Dean Landolt

I just wrote about state-backed lobbying in Ohio, but of course Ohio ain’t alone — and hell, it’s a lot closer to home even. Here in Maryland, P.J. Hogan is jumping ship from the State Senate to a cushy chief lobbyist gig for the University System of Maryland — lobbying by the state for the state, all to spend more of my tax dollars. But it gets worse — typically legislators have to sit it out a year before they can start shilling favors as lobbyists, but not Mr. Hogan…

So if you want to lobby for the private sector, for businesses or unions or environmentalists, you have to wait a year to alleviate any appearance of impropriety. But if you want to lobby on behalf of the government itself, you can use your contacts immediately, before they get cold and distant. Indeed, you’d have to wait a year to lobby on behalf of a taxpayers group, but you can start lobbying against the taxpayers the next day. Just another way that government stacks the deck against taxpayer interests.

This entry was posted Tuesday, July 17th, 2007 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Politics. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.