The Office of Management and Budget on Wednesday released final guidance on an Obama administration memorandum that bans federal lobbyists from sitting on agency boards and commissions.
The White House in June 2010 issued the notice that directed executive branch department and agency heads to cease appointing or reappointing federally registered lobbyists to advisory boards and commissions. The final guidance, which will go into effect Nov. 4, provides details on the implementation of the memorandum.
According to the guidance, the policy only affects individuals who meet registration requirements specified by federal lobbying disclosure law. It doesn’t apply to state or former lobbyists. Individuals who work for organizations that lobby, but do not engage in government advocacy work also are excluded from the ban. The guidance says agencies can search congressional lobbying disclosure databases to ascertain whether an individual is a lobbyist.
Lobbyists can serve out the remainder of their terms on boards or commissions if they were appointed before June 18, 2010. But agencies are required to request the resignation of appointees, who aren’t lobbyists before that date and later take up lobbying. Lobbyists cannot receive a waiver to serve on a board or commission.
“Special interests exert this disproportionate influence, in part, by relying on lobbyists who have special access that is not available to all citizens,” Obama said in the memorandum. “Although lobbyists can sometimes play a constructive role by communicating information to the government, their service in privileged positions within the executive branch can perpetuate the culture of special interest access that I am committed to changing.”
Howard Marlowe, president of the American League of Lobbyists, said in a statement that the policy is “shameful.”
“His actions reflect a disdain for open government based on transparency and the free flow of information,” Marlowe said. “It is political hypocrisy to say that those lobbyists who are not registered are welcome within the inner circle, while anyone who for whatever reason has registered as a lobbyist is shut out.”
The policy is part of a broader effort by Obama to curb the influence of lobbyists.
In one of his first actions as president, Obama signed an executive order that places restrictions on executive branch officials who have been federal lobbyists within the past two years and puts limits on lobbyists’ gifts to political appointees. The Office of Government Ethics in September proposed a rule that would expand the lobbyist gift restrictions to career government employees and place new constraints on the invitations that federal workers can accept from lobbyists to attend professional conferences or other events.
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