To you and are of practical importance. If youre in this area or youre getting into this area. Basically, i want to cover not each to the same extent, but five different areas. The lobbying disclosure act, you already have some familiarity with with the previous presentations and particularly professor therbers presentation now. The registration act. The ethics rules, i know you touched on to some extent in the prior session. Revolving door, again, professor therber talked about some of the reforms its made in the 2007 law, but well get into the substance. And then just quickly some of the selfimposed or voluntarily implemented restrictions that the Obama Administration placed relating to lobbyists. So in terms of understanding how the lobbying disclosure act works, its a little bit weird because the registration is done by an organization or by a firm a lobbying firm or law firm, but its triggered in the first instance by an activity by an individual employee of either an organization like a nonprofit organization, trade association or a lobbying firm, of course, could be Public RelationsFirm Lobbying firm or law firm. And basically, an individual becomes a lobbyist if that individual makes two or more lobbying contacts on behalf of his or her organization if shes inhouse. Or for a particular client. If this is for if were talking about an employee of a lobbying firm or a law firm. And in addition, spends 20 or more of her time at any calendar quarter on whats defined as lobbying activities for that client. And these in these definitions, in particular, lobby activities is the heart of the problem that professor therber spent a lot of time dealing with and explaining and grappling with. First of all, lobbying contact, you have to again, two or more for a particular client or your organization at any time is any kind of communication with either a member of congress or staff at any level. Doesnt matter, from the Senate Majority leader down to the person sitting at the desk, the 22yearold at the front desk in the basement of the building, all counts as a contact in the congress. Its a contact with a career civil servant. And lobbying activities are not only the contacts themselves, but all other activities in support of it,vryuu including research and writing fact sheets you leave with the member staff or the executive, the administration official. Scheduling the meetings you know, the followup phone calls, emails and the like. That and the time, the effort that goes into the background for that. That is included in lobbying activities. Registration is required if those two tests are met. Two contacts, 20 or more of your time the persons time in a calendar quarter on lobbying activities, if in the case of a lobbying firm, they or law firm, they receive at least, more than 3,000 from those lobbying activities in the quarter or if its were talking about inhouse, they have to track the portion of the, you know, employees time related to lobbying activities based on that definition. And associated overhead and other costs andky that has to be at least 12,000 on a calendar quarter. Pho÷ the trick lies in the lobbying activities. We talked about the contact. Shouldve put this slide earlier. Congress any member of staffer and the executive branch, executive office of the president. Executive schedule, which is a cabinet and subcabinet positions, Senior Executive service and all of the schedule cs all the lower level political appointees. So this is the, again, the issue that the professor spent so much time with and brought the public ÷ gejdtqi sru nd gotten attention from others in recent years. Why are so many lobbyists not registered . What is this about . And the answer lies from the legal standpoint legal intersecting with the practical in what doesnt count is lobbying activity but is clearly part of the influence industry as discussed in the last session. First and foremost, grass roots lobbying, right . Huge industry, all the activities that go into that. Dont involve any direct contact with member of congress or staff staff but as the polling the media. All of that doesnt count. Ga n could cost millions of dollars and sometimes they do. No registration or reporting. Earned media component writing and placing the opeds and dealing with reporters, meeting with reporters. Sometimes for the really extensive ones, paid television radio, digital increasing targeted digital advertising. All of that not captured in registration. Jk which you got into this whole issue of luau p intelligence, but where you really somebody taking a position on something and trying to influence it, the contact isnt going to count. Theres a whole business of trying to find out before the rest of the public does whats going on on capitol hill because of the way it influences the value of companies. Can i interrupt . Sure. Please. The political intelligence business. And they sort of they were kidding, but i think they meant it, if you start regulating what they do they write memos to their clients about what ways and means of finance will do with a particular tax provision because theyre there in the room listening to it. They said, wedui if they start regulating this, well just say were journalists and we and were writing a news letter to two people. Right. Well, thats right. Thats that would be the next stage. But at this point, its sort of below the radar because it doesnt count as the the contacts dont count and therefore its not doesnt trigger registration and reporting. Then there is the and also, if lobbyist just set÷0jln up a meeting for a client without really letting the Members Office know what its about its not going to unnecessarily counter as a contact. Then theres the whole area of strategic lobbying advice. This is the daschle situation that the professor was talking about. Somebody says this is how you get this done. Theyre not going to have to register as a lobbyist. Whats reported, i think youve discussed this before. I wont spend a lot of time on this. Its very