2011 Lobbying Disclosure: Observations on Lobbyists' Compliance with Disclosure Requirements
Released: 2012-03-30T00:00:00

Letter

Background

The LDA, as amended by HLOGA, requires lobbyists to register with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House and file quarterly reports disclosing their lobbying activity. Lobbyists are required to file their registrations and reports electronically with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House through a single entry point (as opposed to separately with the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House as was done prior to HLOGA). Registrations and reports must be publicly available in downloadable, searchable databases from the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House. No specific requirements exist for lobbyists to generate or maintain documentation in support of the information disclosed in the reports they file. However, guidance issued by the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House recommends that lobbyists retain copies of their filings and supporting documentation for at least 6 years after they file their reports.

The LDA requires that the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House provide guidance and assistance on the registration and reporting requirements of the LDA and develop common standards, rules, and procedures for compliance with the LDA. The Secretary and the Clerk review the guidance semiannually. The guidance was last revised and published in December 2011. The guidance provides definitions of terms in the LDA, elaborates on the registration and reporting requirements, includes specific examples of different scenarios, and provides explanations of why certain scenarios prompt or do not prompt disclosure under the LDA. In meetings with the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House, they stated that they consider information we report on lobbying disclosure compliance when they periodically update the guidance.

The LDA defines a lobbyist as an individual who is employed or retained by a client for compensation, who has made more than one lobbying contact (written or oral communication to a covered executive or legislative branch official made on behalf of a client), and whose lobbying activities represent at least 20 percent of the time that he or she spends on behalf of the client during the quarter. Lobbying firms are persons or entities that have one or more employees who lobby on behalf of a client other than that person or entity.

Organizations employing in-house lobbyists file only one registration. An organization is exempt from filing if total expenses in connection with lobbying activities are not expected to exceed $11,500. Amounts are adjusted for inflation and published in the LDA guidance. information on which federal agencies and House(s) of Congress the lobbyist contacted on behalf of the client during the reporting period; the amount of income related to lobbying activities received from the client (or expenses for organizations with in-house lobbyists) during the quarter rounded to the nearest $10,000; and a list of constituent organizations that contribute more than $5,000 for lobbying in a quarter and actively participate in planning, supervising, or controlling lobbying activities, if the client is a coalition or association.

The LDA, as amended, also requires lobbyists to report certain contributions semiannually in the LD-203 report. These reports must be filed 30 days after the end of a semiannual period by each lobbying firm registered to lobby and by each individual listed as a lobbyist on a firm’s lobbying reports. The lobbyists or lobbying firms must list the name of each federal candidate or officeholder, leadership political action committee, or political party committee to which they made contributions equal to or exceeding $200 in the aggregate during the semiannual period; report contributions made to presidential library foundations and presidential inaugural committees; report funds contributed to pay the cost of an event to honor or recognize a covered official, funds paid to an entity named for or controlled by a covered official, and contributions to a person or entity in recognition of an official or to pay the costs of a meeting or other event held by or in the name of a covered official; and certify that they have read and are familiar with the gift and travel rules of the Senate and House and that they have not provided, requested, or directed a gift or travel to a member, officer, or employee of Congress that would violate those rules.

The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House, along with the Office are responsible for ensuring compliance with the LDA. The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House notify lobbyists or lobbying firms in writing that they are not complying with reporting requirements in the LDA, and subsequently refer those lobbyists who fail to provide an appropriate response to the Office. The Office researches these referrals and sends additional noncompliance notices to the lobbyists, requesting that the lobbyists file reports or correct reported information. If the Office does not receive a response after 60 days, it decides whether to pursue a civil or criminal case against each noncompliant lobbyist. A civil case could lead to penalties up to $200,000, while a criminal case—usually pursued if a lobbyist’s noncompliance is found to be knowing and corrupt—could lead to a maximum of 5 years in prison.

