Who walks through the revolving door? Examining the lobbying activity of former members of Congress

Abstract

Abstract:Government watchdog groups and the government itself have shown concern about the "revolving door" of employees moving from Congress to private lobbying organizations. As of yet, the academic literature analyzing who becomes a revolving door lobbyist is small but growing. We contribute to this literature by examining which former members of Congress become lobbyists. We construct a dataset of all members of Congress who left the institution between 1976 and 2012, identifying those who go on to register as lobbyists. We observe several trends. Among these: there is not a significant difference in the rates at which former House members and senators become lobbyists; institutional standing (in the form of party leadership and other such positions) has a profound effect on which former House members become lobbyists, but less so among former senators; and there is some evidence that Republican former senators are more likely to become lobbyists than Democratic former senators, but this party difference is virtually absent among former House members.

Sliding doors in Brussels: A career path analysis of EU affairs managers

“…This, again, is in stark contrast with the United States, where revolving door lobbyists start to work for the private sector in either the same year they leave or during the following one (Lazarus et al. ). This is further discussed below where we focus on how frequently the direct transition from the public to the private sector (and vice versa) occurs in the sample.…”

“…Lazarus et al. () find that from 1976 to 2012 a quarter and almost a third, respectively, of members of the House of Representatives and Senators became lobbyists, with this trend increasing over time. Finally, Cain and Drutman () demonstrate that roughly a fifth of staff leaving Congress became lobbyists.…”

“…Indeed, recent work in the United States finds a significant difference between private and inhouse lobbyists: the former are more likely to come from the public sector (LaPira & Thomas ) and the great majority of those who leave the legislature tend to work as private lobbyists as a first job (Lazarus et al. ). Yet, it has been demonstrated that the use of consultants and private lobbyists is less common in the EU (Coen , ; Kohler‐Koch & Quittkat ).…”

PR, Lobbyism and Democracy

“…Selling (2015) quotes Lazarus et al (2013) as showing that after the US election in 2012 half of the outgoing House and 60 per cent of the members that left the Senate went on to register as lobbyists. In a more recent study by the same authors, Lazarus et al (2016) show that, based on a data set of all members of Congress who left the institution between 1976 and 2012, members of the House and the Senate are roughly equally likely to become lobbyists, but Republicans are more likely to become lobbyists than Democrats. In the Swedish studies reported in Garsten et al (2015), but also in Selling (2015) and Svallfors (2016), they find that amongst Swedish lobbyists (working in 2012) seven per cent come from a career in the Swedish parliament.…”

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

“…Similarly, if different types of former MCs select into lobbying differently, this too could bias the results. Lazarus, McKay, and Herbel () study the issue of what types of former MCs join lobbying firms, and show that there is meaningful variation in lobbying rates depending on institutional standing and, to a lesser extent, party. While we cannot entirely address the issue of sample selection in these descriptive regressions, the RDD approach used later in the article helps to address these concerns since it does not condition on people who became lobbyists…”