After at least five donors to the Barack Obama campaign were identified as federal lobbyists, the campaign has decided to give those individuals their money back. The Center For Responsive Politics identified five donors to the Obama campaign who contributed $2,250 as federally registered lobbysists, while another three donors contributed $4,500 and then registered shortly afterwards. The campaign decided to return the $2,250 (as of right now, no word on the other $4,500) as part of a continuing policy from the 2008 election to not accept any money from federally registered lobbyists.
That sounds nice and all, but it may not actually mean very much. According to James Thurber of American University, the reqauirements for actually being a registered lobbyist are fairly stringent and do not include most of the members of the political advocacy industry. In order to be federally registered, a lobbyist must earn at least $3,000 per quarter, make two contacts with senior officials, and spend at least 20% of their time lobbying. That means we have about 12,600 registered lobbyists as of last year, while there are probably 100,000 or more people actually involved in political advocacy.
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