op-ed Mr. Garlick - is K Street footing your tuition bill?

Author: Daniel Streitfeld

In a recent political piece in this paper, Alex Garlick denounced two presidential candidates - John Edwards and Barack Obama - for their campaign promises to reduce the power of special interest groups and lobbyists in Washington. I found his arguments to be unconvincing and his general stance overly pessimistic. There are several specific points that I would like to contest here.

After outlining the anti-special interest group positions of both candidates, Mr. Garlick goes on to lament their na'veté at believing anything could actually be done to change the influence of K Street in Washington. Indeed, it is certainly true that both special interest groups and lobbyists are entrenched institutions in American politics, if not in pluralistic democracy itself. However, any presidential candidate must strike a balance between the realities of the status quo and the creation of an ideal to be strived for. Inasmuch as certain special interest groups do have a negative influence on our society as a whole, it seems to me an admirable thing to speak out against such institutions.

Speaking like a true jaded insider, Mr. Garlick instead writes that "Washington is built to resist change …[and] is structured to maintain the power of the people in power". Even if these statements are largely true, does that mean that we should collectively throw up our hands and say, 'Shucks, let's just give up on this whole idea of betterment and positive change'? That seems to me like a rather pessimistic and resigned attitude.

Mr. Garlick next goes on to assure us of the benevolence of special interest groups, claiming that they simply represent the interests of 'Americans'. In fact, special interest groups by definition represent only the interests of some specific subset of Americans - be they gun owners or tobacco companies or handicapped people or California avocado growers.

It follows that the lobbyists who represent these groups are only concerned with the narrow interests of their clients, as opposed to the greater good of society. This might not be a problem were all interest groups represented equally, but unfortunately the dynamics of some special interest groups lead to overrepresentation in the political process. The most obvious examples are large corporate interests: corporations, awash with cash and organizational skills, donate heavily to political campaigns, hire expensive lobbyists and expect to exert much influence on the political process. The problem is not that corporate interests are a negative force in American society per se, but rather that they by definition have only their interests at heart, not the greater good of society. Thus, their overrepresentation may well lead to socially suboptimal outcomes.

Other important causes may receive little to no representation. Consider children stricken with cancer or many environmental issues. These are extremely important causes that society should be concerned with, yet they are not necessarily conducive to well-organized and well-funded interest groups. Thus, a system that places a high value on campaign donations and lobbyists might indirectly shun these sorts of interests.

The political philosopher John Rawls, in his monumental treatise "A Theory of Justice," posits that if a group of individuals were to create an ideal hypothetical society, they should do so behind a 'veil of ignorance', meaning that each individual would have no idea of his place in society, whether he would be a poor farmer, a struggling artist or a wealthy businessman. The purpose of this thought experiment is that each individual is forced to think about creating the ideal society from a completely impartial point of view, not being biased by the societal role he or anyone else will take on.

I personally think that politicians such as Edwards and Obama have tapped into a similar line of thought. I personally want a leader who makes his decisions based on increasing the greater good of all of society, as opposed to favoring some small privileged subsection of it. Certainly, minority voices need to be represented in a democracy and special interest groups can serve this purpose. But on the other hand, these interests can be selfish and shortsighted - many unions are economically inefficient, powerful corporate interests such as Exxon Mobil have lobbied against action to prevent climate change and the NRA consistently lobbies for the continued legality of devices such as body armor-piercing, Teflon-coated bullets.

While I certainly agree with Mr. Garlick that from a practical point of view even the most ambitious of candidates might only have limited results in actually reducing the power of some of these special interest groups, assuming the candidates are sincere in their promises (and perhaps, as Mr. Garlick points out regarding Edwards' Trial Lawyers of America interests, they are not), I applaud them for taking such a stance and seeking to better politics in Washington, rather than simply being satisfied with the status quo.

Daniel Streitfeld '08 is a Philosophy and Economics major from Dallas, Tex.