While Americans debate over which political party in Washington, D.C., is the “problem,” Brody Mullins, a veteran Wall Street Journal investigative reporter and co-author of the upcoming book The Wolves of K Street, said during an appearance on Breitbart News on Saturday that “there is another branch of government that nobody talks about” and which “sometimes holds more power than the presidency.”
In his May 7 book launch, Mullins clarified that the term “Wolves of K Street” alludes to the “corporate lobbyists” in America who actually manage the show behind the scenes.
People in Washington often claim that either the Republicans or the Democrats are to blame for various issues. Mullins said, “And you know, presidents come and go, but the swamp never goes away. In order to find out more, we looked inside the lobbying community and asked, “What is truly at the center of the problems in Washington?”
“For the past 40 or 50 years, corporate lobbyists have been able to truly get what they want approved in Washington because they spend so much money there and have access to both parties. And that is just what we attempted to uncover,” Mullins went on. “How much money do businesses spend to sway public policy in ways that benefit them at the expense of the rest of us?”
Mullins clarified that college students majoring in “political science” study about “how Washington works,” including the “three branches of government” and the concept of checks and balances.
Mullins said, “These departments of government are continuously at odds with one another as they work to draft and enact laws that are constitutional. Nobody discusses the fact that corporate America and its lobbyists make up a separate branch of government that occasionally has more authority than the executive branch. The narrative contains several instances of Republican and Democratic presidents of the United States attempting to enact laws they believed would benefit the nation, only to have their efforts thwarted by corporate America’s stronghold in Washington.”
Dan Ziegler, the chief policy assistant to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), is one illustration of the widespread effect lobbyists have in Washington. Prior to becoming the chief policy adviser in Johnson’s office, Ziegler worked as a lobbyist for Williams & Jensen.
As a lobbyist, Ziegler built up a clientele, including a number of businesses eager for Congress to provide help to Ukraine. Johnson opposed providing greater help to Ukraine before proposing a $95 billion international package that included $61 billion in funding for the country.
Mullins went on to describe a lobbyist’s duties as a “sherpa for a firm,” a “translator,” and a “guide.”
In the hypothetical scenario where a clean air rule is negatively impacting a corporation in Minnesota, the company may ask, “Hey, you know, how can I get around this regulation? How do I comply with this regulation?” or “How do I push back this regulation?” The federal bureaucracy is also quite intricate. Legal professionals write the actual rules. You need someone in Washington who can assist you in understanding the regulations, as they are very complex.
Who, then, would be the best person to discuss this regulation with? That is what a lobbyist does. A lobbyist working for a company will advise their client to speak with a division or subcommittee of the Environmental Protection Agency instead of the agency itself. They will also identify which of the 535 members of Congress is responsible for the legislation or regulation in question, as well as which committees or subcommittees the member is on.
According to Mullins, “having a connection with a member of Congress is the other part of a lobbyist’s job, and the way you do that, sadly, is through money.””Campaign donations are a major source of funding for lobbyists. They also host dinners, lunches, golf outings, and ski trips for members of Congress to build relationships. This is why they get calls like this one: ‘Hey, member of Congress Johnson, I have got this client of mine from Minnesota who is having a problem with the clean air regulation.'” Can I bring him to your office so you can hear about his issue and perhaps assist him?
Thus, I believe it to be the main function of a lobbyist. The main function of a lobbyist involves establishing a connection with the key players on Capitol Hill, obtaining clients, and essentially setting them up for a discussion. Nothing about any of that is flawed. The First Amendment protects all of it, according to Mullins. The problem is that businesses today have the resources to employ a lobbyist in an attempt to alter the law. There are no advocates for the rest of us small people. The problem is that not many people care about our best interests. Businesses have control over the legislative process; they advocate for laws that benefit them, whereas we are the target of no one’s advocacy.
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