The White House Office of Public Liaison

To an unusual degree, the contest for the 2008 presidential nominations highlighted the relationships among candidates, lobbyists, and political action committees. Barack Obama resolutely refused to accept contributions from lobbyists and political action committees, a policy that was adopted by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) after Obama became the party's presumptive nominee. The media closely scrutinized John McCain's past and present relationships with lobbyists, and several prominent aides were forced to sever ties with the campaign, while others continued on amid controversy. Hillary Clinton dismissed a leading campaign strategist over a policy conflict between her official campaign positions and one of his lobbying clients. Major candidates also deemed it important to assert their ability to rise above narrow group interests. In the post-World War II era, most presidential candidates and all eventual winners have portrayed themselves as representatives of the American people, as the tribune of the public's collective interests, not as the representative of any segment's interests or even those of the victorious coalition (Hinckley 1990). Such a claim was critical for both Obama and Clinton to assert in order to overcome the possible perception that their historic candidacies would lead them to represent the interests of a single segment of the American public, blacks or women. In addition, Obama, John Edwards, and McCain consistently presented themselves as champions of a new politics that would change Washington and marshal power in service of the public's interests rather than those of the special interests. Amid such heightened media sensitivity and widespread appeals to national unity, some might wonder why any future White House would want to establish an office dedicated to working with interest groups. But public liaison has been a persistent, clearly identified White House staff specialization since the Gerald Ford administration, and experience suggests that the next president will need to establish a way to oversee interest group relationships, even if it would be unwise to give them high visibility. Origins of the Public Liaison Unit The Richard M. Nixon White House was the first to formalize a set of staff responsibilities for working with interest groups that had been unsystematically scattered among staff members during the presidencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt through Lyndon B. Johnson. The title "public liaison," however, officially emerged during the Ford administration. Of course, interest groups had pressed their issues with presidents even earlier in American history, but several factors conspired to encourage the creation of a White House staff for working with interest groups. The growth in federal programs during and after the New Deal era was accompanied by a surge in group representation in Washington, D.C., which was particularly marked during the 1960s and 1970s (Gais, Peterson, and Walker 1984). In addition to the wide range of civil rights groups seeking to advance the opportunities of African Americans, women, seniors, and Hispanics, citizen groups arose to represent the interests of consumers, environmentalists, and the physically disabled. The result was a transformed interest group universe that had been dominated to that time by more traditional corporate, professional, and occupational interests. Simultaneous improvements in communication made it possible for group leaders to maintain contact with members in ways that had never before been available, producing a lobbying community using increasingly sophisticated techniques. At the same time, Congress became a more complex institution; party discipline declined, and power was decentralized. As a result, it was imperative that presidents find a way to respond systematically to group requests and, in turn, enlist groups behind administration priorities that could no longer be advanced by simply negotiating with a few powerful party leaders. …