While many businesses are going bust due to the coronavirus economic shutdown, lobbyists are cashing in on the crisis as hundreds of new, nontraditional clients hire them to get access to government relief aid.
Nearly 200 new clients from a wide variety of industries were registered by lobbyists in the past month, according to federal filings. Many of these clients had never used a lobbying firm before or haven’t done so in years.
In total, over 3,200 companies, industry groups, and other entities lobbied on the $2.3 trillion coronavirus economic relief package known as the CARES Act enacted last month, according to an analysis of lobbying disclosure filings by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 requires federal lobbyists to file client registrations and lobbying activity every quarter, including what legislation or issue a client is interested in.
Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the top lobbying firms in Washington by revenue, brought in $12.6 million in lobbying revenue in the first quarter, the group’s best quarter ever.
Some of the organizations to hire a federal lobbyist for the first time include New York City’s Metropolitan Opera, LaundryLux, a laundry machine supplier, Century 21, a department store chain, and Peace For Animals, an animal rights organization, according to an NBC News report.
Companies in the healthcare, airline, and pharmaceutical industries are increasing their lobbying efforts because they have been most affected by the pandemic.
Airlines for America, the main lobbying organization for the airline industry, for example, spent more than $1.9 million on lobbying in the past quarter, up from $1.2 million at the same time last year. This effort helped pressure Congress to appropriate almost $60 billion in aid for the airline industry as airlines have been forced to cancel flights and operate at less than capacity.
The Advanced Medical Technology Association, which represents a number of mask manufacturers, ventilator producers, and other medical equipment, spent $1.4 million on lobbying in the first quarter, as the nation’s demand for such goods grew.
The Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, which represents liquor companies, disclosed spending $1.3 million on lobbying during the first quarter of the year as it pushed Congress to remove a tax on alcohol used to make hand sanitizers and for aid for companies suffering from the pandemic.
Some of the top spenders on lobbying overall, so far in 2020, included the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, Facebook, George Soros’s Open Society Policy Center, and defense industry giant Northrop Grumman, with each spending many millions of dollars.
