How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy Business didn't always have so much power in Washington. LEE DRUTMAN APR 20, 2015 JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s. Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and public-interest groups together, large corporations and their associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business. One has to go back to the Gilded Age to find business in such a dominant political position in American politics. While it is true that even in the more pluralist 1950s and 1960s, political representation tilted towards the well-off, lobbying was almost balanced by today's standards. Labor unions were much more important, and the public-interest groups of the 1960s were much more significant actors. And very few companies had their own Washington lobbyists prior to the 1970s. To the extent that businesses did lobby in the 1950s and 1960s (typically through associations), they were clumsy and ineffective. “When we look at the typical lobby,” concluded three leading political scientists in their 1963 study, American Business and Public Policy, “we find its opportunities to maneuver are sharply limited, its staff mediocre, and its typical problem not the influencing of Congressional votes but finding the clients and contributors to enable it to survive at all.” Things are quite different today. The evolution of business lobbying from a sparse reactive force into a ubiquitous and increasingly proactive one is among the most important transformations in American politics over the last 40 years.  Probing the history of this transformation reveals that there is no “normal” level of business lobbying in American democracy. Rather, business lobbying has built itself up over time, and the self-reinforcing quality of corporate lobbying has increasingly come to overwhelm every other potentially countervailing force. It has also fundamentally changed how corporations interact with government—rather than trying to keep government out of its business (as they did for a long time), companies are now increasingly bringing government in as a partner, looking to see what the country can do for them. If we set our time machine back to 1971, we’d find a leading corporate lawyer earnestly writing that, “As every business executive knows, few elements of American society today have as little influence in government as the American businessman, the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stock ...

1. How Corporate Lobbyists Conquered American Democracy
Business didn't always have so much power in Washington.
LEE DRUTMAN
APR 20, 2015
JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS
Something is out of balance in Washington. Corporations now
spend about $2.6 billion a year on reported lobbying
expenditures—more than the $2 billion we spend to fund the
House ($1.18 billion) and Senate ($860 million). It’s a gap that
has been widening since corporate lobbying began to regularly
exceed the combined House-Senate budget in the early 2000s.
Today, the biggest companies have upwards of 100 lobbyists
representing them, allowing them to be everywhere, all the
time. For every dollar spent on lobbying by labor unions and
public-interest groups together, large corporations and their
associations now spend $34. Of the 100 organizations that spend
the most on lobbying, 95 consistently represent business.
One has to go back to the Gilded Age to find business in such a
dominant political position in American politics. While it is true
that even in the more pluralist 1950s and 1960s, political
representation tilted towards the well-off, lobbying was almost
balanced by today's standards. Labor unions were much more
important, and the public-interest groups of the 1960s were
much more significant actors. And very few companies had their
own Washington lobbyists prior to the 1970s. To the extent that
businesses did lobby in the 1950s and 1960s (typically through
associations), they were clumsy and ineffective. “When we look
at the typical lobby,” concluded three leading political
scientists in their 1963 study, American Business and Public
Policy, “we find its opportunities to maneuver are sharply
limited, its staff mediocre, and its typical problem not the
influencing of Congressional votes but finding the clients and

2. contributors to enable it to survive at all.”
Things are quite different today. The evolution of business
lobbying from a sparse reactive force into a ubiquitous and
increasingly proactive one is among the most important
transformations in American politics over the last 40 years.
Probing the history of this transformation reveals that there is
no “normal” level of business lobbying in American democracy.
Rather, business lobbying has built itself up over time, and the
self-reinforcing quality of corporate lobbying has increasingly
come to overwhelm every other potentially countervailing force.
It has also fundamentally changed how corporations interact
with government—rather than trying to keep government out of
its business (as they did for a long time), companies are now
increasingly bringing government in as a partner, looking to see
what the country can do for them.
If we set our time machine back to 1971, we’d find a leading
corporate lawyer earnestly writing that, “As every business
executive knows, few elements of American society today have
as little influence in government as the American businessman,
the corporation, or even the millions of corporate stockholders.
If one doubts this, let him undertake the role of 'lobbyist' for the
business point of view before Congressional committees.”
That lawyer was soon-to-be Supreme Court Justice Lewis F.
Powell Jr., whose now-famous “Powell Memorandum” is a
telling insight into the frustration that many business leaders
felt by the early 1970s. Congress had gone on a regulatory
binge in the 1960s—spurred on by a new wave of public-interest
groups. Large corporations had largely sat by idly, unsure of
what to do.
In 1972, against the backdrop of growing compliance costs,
slowing economic growth and rising wages, a community of
leading CEOs formed the Business Roundtable, an organization
devoted explicitly to cultivating political influence. Alcoa CEO
John Harper, one of the Roundtable’s founders, said at the time,
“I think we all recognize that the time has come when we must
stop talking about it, and get busy and do something about it.”

