Lobbying: Its Role in and Impact on the US Government System

Abstract

Introduction. The article provides an overview of lobbying regulations in the United States. The US lobbying legislation is an integral part of the whole country legislation system, with its regulations helping, in particular, to make the influence exerted by lobbyists on the decision-making process transparent. The statusquo of lobbying anywhere except the US, Canada and the European Union is nonidentical as there still have not been enacted any direct laws and statutory instruments regulating this field elsewhere [8].Lobbying is thus apt to be misinterpreted due to its misperceiving and insufficient awareness. Consequently, the myth that “bribing” is an equitable sobriquet for “lobbying” is still going strong and has yet to be dissected. The author delves into the origins and history of lobbying in the US, tracing its enhancement and indicating legal loopholes still remaining despite seemingly exhaustive disclosure required. The author equally inquiries into theoretical justifications for regulating lobbying from deliberative democratic theory. “Grassroots lobbying” and “shadow lobbying” constitute likewise matters of concern to the article.Materials and methods. The author employs both general and specialized scientific methods in the study. The issue of US lobbying development is addressed by means of historical method. In detecting legal loopholes and propounding other approaches used in relation to them either on federal level or in certain states, a comparative legal analysis and a logical method are combined.Study results. The research has revealed that lobbying activities in general and lobbying practices in particular unfold at every level of government. The acts adopted throughout the US lobbying history provide a range of definitions for the terms “lobbyist” and “lobby groups”, clarify the status of lobbyists and circumscribe the cases of obligatory disclosure of lobbying activities. Lobbying appears to be a thriving field due to it exerting immense influence on legislative process, as well as the outcome of the elections. Last but not least, the study has ascertained the US lobbying system as the one attempting not to leave any of lobbying activities opaque from public perspective by means of eliminating legal loopholes. Thus, lobbying regulations significantly contribute to fostering transparency and democracy overall.Discussion and conclusion. From our perspective, lobbying exists even when unregulated, hence not only its regulations do not constitute corruption, but they can also serve as a means of outlawing the latter by bringing policy makers under close scrutiny, i.e. establishing certain limitations pertaining their interactions with lobbyists and lobby groups hence the decision-making process. With the aforesaid aim, as well as with the aim of keeping the decision-making process transparent in general, lobbying legislation in the US has been gradually developing in scale and sophistication to eventually encompass the vast number of lobbying interactions.