RECENT MONTHS have seen no end to the debate about the merits of racial profiling. With new terror warnings issued weekly, it's unlikely that an end is in sight. The issue of racial profiling, post-Sept 11, has become a question of our willingness to trade civil freedoms for safe airways. Race, however, is not the only characteristic profiled. A collection of Republican lobbyists is practicing a political profiling which lacks even a potential trade off.
In Washington, a collection of Republicans is in the process of compilinga list of the political affiliation and monetary contributions of hundreds of D.C. lobbyists. Once completed, the project will, according to Washington Post sources, be passed along to high-ranking Bush administration officials and GOP lawmakers, unfairly limiting Democratic lobbyists' access to the White House and to top positions in the District.
The political profiling that could result from the project does not pose the same threat to civil liberties, as racial profiling and political affiliation is a choice while race is not. But this political profiling serves no purpose beyond the perpetuation of Republican power.
All of the information collected as part of the project is a matter of public record. Potential employers or administration officials deciding how to limit access to the president could locate easily any of the data. The list's authors aren't doing anything illegal. Which doesn't make what they are doing ethical.
Dividing lobbyists based on political affiliation smacks of creating a political blacklist, a practice acceptable when done in private life, but shameful when done at the highest level of public service. Lawmakers and administrators, in their official capacity, have an obligation to their constituancy to at least acknowledge multiple perspectives. Refusing to grant interviews to the large number of lobbyists makes that impossible. Lobbyists, by definition, do not represent both sides to an issue, but they are one of few relatively direct ways for groups of citizens to express political opinions to the upper echelons of government between elections.
Denying an advocate access to the White House based on his former political contributions, or even current party membership, rather than on the merits of his current position, severely limits the open discourse over which any self-respecting American politician fawns.
The Republican attempt to limit the number of Democrats hired to top lobbyist positions is a blatant power play. In 1998 Majority Whip Tom Delay (R-Texas) was reprimanded by the House ethics committee for pressuring the Electronics Industry Association to avoid hiring former representative Dave McCurdy on the basis of his political affiliation (McCurdy is a Democrat). Four years later, the Republicans are compiling a list with the apparent goal of systematically excluding Democrats from similar positions. The only thing that has changed in those four years is that the Republicans now control the White House.
In a Washington Post article, one lobbyist involved explains that the list will alert administration officials of Republicans they should allow access to the White House and of Democrats they should not. Although White House spokesman Scott McClellan claims to be unaware of any copies of the list within the administration, he maintains that "the president's decisions are based on the merits and what is in the best interest of the American people" ("GOP Monitoring Lobbyists' Politics," The Washington Post, June 10).
It is hard to imagine any way in which putting together a list intended to exclude an entire political party, one with which many of "the American people" identify, can serve the public interest. The only logical purpose of the project is to protect and prolong Republican power through means which, while not illegal, also are not admirable.
Republicans are using their elected power to force hired positions outside of the government under GOP control as well. By threatening to limit the access Democratic lobbyists have to the president and his administration, Republicans leave interest groups little choice but to hire Republicans if they want White House officials to grant their representatives an audience. This political maneuvering serves no one but the Republicans and conservative lobbyists.
That an effort which not long ago prompted official reprimand now is canonized and openly admitted is upsetting. The President of the United States is not a tyrant. Bush does not lock up his political opponents. Instead, his GOP cohorts would have him lock them out.
(Megan Moyer is a Cavalier Daily columnist. She can be reached at mmoyer@cavalierdaily.com.)
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