Documentation to Support Some LD-2 Report Elements Varied, but Most Newly Registered Lobbyists Met Disclosure Reporting Requirements

Most Lobbyists Provided Documentation for LD-2 Reports, but Documentation for Some Report Elements Did Not Match Their Disclosure Reports

As in our prior reviews, most lobbyists reporting $5,000 or more in income or expenses were able to provide documentation to varying degrees for the reporting elements in their disclosure reports. Lobbyists for an estimated 93 percent of LD-2 reports were able to provide documentation to support the income and expenses reported for the third and fourth quarters of 2010 and the first and second quarters of 2011. Last year, we reported that lobbyists for an estimated 97 percent of LD-2 reports were able to provide documentation for income and expenses for the quarters under review. The most common forms of documentation provided included invoices for income and payroll records for expenses. According to the documentation lobbyists provided for income and expenses, we estimate that the amount disclosed was properly rounded to the nearest $10,000 and supported for 63 percent (59 of 93) of the LD- 2 reports; differed by at least $10,000 from the reported amount in 16 percent (15 of 93) of LD-2 reports; and had rounding errors in 21 percent (19 of 93) of LD-2 reports.

Figure 1 illustrates the extent to which lobbyists were able to provide documentation to support selected elements on the LD-2 reports.

Of the 100 LD-2 reports in our sample, 47 disclosed lobbying activities at executive branch agencies, with lobbyists for 19 of these reports providing documentation to support lobbying activities at all agencies listed.

Table 1 lists the common reasons why lobbyists we interviewed said they did not have documentation for some of the elements of their LD-2 reports.

The LDA requires a lobbyist to disclose previously held covered positions when first registering as a lobbyist for a new client, either on the LD-1 or on the LD-2 quarterly filing when added as a new lobbyist. Based on our analysis, we estimate that a minimum of 11 percent of all LD-2 reports did not properly disclose one or more previously held covered positions. This finding is consistent with last year’s report. Lobbyists for an estimated 86 percent of LD-2 reports filed year-end 2010 or midyear 2011 LD-203 contribution reports for all of the lobbyists and lobbying firms listed on the report as required. All individual lobbyists and lobbying firms reporting specific lobbying activity are required to file LD-203 reports semiannually, even if they have no contributions to report, because they must certify compliance with the gift and travel rules.

Fewer Lobbying Firms Indicated That They Planned to Amend Their LD-2 Reports as a Result of GAO’s Review

Compared to our last review, fewer lobbying firms indicated that they plan to amend their LD-2 reports as a result of our review. This year, lobbying firms for 17 of the LD-2 reports in our sample indicated that they planned to amend their LD-2 reports as a result of our review. Last year, 21 lobbying firms indicated they planned to amend their LD-2 reports. As of March 2012, 9 lobbying firms have amended their LD-2 reports (compared to 12 lobbying firms last year).

Specific reasons for filing amendments included the following:

Decreasing reported income from $60,000 to $30,000

Increasing the reported income from $20,000 to $30,000

Changing the client’s name on the LD-2 report

Adding additional information about the specific issues lobbied

Adding contact with the House

Removing reported contact with the Senate

Adding a federal agency

Adding covered positions

Adding a lobbyist In addition, lobbying firms filed amendments for 3 (compared to 8 reports last year) of the LD-2 reports in our sample after being notified that their LD-2 reports were selected as part of our random sample but prior to our review.

Some LD-203 Contribution Reports Omitted Political Contributions Listed in the FEC Database

We estimate that overall, a minimum of 4 percent of reports failed to disclose one or more contributions.contributions listed on lobbyists’ and lobbying firms’ LD-203 reports against those political contributions reported in the FEC database to identify whether political contributions were omitted on LD-2 reports in our sample. The sample of LD-203 reports we reviewed contained 80 reports with political contributions and 80 reports without political contributions. Of the 80 LD-203 reports sampled with contributions reported, 12 reports omitted one or more contributions. Of the 80 LD-203 reports sampled with no contributions reported, 2 reports failed to disclose contributions listed in the FEC database.

