This updated Fifth Edition of the ABA bestseller provides detailed guidance for compliance with the federal lobbying laws. It provides practical examples of how to be compliant, and covers all of the major federal statutes and regulations that govern the practice of federal lobbying. The book offers invaluable descriptions of the legislative and executive branch decision-making processes that lobbyists seek to influence, the constraints that apply to lobbyist participation in political campaigns, the techniques of grassroots lobbying, the professional norms of appropriate behavior that apply to lobbyists, and much more.
About the Author: Rebecca H. Gordon is a partner in the Political Law Group at Perkins Coie LLP. She counsels companies, trade associations, and other nonprofit organizations on how to interact lawfully with public officials. She focuses her practice on compliance with the federal Lobbying Disclosure Act, the Federal Election Campaign Act, state campaign finance laws, federal and state pay-to-play laws, and federal and state laws governing the conveyance of gifts to public officials. She works with her clients' legal and government relations teams to help them create and administer PACs, construct compliance programs, and handle the day-to-day legal questions that face government relations professionals. She also assists clients with the construction of political advertising programs, and helps vendors who serve the political space lawfully develop candidate-facing products. Ms. Gordon's clients include Fortune 100 corporations, nationwide trade associations and nonprofits, and prominent lobbying firms. She has represented clients before the Federal Election Commission and federal courts on campaign finance issues, and before the U.S. House and Senate Ethics Committees on ethics issues. Ms. Gordon serves on the faculty of the Practising Law Institute's Corporate Political Activities course and was a member of the ABA Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws. Before focusing her practice on corporate clients, she served as Deputy General Counsel to Obama for America during the 2008 presidential campaign and as Deputy General Counsel to the Democratic National Committee during the 2010 election cycle. Thomas M. Susman is Director of the Governmental Affairs Office of the American Bar Association, which serves as the focal point for the Association's advocacy efforts before Congress, the Executive Branch, and other governmental entities on diverse issues of importance to the legal profession. Before joining the ABA in 2008, he was a partner in the Washington Office of Ropes & Gray LLP for over 27 years, where his work included counseling, litigation, and lobbying on a wide range of issues. Before joining Ropes & Gray, Mr. Susman spent 12 years in various capacities in the U.S. Senate, including Chief Counsel to the Antitrust Subcommittee, General Counsel to the Judiciary Committee, and Legislative Director for Senator Edward M. Kennedy. He has served as an advisor on lobbying regulation to the chairman of the Senate Ethics and Transparency Committee in Chile and has advised OECD and the Parliamentary leadership in the Czech Republic on lobbying disclosure regulation. He has also trained lobbyists with state and foreign bar associations. Mr. Susman was editor of the first edition of the ABA Lobbying Manual; taught Lobbying and the Legislative Process as an adjunct professor at The American University's Washington College of Law; and chaired the Ethics Committee of the American League of Lobbyists (now the Association of Government Relations Professionals) for over a decade. He was counsel to the ABA Task Force on Federal Lobbying Laws; and is an Advisor to the American Law Institute's Project on Government Ethics. He received a B.A. from Yale University and a J.D. from the University of Texas Law School, where he was Editor-in-chief of the Texas Law Review. After law school he was law clerk to Judge John Minor Wisdom on the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, followed by service in the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice.