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$200,000
Joe Biden entered the Democratic primary promising “from day one” to reject campaign cash from lobbyists, the AP reports. “Yet hours after his April campaign kickoff, the former vice president went to a fundraiser at the home of a lobbying executive. And in the months since, he’s done it again and again. … It’s difficult to quantify how much Biden has raised from the multibillion-dollar influence industry, but the roughly $200,000 he accepted from employees of major lobbying firms is far more than any of his rivals has received.”
$2.2 million
“Former campaign aides, fundraisers and others with ties to President Trump and Vice President Pence have attracted dozens of new lobbying clients in Washington, raking in more than $2.2 million in lobbying fees in the first months of the administration,” a USA Today analysis shows.
9,276
With 325 fewer lobbyists registered in the second quarter of 2016 than in the first, this marks the biggest single-quarter drop in four years and puts the number of registered lobbyists at the lowest point OpenSecrets has ever recorded. Since 1998, the total number of lobbyists has never dipped below 10,000, but that figure has been falling ever since it peaked at nearly 15,000 in 2007 and this quarter’s decrease puts it at just more than 9,700.
181
Companies, individuals and foreign governments that have donated to the Clinton Foundation also lobbied the U.S. State Department when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state in the Obama administration, according to a Vox analysis of foundation records and federal lobbying disclosures.
I think Washington actually works really well for those who have lots of money, lots of lobbyists, lots of lawyers,” she said in a First Draft interview. “It just doesn’t work very well for regular families.
— Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in a First Draft interview, says she thinks the deck is stacked against ordinary Americans in the way Washington does business.
You see former quarterbacks and all-star baseball players just moving seamlessly into the media and they’re treated with reverence because they know the game. Why wouldn’t the same be true for people who know the political game?
— Former Rep. Toby Moffett (D-CT), quoted by Roll Call, defending ex-lawmakers who become lobbyists.