Most Newly Registered Lobbyists Filed Disclosure Reports as Required

Of the 3,802 new registrations we identified from fiscal year 2011, we were able to match 3,357 reports filed in the first quarter in which they were registered. This is a match rate of 88 percent of registrations, which is consistent with our prior reviews. To determine whether new registrants were meeting the requirement to file, we matched newly filed registrations in the third and fourth quarters of 2010 and the first and second quarters of 2011 from the House Lobbyist Disclosure Database to their corresponding quarterly disclosure reports using an electronic matching algorithm that allows for misspelling and other minor inconsistencies between the registrations and reports.

While Most Lobbying Firms Reported That the Disclosure Requirements Were Easy or Somewhat Easy to Meet, a Few Lobbyists Reported Challenges in Complying with the Act

Disclosure Requirements Were Easy or Somewhat Easy to Meet for Most Lobbying Firms

As part of our review, 90 different lobbying firms were included in our sample. Of the 90 lobbying firms, 86 reported that the disclosure requirements were “easy” or “somewhat easy” to meet. Of the 86 lobbying firms in our sample of LD-2 reports that said the requirements were “easy” or “somewhat easy” to meet, 61 lobbyists indicated that the requirements were “easy” and 25 indicated that the requirements were “somewhat easy” to meet. Compared to last year, fewer lobbyists told us that they found the quarterly reporting requirement difficult to meet. This year, 5 lobbyists we interviewed (compared to 10 lobbyists last year) said that it was difficult to file reports quarterly or difficult to meet the 20 day filing deadline. The deadline for filing disclosure reports is 20 days after each reporting period, or the first business day after the 20th day if the 20th day is not a business day.

A Few Lobbyists Cited Challenges in Complying with the Act

While most lobbyists we interviewed told us they thought that the terms associated with LD-2 reporting requirements were clear, a few lobbyists highlighted areas of confusion in applying some aspects of LDA reporting requirements. This is consistent with our prior report. We asked the lobbyists we interviewed to rate various terms associated with LD-2 reporting as being “clear and understandable,” “somewhat clear and understandable,” or, “not clear and understandable.” Figure 2 shows the terms associated with LD-2 reporting that the lobbyists were asked to rate and how they responded to each term. Table 2 summarizes the feedback we obtained from the lobbying firms in our sample of reports that rated the lobbying terms as either “not clear and understandable” or “somewhat clear and understandable.”

U.S. Attorney’s Office Actions to Enforce the LDA

The Office’s Authorities, Processes, and Resources to Enforce LDA Compliance

The Office stated that it has sufficient resources and authority to enforce compliance with LDA requirements, including imposing civil or criminal penalties for noncompliance. In a prior report, we recommended that the Office develop a structured approach for the tracking and recording of enforcement activities for lobbyists whom the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House identify as failing to comply with LDA requirements.to track when referrals are received, record reasons for referrals, record actions taken to resolve them, and assess the results of actions taken. The system has allowed the Office to take actions to achieve compliance with the LDA. The Office uses the summary reports to track progress and quickly identify lobbyists that continuously fail to comply. In addition, the Office hired one contract staff member in September 2010 to work on lobbying compliance issues on a full-time basis. This has enhanced the Office’s ability to pursue enforcement actions by centralizing the process of checking and resolving referrals. The Office has 17 staff to assist with lobbying compliance issues on a part-time basis.

As a result, the Office developed a system that allowed it To enforce LDA compliance, the Office has primarily focused on sending letters to lobbyists who have potentially violated the LDA by not filing disclosure reports as required. The letters request that lobbyists comply with the law by promptly filing the appropriate disclosure documents. Not all referred lobbyists receive noncompliance letters because some of the lobbyists have terminated their registrations, or lobbyists may have complied by filing the report before the Office sent noncompliance letters. In addition to sending letters, the contractor sends e-mails and calls lobbyists to inform them of their need to comply with the LDA requirements. Figure 3 describes the process and time frames of the Office’s enforcement efforts.

