From the Halls of Congress to K Street: Government Experience and its Value for Lobbying

Abstract

Lobbying presents an attractive postcongressional career, with some former congressional members and staffers transitioning to lucrative lobbying careers. Precisely why congressional experience is valued is a matter of ongoing debate. Building on research positing a relationship between political uncertainty and demand for lobbyists, we examine conditions under which lobbyists with past congressional experience prove most valuable. To assess lobbyist earnings, we develop a new measure, Lobbyist Value Added, that reflects the marginal contribution of each lobbyist on a contract, and show that previous measures understate the value of high‐performing lobbyists. We find that former staffers earn revenues above their peers during times of uncertainty, and former members of Congress generate higher revenue overall, which we identify by comparing revenues generated by individuals who narrowly won election to those who narrowly lost. These findings help characterize when lobbyists with different skillsets prove most valuable and the value added by government experience.

The lure of the private sector: career prospects affect selection out of Congress

“…Because contract sizes capture a conjunction of salaries and more intrinsic perks, I also follow Ban et al (2019) and construct a measure of Lobbyist Value Added (LVA). This should more closely reflect the earnings attributable to each individual lobbyist.…”

“…Since expenditure by paying clients and in-house lobbyists include different items, I exclude in-house lobbyists (see Blanes i Vidal et al , 2012). Following Ban et al (2019) I also exclude pro-bono work . I match the names of all former senators who have served in the period 1992–2015 to the names reported on the lobbying contracts 2…”

Campaign Contributions and Access to Congressional Offices: Patterns in Foreign Lobbying Data

“…This need not indicate wastefulness or irrationality on the part of lobbyists, however. A recent theory construes lobbying as insurance against political risks (LaPira and Thomas 2017), and this theory has received some empirical evidence (Ban, Palmer, and Schneer 2019;Liu 2020). For wealthy lobbyists and lobbying firms, it is good practice to contribute to incumbents to accumulate human capital and to always have a long list of financial beneficiaries in Congress on call The counts are for members of Congress, and the percentages denote the share that a cell constitutes within its row.…”

Revolving doors in Europe: does hiring from the public sector facilitate access?

“…The second perspective emphasizes the value of human capital, which suggests that interest groups seek personnel to reinforce their organizational capacities (Bertrand et al 2014;Salisbury et al 1989); LaPira and Thomas 2017. Specifically, by recruiting former public officials, organizations acquire process-oriented knowledge, referring to political intelligence and a deep understanding of the inner workings of public institutions (Ban et al 2019).…”

“…Their grasp of complex policy procedures, familiarity with internal institutional workings, and insider insights into power dynamics make hiring staff with public sector backgrounds advantageous for groups that need to effectively navigate policy processes. This process-oriented knowledge enables organizations to identify crucial moments for initiating lobbying efforts and targeting influential decision-makers (Ban et al 2019). Moreover, by enlisting revolving door lobbyists, interest groups gain exclusive insights into the factors influencing political decision-making.…”