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Obama Administration Violates Campaign Promise On Transparency
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June 25, 2010 4:23 p.m. EST
Topics: political campaigns, government, politics, democracy, executive (government), election, United States
Linda Young - AHN News Writer
Washington, D.C., United States (AHN) - Despite campaigning on a promise to bring transparency to government, the Obama administration has regularly subverted the disclosure rules by meeting in secret with lobbyists outside the White House grounds.
The New York Times published a story revealing that White House officials have met hundreds of times with prominent K Street lobbyists and political operatives to discuss legislation that was pending before Congress.
Some of the subjects discussed at these meetings have included energy policy and climate control, federal stimulus money, health care rules and Wall Street regulation, and how Congressional legislation would affect the lobbyist's corporate clients.
These latest disclosures are just the most recent on the Obama administrations ongoing failure to maintain election campaign promises regarding lobbyists. Obama had also campaigned on pledges not to appoint lobbyists to political jobs. However, the St Petersburg Times PoliticoFact.com fact checker has repeatedly reported on many instances where Obama has broken that promise.
While it is not know what impact these coffee house discussions have had, some of the legislation that was passed during this time was criticized by consumers, or consumer advocates, as being too favorable to corporate interests and for not making substantial enough changes to benefit consumers.
Meetings between Obama administration officials and the lobbyists and political operatives were conducted at the Caribou, and other nearby coffee shops, across the street from the White House.
Because the meetings did not take place at the White House, they were not subject to disclosure and the names of the lobbyists and political operatives that the Obama administration met with were not recorded in official White House visitor logs, which are subject to open records laws.
Obama administration officials met in secret with the very people that Obama has publicly said had an oversized amount of power in the nation's capital. Meeting with these people in secret was in direct conflict with Obama's election campaign pledge to voters that his administration would be the most transparent presidential administration in history. As part of that transparency, the Obama administration releases its visitor logs. However, the news that it is making sure that lobbyists stay off those visitor logs makes that exercise appear insincere.
The Washington Examiner newspaper pointed out the similarities between the Obama administration asking lobbyists to meet with them outside the White House to covert actions by Karl Rove, the former deputy chief of staff to Pres. George W. Bush. Rove used to keep communications out of the public realm by having staffers email lobbyists from their personal accounts.
In addition, although the Obama administration had placed limits on hiring lobbyists for government jobs, it has appointed more than 24 lobbyists to political positions within the past 18 months by using waivers and recusals. According to the report, White House officials have also suggested that a political lobbyist be deregistered as a Senate lobbyist in order to qualify for a political post without seeming to violate Obama's limits on hiring lobbyists.
The St Petersburg Times began reporting on Obama breaking his campaign promise regarding lobbyists in January, 2009. In June 2009 it reported that Sen. Charles Grassley (Iowa-R) had asked for information on recusals and waivers requested by the Obama administration to appoint lobbyists to political jobs.
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