Michael Barone: K Street Woes & History
There are probably a few Washington old-timers left who remember when K Street, N.W., was lined with mansions -- but there can't be many. K Street is now lined with stolid, 130-foot-high office buildings -- Washington has a height limit -- filled with trade associations, law firms and lobbyists. I'm not sure who first used K Street as a shorthand term for Washington's lobbying community, but it might have been me, back in 1971, when I was promoting my first Almanac of American Politics and told the publisher the prime market was "K Street"; I don't remember having heard the term before, but I probably borrowed it from somebody else. Anyhow it has stuck -- as we are reminded by the news stories about the guilty pleas entered by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who seems never to have had an office on K Street itself.
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The Washington lobbying community goes back a long way. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances": Lobbyists, like the clergy and the press, are a profession protected by the Constitution. You can bet there have been lobbyists working Washington since the days when Daniel Webster pocketed retainers from the Second Bank of the United States and Stephen Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act -- which led proximately to the Civil War -- as part of his project to anchor the transcontinental railroad in Chicago. When government makes decisions that affect private individuals and firms and industries, the representatives of those individuals and firms and industries are going to exercise their constitutional right to try to get the decisions to come out their way.
Government is especially likely to make such decisions in time of war. During World War I, when Woodrow Wilson's government nationalized the railroads and seized control of the shipping industry, a Chicago lawyer named Edward Burling moved down to Washington to become chief counsel of the Shipping Board. He made the observation that there was business to be had in litigating wartime claims and joined former Maryland Congressman and Judge Harry Covington to form the firm of Covington & Burling. Today C&B is one of many large Washington law firms, with distinguished lawyers who will surely tell you that they don't do any lobbying -- and they certainly don't do the kind of things Jack Abramoff did. But they do on occasion try to affect government decisions, whether by administrative agencies, administration officials or Congress. And why shouldn't they? It's a perfectly legitimate business....
Read entire article at WSJ
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The Washington lobbying community goes back a long way. The First Amendment says that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging . . . the right of the people . . . to petition the Government for a redress of grievances": Lobbyists, like the clergy and the press, are a profession protected by the Constitution. You can bet there have been lobbyists working Washington since the days when Daniel Webster pocketed retainers from the Second Bank of the United States and Stephen Douglas sponsored the Kansas-Nebraska Act -- which led proximately to the Civil War -- as part of his project to anchor the transcontinental railroad in Chicago. When government makes decisions that affect private individuals and firms and industries, the representatives of those individuals and firms and industries are going to exercise their constitutional right to try to get the decisions to come out their way.
Government is especially likely to make such decisions in time of war. During World War I, when Woodrow Wilson's government nationalized the railroads and seized control of the shipping industry, a Chicago lawyer named Edward Burling moved down to Washington to become chief counsel of the Shipping Board. He made the observation that there was business to be had in litigating wartime claims and joined former Maryland Congressman and Judge Harry Covington to form the firm of Covington & Burling. Today C&B is one of many large Washington law firms, with distinguished lawyers who will surely tell you that they don't do any lobbying -- and they certainly don't do the kind of things Jack Abramoff did. But they do on occasion try to affect government decisions, whether by administrative agencies, administration officials or Congress. And why shouldn't they? It's a perfectly legitimate business....