WASHINGTON–Pushed by outside groups, circumstances, and an internal perception of the need to come to grips with lobbying, committees on both sides of Capitol Hill will this spring draft legislation which is intended to give the public a better idea who is lobbying Congress for whom and to what purpose. The emphasis will be upon disclosure, and rightly so, for any attempt to regulate lobbying activity is certain to run afoul of the First Amendment which gives citizens the right to petition their government. If lobbying disclosure bills reach the floor of either house, they are likely to pass for, after the shocks of Watergate and revelations of corporate bribery both here and abroad, a vote against lobbying reform would be almost inexplicable to a constituent.

WASHINGTON–This is a story about an ex-senator, some former colleagues, and an empty office building at the foot of Capitol Hill. It is also a story about power and friends in the right places.

WASHINGTON–One morning this winter, at hearings on banking reform legislation, a California congressman looked down at a panel of witnesses who were urging the committee to pass the bill in question because of what it would do for the consumer and cautioned them not to be too hasty.

WASHINGTON–The passage of the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act of 1974 headed off, at least for the time being, any serious attempt by Congress to lower real estate settlement costs and introduce competition into the settlement process. The title insurance industry and their Washington lawyer, William T. Finley Jr. of Sharon, Pierson, Semmes, Crolius & Finley, had failed to get Congress to repeal a 1970 law which gave the Department of Housing and Urban Development authority to regulate settlement costs where federally-insured loans were involved. But HUD had stopped trying to use this authority and the companies hoped the subject would not come up again before Congress for several years.

WASHINGTON — On May 3, 1976, sweeping banking reform legislation died in the House Banking, Currency and Housing Committee. The most controversial proposals were sent to the Financial Institutions Supervision, Regulation and Insurance Subcommittee for further study, dealing a death blow to banking reform in the 94^th Congress.

John D. Rockefeller I recognized the importance of having a good public image and hired the world’s first public relations man, Ivy Lee, to spread the word that the unpopular old man was not an unscrupulous businessman but a kindly philanthropist who distributed dimes to the deserving poor. In the half century since Rockefeller first employed Lee, the petroleum industry he helped to create has paid little attention to their founding father’s example. As a small group of multinational corporations which controlled the world’s access to crude oil by a series of secret operating agreements, the petroleum industry did not need to care about public relations, It was too powerful and secrecy was the order of the day. But today, when the producing nations and the independent oil companies have turned the petroleum business upside down and the US Congress, long a bastion of complacency as far as big oil was concerned, is making threatening noises, the companies have turned to Ivy Lee’s descendants for help. In 1976, Americans are assaulted on all sides by an industry-wide public relations campaign designed to remove the stigma that began with the first Rockefeller, grew to immense proportions during the Arab embargo, and now threatens the heart of the oil industry, the companies’ vertically-organized operating structures and their right to acquire control of other sources of energy.

WASHINGTON — By the time this newsletter is distributed, the 1976 Presidential election will be history and everyone will have had a chance to analyze the effect President Ford’s close associations with lobbyists may have had upon its outcome. That such close relationships existed — personal friendships and the acceptance of hospitality and other favors — was never in question. The President himself acknowledged them. They were not illegal but they give the appearance of impropriety, something a public official can ill afford.

It is an accepted truth that the most heavily-lobbied legislation in Washington is tax legislation. This is because no broad generalities such as banking reform or vertical divestiture in the petroleum industry are involved. Here the benefits are certain and direct. An innocuous-sounding sentence, when inserted into the tax code, can mean thousands of dollars to a scrap metal dealer involved in Panamanian shipping.

Mary Clay Berry Newsletter #9 - MISSING

I have spent most of the past year watching lobbyists at work, talking to them about what they do and how they do it, and observing an assortment of unrelated laws make their torturous ways through Congress. I have done some thinking about what is right with lobbying and what is wrong with it.