Soft Lobbying
The website Red, White And Food has been quite the rage in the blogosphere of late bringing lots of publicity and calls for legislative action to allow wine to be sold in the grocery store.
As one might expect, an opposition site called StopTeenDrinkingTN.org has cropped up working on behalf of the interests of the Tennessee Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association to scuttle the bill under the guise of opposing teen drinking.
The rub is both of these efforts, which clearly mean to affect legislation before the General Assembly, were the brainchildren of public relations firms.
The question is: do public relations firms who start websites designed to move public opinion for or against specific legislation act as lobbyists when they encourage the public to get busy contacting legislators. Senator Doug Jackson, in a letter to the Tennessee Ethics Commission, asks for a ruling on this issue:
The website provides encouragement and a method for the public to email & therefore, influence lawmakers regarding SB 1977.
Seigenthaler Public Relations has executed a direct mail campaign in legislators’ districts under the letterhead of stopteendrinkingtn.org. The direct mail is signed by an executive of Seigenthaler Public Relations and encourages contact with certain lawmakers regarding SB 1977.
I can find no filing by Seigenthaler Public Relations disclosing their role as a lobby. I can find no filing by the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Tennessee disclosing their role as an employer of Seigenthaler Public Relations.
Is Seigenthaler Public Relations acting as a lobbyist as defined by TCA 3-6-301?
Is the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of Tennessee acting as an employer in this case as defined by TCA 3-6-301?
Have special interests found a way around lobbying disclosure laws by hiring public relations firms to use the public as a conduit thru which to influence legislation?
Should public relations firms hired to promote or combat specific legislative efforts be subject to the same guidelines as lobbying outfits or is the use of the public as a buffer completely ethical and appropriate and within the spirit of fostering clean and open government?
MORE ON THE WINE BATTLE:
Are the stars aligned for change?
Don’t Call Me!
Liquor lobby, preachers keep wine out of grocery stores
What If It Is Broke?
on March 10th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
If they are being paid to do it, then they must register as lobbyists with the state.
on March 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Holy Cow! We wouldn’t want the public to influence legislation– what a perfectly inconvenient idea! The next thing they’ll want to do is influence elections. Talk about disasters…
on March 10th, 2008 at 1:22 pm
After liquor is liberated, lobbying should be liberated. The myriad hoops that lobbyists have to jump through now benefit whom? It is the job of the media, including bloggers, to tell the story, provide background, and name the players. The voters then have to play their role. Further regulation of lobbyists is inefficient.
In the above fight we know who the players are and what is at stake. There is transparency; each side has an incentive to pachage information and argue the merits of policy. I would hope that the ethics commission, that blob created by the legislature, would back off and let the games continue.
on March 10th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I’m struggling to understand why this is a big issue. It’s simply how the world works. Behind every successful legislative campaign is a PR campaign. It might be done by an agency or an advocacy campaign, but the work is the same.
Perhaps, I’ve been in DC for too long.