700 Thirteenth Street, NW, Suite 400
Washington, DC 20005

Phone: 202.347.0773
Fax: 202.347.0785
info@cassidy.com

As a result of the new Obama lobbying rules, numerous groups are pursuing aggressive maneuvers to avoid lobbying registration requirements.  See today’s Blog of Legal Times story.

Check out Cassidy CEO Marty Russo’s latest contribution on whether the defnition of lobbying should be expanded over at the National Journal Under the Influence Experts blog.

Check out Cassidy CEO Marty Russo’s commentary on the Obama lobbying rules over at National Journal’s Under the Influence Experts blog.

Here’s a taste:

There are perhaps no terms more widely used, nor more poorly understood in Washington than “special interest” and “lobbyist.”

Almost all “special interests” have lobbyists. Fortune 500 companies and small town teachers, policemen and firefighters have lobbyists. Doctors, lawyers, and shift workers from most manufacturing plants have lobbyists. For that matter, even the federal government has lobbyists, every agency has one and the White House does too.

And keep in mind, one person’s “just cause” is another person’s “special interest.” The role of government decision makers is to balance the widely varied interests of people from differing backgrounds and make decisions in the best interest of their communities, states and the country.

Yesterday, Gregg Hartley, the Vice Chairman here at Cassidy & Associates, tweeted his frustration with a New York Times story regarding a Cassidy client.  The Blog of Legal Times put up a post about the tweet and cross- posted it to Law.com.

This morning, other bloggers, including the folks over at The Business Insider,  picked up the topic and began a discussion about how social media should be used in the advocacy space.

Maybe this is just a mini-controversy fueled by someone tweeting out of frustration over what they saw as unfair treatment of a client and the press being curious because it happened to involve a fellow journalist.  Then again, in the new- Washington of President Obama, perhaps more and more advocacy will begin to take place in the public domain.

Isn’t that a good thing?

Cassidy CEO Marty Russo returned to CNBC today for another segment on lobbying.  His first appearance generated overwhelming viewer response.

Here’s the KU study on lobbying referred to in the segment.

Check out Cassidy CEO Marty Russo on CNBC talking about the role of lobbyists in public policy debates: