TPM Reader BH writes ...

Regarding the Tom Ridge lobbying story, I have what are, perhaps, several stupid questions. Why would someone not register their lobbying activities? Is is purely because it looks bad politically or are there other reasons? How often do lobbyists fail to register? Is failing to register associated with failure to report the income?

Good question. Turns out I know a bit about this because I spent a lot of time earlier in this decade researching and reporting about the activities of foreign lobbyists. The unfortunate answer is that the FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) is written and has been subsequently interpreted in such a way to provide numerous workarounds for foreign lobbyists not to register if they don't want to. I have a very vivid memory in fact of sitting down with one of the FARA office's staff lawyers circa 2000-2001 and having him walk me through whether a certain set of facts amount to non-compliance with the law. You would have thought I was talking to the defense attorney for the guy who I was reporting on. They seemed institutionally invested in a minimal interpretation of the legislation they were tasked to enforce.

One thing that tells you is that this Ridge thing is pretty exceptional. The FARA office does very, very little proactive enforcement of its legislation. Which makes me think that Ridge must have been making a lot of waves, getting a lot of attention, or perhaps they thought there was something going on more significant than the simple non-compliance.

As for why he wouldn't register? That's quite a mystery. I could perhaps imagine that even a big player like Ridge wouldn't know about the requirement if he were on his own. But he works for Blank Rome, which has plenty of experience in the foreign lobbying biz. So that seems like quite a mystery too.