Stevens Lobbyist Bailout Needed

It makes sense when you think about it, but apparently Ted Stevens’ existence in the US Senate was supporting a pretty vast network of staffers-turned-lobbyists and a whole cottage industry for whom ties to Stevens were bread and butter. Now he’s gone, and his office isn’t in such good repute. And that means trouble for his cronies:

So when Alaskan voters narrowly rejected Mr. Stevens’s bid for re-election last month, just days after a jury convicted him of federal ethics violations, it was in some ways like the closing of the plant in a company town.

“It is sort of a miasma of ‘Wow, no Ted Stevens tomorrow?’ ” said Ronald G. Birch, his first chief of staff and the informal dean of what might be called the Stevens lobby.

Mr. Birch was the first person to open a Washington office specializing in lobbying the senator, and one of his partners is the senator’s brother-in-law, William H. Bittner, who has shared a series of profitable real estate investments with Mr. Stevens as well.

And on and on like that. Good riddance, I say.

More generally, you’ve got to figure that the lobbying industry is one of the few sectors of the economy that’s currently poised for strong growth. With business investment and consumer spending tanking, public sector expenditures are going to rise as a share of the economy even faster than they rise in absolute terms. And lots of firms are going to be cutting back, but already you can see that the hard-hit financial services and auto sectors are going to be counting on their government relations departments as key to their business models. Beyond that, I think big business trying to get its way in a Democratic-controlled Washington becomes more of a nakedly transactional affair — old-school influence peddling reigns supreme — with less ideological encrustment and profession of principle.