Typically, lobbyists resolve their noncompliance issues by filing the reports or terminating their registration. Resolving referrals can take anywhere from a few days to years depending on the circumstances. Office officials said that they could not set strict time frames or deadlines for closing out pending cases because of these varying circumstances. In addition, they stated that setting strict deadlines might encourage noncompliance if a lobbyist believes that a referral will close out on a certain date if he or she never responds. Although the Office is concerned with all noncompliance, it places a greater emphasis on pursuing lobbyists and registrants who continue to lobby and avoid filing required disclosure reports. A similar approach to the LD-2 enforcement process is being developed for tracking and reporting noncompliance with LD-203 reporting.

Update on Enforcement for the 2009 and 2010 Reporting Periods

Since the enactment of HLOGA, both the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House have made quarterly referrals for noncompliance with the LD-2 requirements. Table 3 shows the number of referrals the Office received from both the Secretary and the Clerk for noncompliance with reports filed for the 2009 and 2010 reporting periods and the actions taken by the Office.

As of January 25, 2012, the Office has received 118 referrals from the Clerk of the House for the first and second quarter for the 2011 LD-2 reporting period, but has not yet received any referrals from the Secretary of the Senate for the 2011 reporting period.

As shown in figure 4, about 56 percent (312 of 561) of the lobbyists who received letters, phone calls, or e-mails from the Office for noncompliance for 2009 and 2010 LD-2 referrals have either filed reports or have terminated their registrations and are now considered compliant. Additionally, about 43 percent (243 of 561) are pending action because the Office did not receive a response from the lobbyist and plans to conduct additional research to determine if it can locate the lobbyist. The remaining 1 percent of (6 of 561) referrals did not require action because the lobbyist or client was no longer in business or the lobbyist was deceased. In addition, lobbyists were found to be compliant when the Office received the referral. This may occur when lobbyists have responded to the contact letters from the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House after the Office has received the referrals.

The Office has also received referrals from the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House for noncompliance with LD-203 reports. The Office sends noncompliance letters to the registered organizations and includes the names of the lobbyists who did not comply with the requirement to report federal campaign and political contributions and certify that they understand the gift rules. For noncompliance in the 2009 filing period, as of January 25, 2012, the Office has received LD-203 referrals from the Secretary of the Senate for 1,081 lobbyists. As of March 23, 2012, the Office received LD-203 referrals from the Secretary of the Senate for noncompliance in the 2010 filing period and from the Clerk of the House for the 2009 and 2010 filing periods; however, the Office is still processing the referrals. As of February 22, 2012, the Office has mailed 68 noncompliance letters to the registered organizations. The registered organizations may receive a noncompliance letter listing the name of more than one lobbyist. As a result, the number of letters sent will not match the number of referrals now compliant, pending, and with no action taken. However, 7 percent of (73 of 1,081) referrals did not require action because the lobbyist was no longer in business, deceased, or found to be compliant when the Office received the referral. This may occur when lobbyists have responded to the contact letters from the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House after the Office has received the referrals. Table 4 shows the status of enforcement actions for LD-203 reporting after noncompliance letters were sent to registrant organizations for 2009.

According to officials from the Office, many of the LD-2 pending cases represent lobbyists who are no longer lobbying or have never filed a disclosure report. Officials from the Office stated that they have been working more closely with the Senate and the House to remove these referrals before they are forwarded to the Office.

The Office has mailed noncompliance letters to the registered organizations and included the names of the lobbyists who did not comply with the LD-203 requirement. However, Office officials said that there have been complaints within the lobbying community regarding responsibility for responding to letters of noncompliance with LD-203 requirements. They also said that many lobbyists who were not in compliance no longer lobby for the organizations affiliated with the referrals, even though these organizations may be listed on their original lobbyist registration. Organizations are not responsible for an individual lobbyist’s failure to comply with the LD-203 disclosure requirement, nor are they required to provide contact information for the noncompliant lobbyist. Because of these limitations, officials told us that the Office has very little leverage to bring individual lobbyists into compliance. Officials stated that many of the LD-203 pending cases remain open in an attempt to locate the individual lobbyists, and as a result, these referrals may take years to resolve.