3. This sense of an existential threat motivated the leading
corporations to engage in serious political activity. Many began
by hiring their first lobbyists. And they started winning. They
killed a major labor law reform, rolled back regulation, lowered
their taxes, and helped to move public opinion in favor of less
government intervention in the economy.
By the early 1980s, corporate leaders were “purring” (as a 1982
Harris Poll described it). Corporations could have declared
victory and gone home, thus saving on the costs of political
engagement. Instead, they stuck around and kept at it. Many
deepened their commitments to politics. After all, they now had
lobbyists to help them see all that was at stake in Washington,
and all the ways in which staying politically active could help
their businesses.
Those lobbyists would go on to spend the 1980s teaching
companies about the importance of political engagement. But it
would take time for them to become fully convinced. As one
company lobbyist I interviewed for my new book, The Business
of America Is Lobbying, told me, “When I started [in 1983],
people didn’t really understand government affairs. They
questioned why you would need a Washington office, what does
a Washington office do? I think they saw it as a necessary evil.
All of our competitors had Washington offices, so it was more,
well we need to have a presence there and it’s just something
we had to do.”
To make the sell, lobbyists had to go against the long-
entrenched notion in corporate boardrooms that politics was a
necessary evil to be avoided if possible. To get corporations to
invest fully in politics, lobbyists had to convince companies
that Washington could be a profit center. They had to convince
them that lobbying was not just about keeping the government
far away—it could also be about drawing government close.
As one lobbyist told me (in 2007), “Twenty-five years ago… it
was ‘just keep the government out of our business, we want to
do what we want to,’ and gradually that’s changed to ‘how can
we make the government our partners?’ It’s gone from ‘leave us

4. alone’ to ‘let’s work on this together.’” Another corporate
lobbyist recalled,“When they started, [management] thought
government relations did something else. They thought it was to
manage public relations crises, hearing inquiries... My boss told
me, you’ve taught us to do things we didn’t know could ever be
done.”
As companies became more politically active and comfortable
during the late 1980s and the 1990s, their lobbyists became
more politically visionary. For example, pharmaceutical
companies had long opposed the idea of government adding a
prescription drug benefit to Medicare, on the theory that this
would give government bargaining power through bulk
purchasing, thereby reducing drug industry profits. But
sometime around 2000, industry lobbyists dreamed up the bold
idea of proposing and supporting what became Medicare Part
D—a prescription drug benefit, but one which explicitly forbade
bulk purchasing—an estimated $205 billion benefit to
companies over a 10-year period.
What makes today so very different from the 1970s is that
corporations now have the resources to play offense and defense
simultaneously on almost any top-priority issue. When I
surveyed corporate lobbyists on the reasons why their
companies maintained a Washington office, the top reason was
“to protect the company against changes in government policy.”
On a one-to-seven scale, lobbyists ranked this reason at 6.2 (on
average). But closely behind, at 5.7, was “Need to improve
ability to compete by seeking favorable changes in government
policy.”
While reversing history is obviously impossible, there is value
in appreciating how much things have changed. And there are
ways to bring back some balance: Investing more in the
government, especially Congress, would give leading
policymakers resources to hire and retain the most experienced
and expert staff, and reduce their reliance on lobbyists. Also,
organizations that advocate for less well-resourced positions
could use more support. If history teaches anything, it's that the

