In our $28 trillion economy, $4.2 billion was spent last year on lobbying the federal government. That’s less than what Americans spent on underarm deodorant. Yet it’s axiomatic that if a business wants to make Congress or the executive branch do something — or do something — then it must hire one of Washington’s roughly 13,000 registered lobbyists. Lobbyists are, in essence, human turnstiles. If you don’t swipe your credit card with them outside Senator X’s office, you don’t get in.
But not briskly enough to turn lobbying into a major American industry, largely because of certain structural limitations. Congress has only 535 members. That works out to about 20 registered lobbyists for each legislator. Make that 40 lobbyists for each legislator if Timothy M. LaPira, a political scientist at James Madison University, is right that there are at least as many “government relations professionals” who find some way to lobby without officially registering.