Enforcement Settlement Actions

Since the enactment of the LDA in 1995, but before the 2008 implementation of HLOGA, the Office had settled with three lobbyists who failed to file and collected civil penalties totaling about $47,000. In November 2011, the Office settled its first enforcement case since the enactment of HLOGA in 2007 and reached a $45,000 settlement with a lobbying firm that had been referred to the Office repeatedly for failure to file disclosure reports. HLOGA increased the penalties for offenses committed after January 1, 2008. As stated earlier, a civil case could lead to penalties up to $200,000, while a criminal case—usually pursued if lobbyists’ noncompliance is found to be knowing and corrupt—could lead to a maximum of 5 years in prison.

We previously reported that the Office planned to identify additional cases of repeat LDA noncompliance for civil enforcement review in the spring and summer of 2011. The Office conducted research and used the system it developed to identify and track lobbyists and firms that have a history of chronic noncompliance. As a result, the Office has developed a “top 10 list” of noncompliant lobbyists whom it may potentially pursue for enforcement actions using five civil enforcement attorneys who have been assigned to review the cases.

Agency Comments

We provided a draft of this report to the Attorney General for review and comment. We met with the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, who on behalf of the Attorney General responded that Department of Justice had no comments of the draft of this report.

We are sending copies of this report to the Attorney General, Secretary of the Senate, Clerk of the House of Representatives, and interested congressional committees and members. In addition, this report is available at no charge on the GAO website at http://www.gao.gov.

If you or your staff have any questions about this report, please contact me at (202) 512-6806 or mihmj@gao.gov. Contact points for our Offices of Congressional Relations and Public Affairs may be found on the last page of this report. GAO staff who made major contributions to this report are listed in appendix IV.

Appendix I: Objectives, Scope, and Methodology

Consistent with the audit mandates in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA), our objectives were to determine the extent to which lobbyists are able to demonstrate compliance with the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 as amended (LDA) by providing documentation to support information contained on registrations and reports filed under the LDA; identify any challenges to compliance and potential improvements; and describe the resources and authorities available to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (the Office) and the efforts the Office has made to improve enforcement of the LDA, including identifying trends in past lobbying disclosure compliance.

To respond to our mandate, we used information in the lobbying disclosure database maintained by the Clerk of the House of Representatives (Clerk of the House). To assess whether these disclosure data were sufficiently reliable for the purposes of this report, we reviewed relevant documentation and spoke to officials responsible for maintaining the data. Although registrations and reports are filed through a single web portal, each chamber subsequently receives copies of the data and follows different data cleaning, processing, and editing procedures before storing the data in either individual files (in the House) or databases (in the Senate). Currently, there is no means of reconciling discrepancies between the two databases caused by the differences in data processing. For example, Senate staff have told us during previous reviews that they set aside a greater proportion of registration and report submissions than the House for manual review before entering the information into the database, and as a result, the Senate database would be slightly less current than the House database on any given day pending review and clearance. House staff also told us during previous reviews that they rely heavily on automated processing, and that while they manually review reports that do not perfectly match in formation file for a given registrant or client, they will approve and upload such reports as originally filed by each lobbyist even if the reports contain errors or discrepancies (such as a variant on how a name is spelled). Nevertheless, we do not have reasons to believe that the content of the Senate and House systems would vary substantially. For this review, we determined that House disclosure data were sufficiently reliable for identifying a sample of quarterly disclosure (LD-2) reports and for assessing whether newly filed registrants also filed required reports. We used the House database for sampling LD-2 reports from the third and fourth quarters of calendar year 2010 and the first and second quarters of calendar year 2011, as well as for sampling year-end 2010 and midyear 2011 political contributions (LD-203) reports, and finally for matching quarterly registrations with filed reports. We did not evaluate the Offices of the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House, both of which have key roles in the lobbying disclosure process, although we consulted with officials from each office, and they provided us with general background information at our request and detailed information on data processing procedures.