limited whats disclosed under the lobbying disclosure act even when you do register. The client, the name, of course the name of the organization, if its inhouse, the names of the individual lobbyists, the employees of the organization, or the lobbying firm that triggered this thing required the organization or firm to register. The federal agency or branch of congress thats being lobbied but not the people, you dont have to say you met with you dont have to sap even what member of congress. Lobbying the u. S. House. You have to give the i didnt put this in, you do identify the bills of the general subject matter areas, but not the particular people you met with. It does disclose if the lobbyists served as one of these covered officials in the last 20 years. And then the amount of income from lobbying activities. You dont have to say how you calculated it or you know, what you based it on. If only some of it was the direct lobbying, thats the only income youre going to report on the lobbying disclosure report even if you are required to register. In addition, the 2007 law that professor therber described the honest leadership and open government act. Introduced requirement for semiannual twice a year report where lobbyists have to report their contributions to federal candidates and pacts, leadership 0n pacs and National Party committees. Contributions to events that are to honor recognize asga3c member of congress, theres a lot of wiggle room how thats defined. qgnf. This is for reasons well talk about. You have to certify when you found this report that you as the lobbyist didnt violate the congressional ethics rules with respect to gifts to members of congress and staff. Ill talk about in a minute. I want to turn now to the Foreign Agents registration act which is a lot broader in its scope. And yet, turns out to be a lot less effective in its coverage. Well talk about then the lobbying then the lobbying disclosure act. Well talk about much broader in scope than the lda. It requires a lot more to be disclosed. Goes back to the 1930s. It was originally enacted to address the concerns about secret agent publicity. Agents in the u. S. For nazi germany. It was passed in 1938 as a result of those concerns. Registration under the Foreign Agents registration act is triggered by any person acting as an agent. Meaning, at the direction or request of a foreign and a foreign principal is any person, any person outside the company outside the u. S. Could be an individual,k kt could be a foreign corporation, could be a Foreign Government, foreign political party. And registrations required. If they engage in the u. S. In whats considered Political Activities, which well talk about in a minute. But the key thing to know about it is that if the u. S. Person, askz aw lobbyist right is u. S. Pr agent whatever is engaged in lobbying activities they have the option to register under the lobbying disclosure act instead unless, unless the principal is a Foreign Government or foreign political party. And as a result of that, most of the registrations for farap are just for Foreign Governments and foreign Political Parties. If you have one of those clients, though, the scope of what triggers registration is a lot broader than lda. It does include grass roots lobbying, for sure. And it also of any kind. And includes providing any kind of strategic or Communications Advice about influences the u. S. Government. So the tom daschle situation. That is, you know, sitting there not contacting anyone no state, local official, but just saying heres how you go about getting this done. Heres how you plan your direct lobbying campaign or planning carrying out grass roots campaign, talking to writing opeds, media the stuff that doesnt surface under lda is all captured by fara. Supposedly, and it also includes retaining other people for these activities. If youu. b put together something in the u. S. And hire a grassus9 juj firm to do something for a political party, that requires registration. Keeping it sort of interactive here. What if a firm here in town organizes trips for members of congress to go to a foreign country to know about the foreign country, but to influence them with respect to the policy related to that foreign country. To the does the firm doing that need to register under fara . Thats an interesting question. Technically what triggers registration has to be activities within the United States. If youre taking people overseas overseas were reporters, and youre basically doing it for the purposes youre talking about, technically it does. It should require registration under fara because theyre engaging in Political Activities dealing, trying to influence a sector of the u. S. Public. If you are advising a Foreign Government overseas about their and you only do it. You dont do anything in the United States. An example of we have a lot of u. S. Political consultants now who are going overseas and helping foreign Political Parties win elections there. That doesnt require registration. ÷qz if they go over there and advise them about how to deal with the u. S. Government technically it wouldnt require registration. But if they come back and make a followup phone call from the u. S. Send an email, you know, that would trigger it. In0l theres certainly a significant amount of activity. Its generally believed that falls under Foreign Agents registration act. It isnt reported because people either dont understand it dont want to comply with it, dont understand how broad the scope is. There was a recent series in the New York Times about thinkhj tanks, you know, sort of taking money foru grants from Foreign Governments to do studies and activities intended to shape to write the policy atmosphere in washington and raising the question about whether that would constitute activity under fara. Whats reported is initially and every six months if you do follow fara registration, you actually have to include your contract with the client. You have to say exactly how much you paid