5. world does not need to look as it does today.
APA Citation
Drutman, L. (2015, April 20). How corporate lobbyists
conquered American democracy [digital article]. The Atlantic.
Retrieved from
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/04/how -
corporate-lobbyists-conquered-american-democracy/390822/
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8. Building Blocks
An explanation of our critical thinking process using Legos
1
When you were a kid I bet you played with Legos. I used to
have a box full of bricks and my favorite thing to do was pour
out the bricks and see what jumped out at me. A door? I’d build
a house. A tire? I’d build a car. I’d mix up the bricks and see if
anything caught my eye, but I’d let the bricks tell me what to
build. I wasn’t very good at it.
2
Some people would sort the bricks by color, regardless of size.
They tended to finish a project because they were organized
from the beginning.
3

9. Some people would sort by size, regardless of color. There are
probably a million different ways to sort the bricks and
everyone has a preferences. None are wrong, but some methods
might be a better fit based on what you want to accomplish,
your experience, and your perspective.
4
Let’s pretend for a moment these 9 bricks stood out to you.
After sorting bricks by size and color, they asked to be used.
5
You could build a simple wall with all bricks in vertical
alignment.
6
You could make a wider and shorter stack using the same 9
bricks. Same bricks, different structure.
7

10. Perhaps you want something more interesting. Using the same
bricks, we can build a different structure. May be a pen for the
horses.
Regardless, the same 9 bricks can build a variety of structures.
Same bricks, different outcomes. You decide the outcome based
on your “vision” of the 9 bricks.
8
Back up and consider a
different perspective…
Imagine the Lego bricks (or building blocks) are actually the
facts, key points, main concepts in each paragraph, etc. you
would find in an article you read. Basically, anything you would
highlight while reading the material. If you took those notes and
wrote them on paper, they might appear to be a jumbled mess,
much like the Lego bricks here. If we want to do something
with these building blocks, we need to organize them.
10
Let’s organize the building blocks by theme or category. If we
use the materials in our Expectations and Objectives Module,
our categories might be 1) expectations of the teacher and 2)

11. responsibilities of the student. That’s one way to organize the
information.
11
Someone else might be more specific. Maybe they have 1)
expectations of the HS teacher, 2) expectations of the college
professor, 3) responsibilities of the HS teacher, 4)
responsibilities of the college student.
Doesn’t matter how you sort the building blocks. However, you
need to be able to describe the blocks in the category.
“All of these bricks are 2 x 2 and dark red. These are all 1 x 3
and tan.”
Using our content…”These building blocks all show that the
responsibility for learning falls to the college student, not the
professor.”
12
If we take the building blocks we identified, you can build
something.
That is, use the single sentence summary of the category as your
paragraph theme and the individual building blocks as
supportive facts in the paragraph.
13

12. What you end up building may use the same building blocks as
your neighbor, but the outcome may be entirely different. Why?
Maybe your goal was different. Maybe you have different
experiences, leading you to have different perspectives.
Regardless, our job is look at the building blocks and figure out
what needs to be built.
14
Critical Thinking with Legos
Our 4 Step Process:
Find the Legos.
Identify the building blocks. This includes facts, paragraph
topics, main ideas, and/or anything you’d highlight in the text.
Sort the Legos into Groups.
Group the building blocks by theme/topic.
Describe the Lego Groups.
Summarize the content of each group in one sentence.
Build your Structure.
Organize the one-sentence summaries to identify what you are
concluding from the material.
Why do we post building blocks for each module?
Identifying the building blocks means you are reading the
materials before class. You have to do the research on a topic.
This shows you did.
Organizing building blocks (sorting) is essential to critical
thinking. You’re analyzing the information and trying to make
sense of it.
Summarizing the category in a single sentence is also part of