To assess the extent to which lobbyists could provide evidence of their compliance with reporting requirements, we examined a stratified random sample of 100 LD-2 reports from the third and fourth quarters of 2010 and the first and second quarters of 2011. The third quarter 2010 LD-2 reports were from our prior review and were included in the current review to redistribute the LD-2 reports evenly across the calendar year for future lobbying reviews. We excluded reports with no lobbying activity or with income less than $5,000 from our sampling frame. The third quarter 2010 sample was drawn from 13,489 activity reports and we drew our remaining sample from 38,303 activity reports filed for the fourth quarter of 2010 and first and second quarters of 2011 available in the public House database, as of our final download date for each quarter. This allowed us to generalize to a population of 51,792 activity reports. Our sample is based on a stratified random selection, and it is only one of a large number of samples that we may have drawn. Because each sample could have provided different estimates, we express our confidence in the precision of our particular sample’s results as a 95 percent confidence interval. This interval would contain the actual population value for 95 percent of the samples that we could have drawn. All percentage estimates in this report have 95 percent confidence intervals of within plus or minus 10.0 percentage points or less of the estimate itself, unless otherwise noted. When estimating compliance with certain of the elements we examined, we base our estimate on a one-sided 95 percent confidence interval to generate a conservative estimate of either the minimum or the maximum percentage of reports in the population exhibiting the characteristic. the amount of income reported for lobbying activities, the amount of expenses reported on lobbying activities, the names of those lobbyists listed in the report, the Houses of Congress and federal agencies that they lobbied, and the issue codes listed to describe their lobbying activity.

Prior to each interview, we conducted an open source search to identify lobbyists on each report who may have held a covered official position. We reviewed the lobbyists’ previous work histories by searching lobbying firms’ websites, LinkedIn, Leadership Directories, Who’s Who in American Politics, Legistorm, and U.S. newspapers through Nexis. Prior to 2008, lobbyists were only required to disclose covered official positions held within 2 years of registering as a lobbyist for the client. HLOGA amended that time frame to require disclosure of positions held 20 years before the date the lobbyists first lobbied on behalf of the client. Lobbyist are required to disclose previously held covered official positions either on the client registration (LD-1) or on the first LD-2 report when the lobbyist is added as “new.” Consequently, those who held covered official positions may have disclosed the information on the LD-1 or a LD-2 report filed prior to the report we examined as part of our random sample. Therefore, where we found evidence that a lobbyist previously held a covered official position, we conducted an additional review of the publicly available Secretary of the Senate or Clerk of the House database to determine whether the lobbyist properly disclosed the covered official position. Finally, if a lobbyist appeared to hold a covered position that was not disclosed, we asked for an explanation at the interview with the lobbying firm to ensure that our research was accurate. Despite our rigorous search, it is possible that we failed to identify all previously held covered official positions for all lobbyists listed. Thus, our estimate of the proportion of reports with lobbyists who failed to properly disclose covered official positions is a lower-bound estimate of the minimum proportion of reports that failed to report such positions.

In addition to examining the content of the LD-2 reports, we confirmed whether year-end 2010 or midyear 2011 LD-203 reports had been filed for each firm and lobbyist listed on the LD-2 reports in our random sample. Although this review represents a random selection of lobbyists and firms, it is not a direct probability sample of firms filing LD-2 reports or lobbyists listed on LD-2 reports. As such, we did not estimate the likelihood that LD-203 reports were appropriately filed for the population of firms or lobbyists listed on LD-2 reports.

To determine if the LDA’s requirement for registrants to file a report in the quarter of registration was met for the third and fourth quarters of 2010 and the first and second quarters of 2011, we used data filed with the Clerk of the House to match newly filed registrations with corresponding disclosure reports. Using direct matching and text and pattern matching procedures, we were able to identify matching disclosure reports for 3,357, or 88 percent, of the 3,802 newly filed registrations. We began by standardizing client and registrant names in both the report and registration files (including removing punctuation and standardizing words and abbreviations, such as “company” and “CO”). We then matched reports and registrations using the House identification number (which is linked to a unique registrant-client pair), as well as the names of the registrant and client. For reports we could not match by identification number and standardized name, we also attempted to match reports and registrations by client and registrant name, allowing for variations in the names to accommodate minor misspellings or typos. For these cases, we used professional judgment to determine whether cases with typos were sufficiently similar to consider as matches. We could not readily identify matches in the report database for the remaining registrations using electronic means.

