Shedding Light on Foreign Lobbying

Have you ever wondered what role other countries play in influencing US policies on issues such as trade, foreign aid, human rights and national security? It's a big and scary question — a Pandora's Box you may not want to open.

If you do, you might find out that lobbyists working on behalf of foreign countries contacted US lawmakers and others over 22,000 times in 2008.

You might find out that they tried to influence policy on a gamut of issues, from tax and trade issues to international territorial disputes.

And you might find out that they often succeded — Congresspeople frequently did what these influencers wanted them to — and they were paid well for their efforts (raking in a total of around $87 million).

All of this is information foreign entities are required to disclose under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). Until now, however, it has been hard to analyze the mountain of facts FARA procures.

To bring the stories these data reveal to light, the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica have collaborated to create a searchable online database of FARA filings from the period July 2007 through Dec. 2008, known as the "Foreign Lobbying Influence Tracker." The new tool allows users to search members of Congress to see their meetings with foreign interests and contributions from firms representing foreign governments.

A quick search on Eric Cantor (R-VA), for example, reveals that he met with lobbyists representing Panama, Ethiopia, Morocco and Turkey and received six contributions in amounts up to $5,000 during the period in question. Others were busier on the international tip. John Kerry (D-MA), for example, met with no fewer than 50 of these representatives.

A press release states that “The tracker will allow the public to measure the influence foreign lobbyists have on public policy.” Actually doing something about the alarming things we find out, however, is a whole other matter.

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