Agency lobbying does not serve public interest

MARK SANFORD IS the first governor we can recall who has been able to see through the cloud of Columbia’s business as usual and realize there’s something inherently wrong with the taxpayers being forced to pay lobbyists to cajole the Legislature into doing the will of the state agencies they represent — a practice that sometimes results in policies at odds with the public interest.

Still, even Mr. Sanford has compromised on the issue. True, he has rightly prohibited his Cabinet agencies from hiring contract lobbyists and required his appointees to boards and commissions to refrain from that as well. But he allows them to hire full-time state employees who function as lobbyists. That always struck us as a distinction without a difference.

Earlier this month, the governor’s office took hair-splitting to a new level, when a spokesman defended the State Ports Authority’s decision to hire two high-powered lobbyists to fight efforts by Jasper County and a private company to develop a port on the Savannah River. That, he said, was “not the kind of contract lobbying arrangement we have traditionally opposed,” because it doesn’t involve asking lawmakers for money.

House Republican Leader Jimmy Merrill, a longtime critic of taxpayer-subsidized lobbying, appropriately called foul. The Post and Courier reports that Mr. Merrill fired off a letter to the governor, urging him to “immediately direct” the Ports Authority “to reconsider this ill-advised practice and to enact policies that are consistent with the will of the governor’s office.”

It’s true that there’s something particularly egregious about state agencies using tax money to lobby the Legislature for more tax money. But in some ways, there’s an even larger problem with individual state agencies hiring lobbyists to influence state policy.

Some definitions are in order. Obviously, state agencies need to be heard by the Legislature. After all, we pay agency employees to serve the public interest and to be experts in their subjects; lawmakers need their input. That’s one reason state law doesn’t even consider a state employee a lobbyist unless lobbying constitutes “a regular and substantial portion” of her job. State law also says someone who only speaks at public hearings is not a lobbyist.

The issue, both with the Ports Authority lobbyists and with the broader question of government lobbyists in general, is hiring people whose job it is to hang out in the State House lobby whenever the House or Senate is in session, and in the meeting rooms where their budget is being debated and at after-hours gatherings, and to buttonhole legislators to argue their cases.

Whether their case involves money or policy, that practice increases the fragmentation of government, by encouraging each agency to act as an island unto itself rather than part of a larger whole that is focused on the needs of the entire state. It is both a result of our disjointed system of government and a reason that the efforts by Mr. Sanford and others to reform that government have thus far failed.

With a few exceptions, our legislators simply do not see this as a problem, which is why lawmakers refuse to ban or even limit agency lobbying. That makes it all the more crucial that Mr. Sanford not waver in his efforts to end this counterproductive practice.