Lobbyists Go Local

K Streeters are soon to embrace a new round of spending spree. Their sponsors, however, are not pressure groups like US Chamber of Commerce or multinationals such as General Electric, but governments of states and cities.

The opportunity surfaced last week as the Senate passed a bill that would earmark $23 billion for state and city projects throughout the country. The funding, though a fraction of the $145 billion president Bush has set aside for operations in Iraq next year, remains one of the largest grants federal government has allocated to address local problems.

Lots of places need money. The deadly bridge collapse in Minnesota in August, flooding in the Midwest and continued Hurricane Katrina relief are all requiring financial assistance. Meanwhile, the expansion of federal agencies created numerous projects local governments can cash in on.

One way to cut a larger piece of the cake, as K Street professionals have sensed, is to hire lobbyists to push for bills, amendments and transfers that serve local needs.

Governors and mayors have come to terms with this. They paid lobbying firms $34 million in the first half of the year, roughly the same as they spent in the whole of 2000.

The problem, however, is that every state has already had its delegate at the Congress. Aren’t congressmen and senators supposed to play an ultimate lobbyist upon request from his continents?

Here is a possible explanation: while a congressman’s district may a dozens of cities and counties, lobbyists working for local entities can focus exclusively on issues affecting the constituency they are hired to serve.

Elected representatives, on the other hand, must divide their time over various issues, some of which are completely unrelated to the interest of their constituencies, such as the war in Iraq, global warming and immigration.

Given this trend, I would expect the wallet of K Street lobbyist to keep bulging as a new breed of government clients start to flourish. However, unlike congressmen, who at least on paper must follow an aboveboard approach to gain interest for his voters, lobbyists could employ plenty of strategies to bypass the formal procedure to allow their clients, local and state governments, to snatch federal funding many times they have paid as service fees.