The First Street Research group found the article, Is money’s deep role in politics the root of our woes?, by David Gergen and Michael Zuckerman an interesting read. In particular, the article quantifies the speed of the revolving door over time giving a succint picture of how much faster the revolving door is spinning:
- The revolving door between Congress and lobbyists is spinning faster: In the 1970s, just 3% of retiring members of Congress went into lobbying. But by 2004, in the previous seven years more than half of all senators and 42 percent of House members had made the switch.
But, its just not how fast the door spins, its also how many people go through revolving door. We pulled some quick figures from First Street detailing how many current lobbyists have gone through the revolving door, here are some quick highlights:
- Over 130 former members of Congress disclosed working as a registered lobbyist so far in 2011
- Over 1,810 former Congressional staffers disclosed working as a registered lobbyist so far in 2011