To assess the accuracy of the LD-203 reports, we analyzed stratified random samples of LD-203 reports from the 32,301 total LD-203 reports. The first sample contains 80 reports of the 10,646 reports with political contributions and the second contains 80 reports of the 21,655 reports listing no contributions. Each sample contains 40 reports from the year- end 2010 filing period and 40 reports from the midyear 2011 filing period. The samples allow us to generalize estimates in this report to either the population of LD-203 reports with contributions or the reports without contributions to within a 95 percent confidence interval of plus or minus 8.2 percentage points or less, and to within 4.2 percentage points of estimate when analyzing both samples together. We analyzed the contents of the LD-203 reports and compared them to contribution data found in the publicly available Federal Elections Commission’s (FEC) political contribution database. For our fiscal year 2009 report, we interviewed staff at the FEC responsible for administering the database and determined that the data reliability is suitable for the purpose of confirming whether a FEC-reportable disclosure listed in the FEC database had been reported on an LD-203 report.

We compared the FEC-reportable contributions reporting on the LD-203 reports with information in the FEC database. The verification process required text and pattern matching procedures, and we used professional judgment when assessing whether an individual listed is the same individual filing an LD-203. For contributions reported in the FEC database and not on the LD-203 report, we asked the lobbyists or organizations to provide an explanation of why the contribution was not listed on the LD-203 report or to provide documentation of those contributions. As with covered positions on LD-2 disclosure reports, we cannot be certain that our review identified all cases of FEC-reportable contributions that were inappropriately omitted from a lobbyist’s LD-203 report. We did not estimate the percentage of other non-FEC political contributions that were omitted (such as honoraria or gifts to presidential libraries).

To identify challenges to compliance, we used structured interviews and obtained views from lobbyists included in our sample of LD-2 reports on any challenges to compliance. In addition, we asked lobbyists to rate various terms associated with disclosure requirements.

To describe the resources and authorities available to the Office, we interviewed officials from the Office and obtained information on the level of staffing and resources dedicated to the enforcement of the LDA. The Office provided us with information on the processes used to enforce compliance with the LDA, and reports from the tracking system on their number and status of referrals.

To describe the efforts the Office has made to improve its enforcement of the LDA, we interviewed officials from the Office and obtained information on the processes used by the Office in following up on referrals from the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House. The Office provided us with reports from the tracking system on the number and status of the referred cases.

The mandate does not include identifying lobbyists who failed to register and report in accordance with LDA requirements, or whether for those lobbyists who did register and report all lobbying activity or contributions were disclosed.

We conducted this performance audit from June 2011 through March 2012 in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain sufficient, appropriate evidence to provide a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives. We believe that the evidence obtained provides a reasonable basis for our findings and conclusions based on our audit objectives.

Appendix II: List of Registrants and Clients for Sampled Lobbying Disclosure Reports

The random sample of lobbying disclosure reports we selected was based on unique combinations of registrant lobbyists and client names (see table 5).

Appendix III: List of Sampled Lobbying Contribution Reports with Contributions and No Contributions Listed

See table 6 for a list of lobbyists and lobbying firms from our random sample of lobbying contribution reports with contributions. See table 7 for a list of lobbyists and lobbying firms from our random sample of lobbying contribution reports without contributions.

Appendix IV: GAO Contact and Staff Acknowledgments

GAO Contact

Staff Acknowledgments

In addition to the contact named above, Robert Cramer, Associate General Counsel; Bill Reinsberg, Assistant Director; Shirley Jones, Assistant General Counsel; Crystal Bernard; Amy Bowser; Colleen Candrl; Jill Lacey; Natalie Maddox; Donna Miller; Anna Maria Ortiz; Melanie Papasian; and Katrina Taylor made key contributions to this report.

Assisting with lobbyist file reviews were Vida Awumey, Alexandra Edwards, Emily Gruenwald, Lois Hanshaw, Jeff McDermott, Stacey Ann Spence, Megan Taylor and Daniel Webb.