you were paid and for what including all expenditures, everything itemized. A description of the activities you carried out. And you actually have to detail each not only identify anyone you talk to, but detail every contact with any, you know, official or staff, elected official,i ]es appointed official or staff. Any representative of the media or representatives of u. S. Think tanks. Actually say i met with john smith on such and such a date or sent him an email or had a phone call and discussed so and so. Can we go back to that . Sure. Im confused. Why in the world cant we do this with the lda . Well, thats the you know thats the point. Theres a big contrast between the lda and fara. And even under fara a lot of people like representing Foreign Corporations and so forth that used to have to register under fara depending on what they were doing. No longer have to as a result of the exception. It wasnt serious . It does show the contrast doesnt it . Yeah it does show the contrast. But even under even under fara you will see if you, from time to time in the press, that there are certainly people out there doing things on behalf of Foreign Governments without registering. And here, too, is in the lda area, theres a problem of enforcement. This law is enforced by the department of justice by a unit in the criminal division, and they have very little staff and unless something is brought to their attention by an article or a complaint, theres no proactive, you know, investigation or monitoring. Who should be registering under fara but do not. Turning to the ethics rules and professor therber talked about the leadership and act of 2007. It did tighten the rules after the Jake Abramoff scandal. But its a classic example of Congress Sort of tailoring, reacting to and tailoring reform legislation to fight the last world war. And rather than look at the thing in a policy way and say what should we really be concerned about our p5kv objectives here and how do we theyre basically like well, Jake Abramoff took these people on golf trips. We should focus on who is on the plane when they take people. Its all tailored to the last, to the last scandal. Nonetheless, the rules were tightened. And as a result of that and some of the other scandals from this era, theres been significantly heightened scrutiny. And as i mentioned one of the key elements is that even though the congressional ethics rules are basically rules part of the rules of each chamber. The first day, this past tuesday, you know, they swear in the members and had that vote for the speaker and sure no one was paying attention after that. They adopt the rules for the u. S. House and do a similar thing in the senate. And portions of those rules are the ethics rules. And theres all kinds of interpretations and rulings by the Ethics Committee. But those rules are technically just binding of members and staff of congress. So if you give somebody a gift in violation of the rules were about to talk about or take them out to a fancy restaurant the member or staffer that you gave that gift to or you took out to lunch or dinner, theyre the ones that can be sanctioned by the House Ethics Committee. The house Senate Committee, theres nothing they can do to you. The ultimate sanction is to be thrown out of the u. S. House. But so what. Youre not in the u. S. House. But, under this 2007 law, they make now make at least the registered lobbyists have to certify they didnt violate the gift rules. Which means if you did. Did violate them, you did take somebody as a registered lobbyist. You took them out to dinner got them a ticket to the caps game and you certify that, then youre in trouble. Because now youve made a false statement to u. S. Government. And that is a federal felony. So thats how this at least one thing the 2007 law did is put the onus on the lobbyist side as well as on the members. So just to talk about some of the basics on this, on the ethics rules. Starting with the senate and the rules are pretty similar in the senate and the house. A firm, organization and the individual lobbyists it employs cannot give anything to registered lobbyists cannot give anything that counts as a gift regardless of its value. And this is the business if you register lobbyists, you really cant even take somebody out, treat them to a cup of coffee in the rayburn cafeteria. True. Youll see its a little bit ironic because some of the exceptions allow for a lot more than a cup of coffee. But that is true. Then tickets to an event. Again, talk about the typical people given sky box tickets. Concert tickets to sports events. That counts as a valued at the highest face value, highest cost ticket to the event. Basically lobbyists cannot hand those out at all, except covered by the exceptions well talk about. Under the house rules, registered lobbyists cannot give anything that counts as a gift regardless of value. And that ban applies to anything given. Not only by the lobbyists and not only by the firm but by any officer employee ofc . Hahp hc if you work for a law firm that has registered lobbyists and youre not a lobbyist yourself, you still cannoti ff give anyone, any member of the congress or staffer any gift. And thats true even if you pay for it personally. Even if the firm doesnt reimburse you. Its still not permitted by the house rules. And they have the same rule with respect to tickets to concert events. And plenty of time for questions at the end. Go ahead. Incredibly small town. And i feel like you have people who are friends working on the hill. And friends in lobby shops and law firms all over town. People are getting tickets as you know, incentives and things along those lines. How is any of that accounted for . Well thats a great question. Leads into the first of the exceptions of this thing, which is there is an exception for personal friendship. If you were generally personal friends with someone, you can and even if youre a registered lobbyist, you can give them a gift. But personal friendship does not mean t