curb lobbying by TARP recipients." Senators Dianne Feinstein (California) and Olympia Snowe (Maine) are leading that effort to limit corporate political speech, and Ms. Burger copies no fewer than 13 Members of Congress on her Treasury missive.
If this effort catches fire, the hypocrisy is rich. Lots of groups get money from the government and they don't have limitations on their right to lobby, but now liberal leaders (and isn't it typical that Olympia Snowe is one of them?) want to selectively choose those groups which can and cannot lobby.
The double standard here is remarkable. Every year, unions collect millions of dollars in grants from government agencies they lobby. In 2002 and 2003, the Service Employees International Union -- the main driver behind Ms. Burger's consortium -- lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services while receiving between $563,226 and $938,388 per year in grants. Imagine if Tom DeLay had ever said that labor unions or AARP couldn't speak up about Medicare because they or their affiliates had accepted federal grants. The headlines would have read: "Republican Gag Rule."
How about saying that any group which gets any sort of money from the stimulus package be barred from lobbying Congress? How about either the car companies or UAW who benefited from the money for the auto bailout be barred from future lobbying? It's a slippery slope of doubtful constitutionality. Feinstein and Snowe should rethink their efforts.
4 comments:
If these big companies have got the money to lobby Congress, they don't need bailout money.
And if they want the bailout money, they have to accept the conditions that come with it: you can't blow it on bonuses for the boys, and you can spend it lobbying Congress. Seems fair enough to me.
MOD
I don't think fairness is even at issue here. A basic American civil right is the right to petition for the redress of grievances. It is prima facie wrong to deny that to anyone. There is also the issue of freedom of expression. Any threat to any citizen's right to this freedom is a threat to everyone's basic freedoms. It's the thin end of the wedge. And to remove any citizen's right to free expression is a threat to the very basis of a democratic republic. Such a government can ONLY operate in sunlight. To silence anyone is to shut out the sunlight and thereby destroy the possibility of the rule of law. These are powerful forces that are being cavalierly messed with here.
Would this also apply to universities, community groups, municipalities, states and unions as well? I may not like what one of these groups may say but I also don't think that tax money should be used to restrict the 1st Amendment rights of my fellow citizens.
When is the ACLU (All Commies Love Us) going to jump in and support the First Amendment rights of the Principal Financial Group, their customers, and their shareholders?
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