Day: February 13, 2009

Laura Rozen at Foreign Policy has an interesting article about the impact of the Ethics Executive Order on individuals who have lobbied for public interest groups.  It highlights the arbitrary and unfair impact of Section 3, which applies only to those registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act.  As one source quoted in the article notes: 

The former Clinton administration official added that this just becomes a perverse disincentive not to register. “LDA is entirely unenforceable and I believe has [almost] never been enforced,” she said. “So, good people who believed in disclosure now have a disincentive.” 

            While the unfairness of Section 3 is not limited to “activist lobbying,” it does seem particularly silly that someone like Tom Malinowski, who was registered to lobby for Human Rights Watch, is effectively barred from a job in the administration, while Eric Holder, who represented Chiquita Brands in matters relating to its payments to and support of Columbian death squads, is not.