Anti-Occupy Wall Street Lobbyist Whines That Disclosure Laws Sound Like “Big Brother”
K Street has been reacting to Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley’s amendment to the anti-insider trading STOCK Act passed in the Senate last week that would force D.C. influence peddlers who collect political intelligence and sell it to corporate clients to register under the lobbying disclosure law.
National Journal’s Influence Alley reports that some lobbyists have grumbled about why they have to publicly register and report their business while others who do the very similar things (i.e. Newt Gingrich) don’t have to comply with disclosure laws.
One of those complaining is financial service lobbyist Sam Geduldig who whined that “having to disclose every contact with public officials sounds like Big Brother.” But if he had to submit to evil Big Brother, Geduldig said, then so should everyone else: “But if we’re for transparency, I guess I’m for it across the board.”
Geduldig is one of the lobbyists behind a proposed $850,000 plan to take on the Occupy Wall Street movement and protest-sympathetic politicians. Geduldig’s firm, Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford, sent a memo, obtained by MSNBC’s “Up w/ Chris Hayes” that proposed that one of the firm’s clients, the American Bankers Association, pay for “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street. Geduldig, who used to work for House Speaker John Boehner, before he was elected Speaker, suggested that CLGC might be able to find links between the protests and George Soros.