13. critical thinking. You are analyzing the information in
preparation for evaluation of the information.
In class, you’ll evaluate the information.
Each step builds on the previous.
Revised Bloom’s Cognitive TaxonomyCognitive LevelCognitive
ProcessCreateDesigning something new; Generating, Planning,
ProducingEvaluateMaking judgments; Checking and
CritiquingAnalyzeTaking information apart and exploring
relationship; Differentiating, Organizing,
AttributingApplyUsing procedural information in a new but
similar situation; Executing, ImplementingUnderstandMaking
sense of information; Interpreting, Exemplifying, Classifying,
Summarizing, Inferring, Comparing, and
ExplainingRememberFinding information; Recognizing,
Recalling
Building Blocks
Sorting/Summarizing
Discussions
Sorting/Summarizing
Unsatisfactory
Limited
Sufficient
Excellent
Quality of Writing, Proofreading, and APA
Written responses contain numerous spelling errors. Uses longer
statements and/or multiple sentences per bullet point. No
citations or references are included.
Written responses include some spelling errors. May have
longer statements rather than simple phrases. Citations and
references are not sufficient or in proper APA format.

14. Written responses are largely free of spelling errors. Uses
simple phrases. Abbreviations are mostly easy to follow. Proper
APA citations are included. References include all assigned
materials, but may contain some format errors.
Written responses are free of spelling errors. Uses simple
phrases. Abbreviations are easy to follow. Proper APA citations
are included. References include all assigned materials and any
additional materials in APA format.
Organization
Building blocks are not organized by topic or content.
Formatting or lack of formatting makes it difficult to determine
if categories were used.
Categories may not be labeled, bulleted, or contain summary
statements. Content within some categories has a logical
relationship, but may be difficult to follow.
Categories are labeled, bulleted, and the summary statements
are easy to distinguish from the content. Content within most
categories has a logical relationship.
Visually pleasing. Looks professional. Categories are labeled,
bulleted, and the summary statements are easy to distinguish
from the content. Content within each category has a logical
relationship.
Use of Materials
Does not cover all of the assigned materials.
Covers all assigned materials.
Critical Analysis in Category Development
No integration of assigned materials; grouped by author/article.
May use categories given by the instructor (taxes, regulation,
lobby).
Attempts to integrate assigned content yet keeps categories
generic (pros/cons) or has some grouped by author/article. May
have too few categories.

15. Critical analysis produces specific categories, but does not
integrate all assigned material well.
Critical analysis integrates content into several specific
categories. Categories are framed well with clarity and
distinction.
Category Summary Statements & Overall Conclusion
No category summary statements or overall conclusion are
given.
Category summary statements may be limited to phrasing from
the authors/articles. The overall conclusion may not be
supported by the categories and summary statements.
Category summary statements may vary from an interpretation
of the content to exact phrasing of the authors. The overall
conclusion draws from most of the categories and summary
statements.
Summary statements clearly interprets the content for each
category. The overall conclusion draws from all categories and
summary statements and answers – how are Business & ####
related?
Unsatisfactory
Limited
Sufficient
Excellent
Quality of
Writing
,
Proofreading
, and

16. APA
Written responses contain
numerous
spelling errors
.
Uses longer statements
and/or multiple sentences
per bullet point.
N
o citations
or references
are
included.
Written responses include
some
spelling errors
.
May
have lo
nger statements rather
than simple phrases.
Citations
and references
are
not sufficient
or in proper
APA format
.

17. Written responses are
largely free of
spelling
errors.
Uses simple phrases.
Abbreviations are mostly
easy to follow.
Proper APA
c
itations are included
.
References include
all
assigned materials
, but may
contain some
format
errors.
Written responses are free of
spelling errors.
Uses simple
phrases.
Abbreviations are easy to
follow.
Proper APA c
itations are
included
.
References include
all
assigned materials and any

18. additional
materials
in APA
format
.
Organization
Building blocks are not
organized by topic or
content. Formatting or lack
of fo
rmatting makes it
difficult to determine if
categories were used.
Categories
may not be
labele
d
, bulleted,
or
contain
summary statements
.
Content within
some
c
ategor
ies

19. has a logical
relationship
, but may be
difficult to follow.
Categories are
labele
d
,
bulleted, and the summary
statements are easy
to
distinguish from the content.
Content within
most
c
ategor
ies
has a logical
relationship
.
Visually pleasing. Looks
professional. Categories are
labele
d
, bulleted, and the summary
statements are easy
to distinguish

20. from the content.
Content within
each c
ategory
has a logical
relationship
.
Use of Materials
Does not cover all
of the
assigned materials.
Covers all assigned materials.
Critical
Analysis
in Category
Develop
ment
N
o integration of
assign
ed
material
s
; grouped
by
author

21. /ar
ticle
.
May use
categories given by the
instructor (taxes, regulation,
lobby).
Attemp
ts to
inte
grate
assigned
content
yet keeps
cat
egories generic
(pros/cons
)
or
has some
grouped
by author
/article
.
May have
too

22. few categories.
Cr
i
tical analysis produces
specific categories
,
but
does
not integrate
all
assigned
material
well
.
Critical analysis integrates content
into several specific categories.
Categories are framed well with
clarity and distinct
ion.
Category
Summary
Statements
&
Overall
Conclusion
No
category
summary
statements

23. or
overall
conclusion
are given.
Category s
ummary
statements
may be
limited to
phrasing from the
authors
/articles
.
T
h
e
overall
conclusion
may
n
ot be
supported by the categories
and summary statement
s.
Cate
gory s
ummary
statements
may
vary from an
interpretation of the content

24. to exact phrasing of the
authors.
The overall
con
clusion draws from most
of
the categories and
summary statement
s
.
Summary statements
clearly
interpret
s
the content
for each
category
.
T
h
e
o
verall concl
usion
draws from
all
cat

25. egor
ies and
summary
statements
and
answers
–
how
are
Business & ####
related?
Unsatisfactory Limited Sufficient Excellent
Quality of
Writing,
Proofreading, and
APA
Written responses contain
numerous spelling errors.
Uses longer statements
and/or multiple sentences
per bullet point. No citations
or references are included.
Written responses include
some spelling errors. May
have longer statements rather
than simple phrases.
Citations and references are
not sufficient or in proper
APA format.
Written responses are
largely free of spelling

26. errors. Uses simple phrases.
Abbreviations are mostly
easy to follow. Proper APA
citations are included.
References include all
assigned materials, but may
contain some format errors.
Written responses are free of
spelling errors. Uses simple
phrases. Abbreviations are easy to
follow. Proper APA citations are
included. References include all
assigned materials and any
additional materials in APA
format.
Organization Building blocks are not
organized by topic or
content. Formatting or lack
of formatting makes it
difficult to determine if
categories were used.
Categories may not be
labeled, bulleted, or contain
summary statements.
Content within some
categories has a logical
relationship, but may be
difficult to follow.
Categories are labeled,
bulleted, and the summary
statements are easy to
distinguish from the content.
Content within most
categories has a logical
relationship.
Visually pleasing. Looks

27. professional. Categories are
labeled, bulleted, and the summary
statements are easy to distinguish
from the content. Content within
each category has a logical
relationship.
Use of Materials Does not cover all of the
assigned materials.
Covers all assigned materials.
Critical Analysis
in Category
Development
No integration of assigned
materials; grouped by
author/article. May use
categories given by the
instructor (taxes, regulation,
lobby).
Attempts to integrate
assigned content yet keeps
categories generic
(pros/cons) or has some
grouped by author/article.
May have too few categories.
Critical analysis produces
specific categories, but does
not integrate all assigned
material well.
Critical analysis integrates content
into several specific categories.
Categories are framed well with
clarity and distinction.
Category
Summary

28. Statements &
Overall
Conclusion
No category summary
statements or overall
conclusion are given.
Category summary
statements may be limited to
phrasing from the
authors/articles. The overall
conclusion may not be
supported by the categories
and summary statements.
Category summary
statements may vary from an
interpretation of the content
to exact phrasing of the
authors. The overall
conclusion draws from most
of the categories and
summary statements.
Summary statements clearly
interprets the content for each
category. The overall conclusion
draws from all categories and
summary statements and answers
– how are Business & ####
related?