'Mapping the Lobbying Footprint of Harmful Industries: 23 Years of Data From OpenSecrets' by Holly Chung, Katherine Cullerton and Jennifer Lacy-Nichols in (2024) The Milbank Quarterly comments
Our research reveals the similarities and differences among the lobbying activities of tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and ultraprocessed food industries, which are often a barrier to the implementation of public health policies. Over 23 years, we found that just six organizations dominated lobbying expenses in the tobacco and alcohol sectors, whereas the gambling sector outsourced most of their lobbying to professional firms. Databases like OpenSecrets are a useful resource to monitor the commercial determinants of health. Commercial lobbying is often a barrier to the development and implementation of public health policies. Yet, little is known about the similarities and differences in the lobbying practices of different industry sectors or types of commercial actors. This study compares the lobbying practices of four industry sectors that have been the focus of much public health research and advocacy: tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and ultraprocessed foods. Data on lobbying expenditures and lobbyist backgrounds were sourced from the OpenSecrets database, which monitors lobbying in the United States. Lobbying expenditure data were analyzed for the 1998–2020 period. We classified commercial actors as companies or trade associations. We used Power BI software to link, analyze, and visualize data sets. We found that the ultraprocessed food industry spent the most on lobbying ($1.15 billion), followed by gambling ($817 million), tobacco ($755 million), and alcohol ($541 million). Overall, companies were more active than trade associations, with associations being least active in the tobacco industry. Spending was often highly concentrated, with two organizations accounting for almost 60% of tobacco spending and four organizations accounting for more than half of alcohol spending. Lobbyists that had formerly worked in government were mainly employed by third-party lobby firms. Our study shows how comparing the lobbying practices of different industry sectors offers a deeper appreciation of the diversity and similarities of commercial actors. Understanding these patterns can help public health actors to develop effective counterstrategies.
The definition of commercial determinants of health (CDoHs) set out in The Lancet 2023 series recognizes that commercial actors are diverse and have different impacts on health. Yet too often, public health advocates fail to make these distinctions, referring to “the industry” or “corporations” as a proxy for harmful commercial actors. This lack of nuance stymies efforts to develop a science of commercial determinants. One way to start thinking through the differences among commercial actors is to compare the practices and attributes of different types of actors. In this study, we contrast the lobbying activities of four industry sectors that severely impact health and have been the focus of much public health research and advocacy: tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and ultraprocessed food (UPF) companies. In addition to comparing commercial actors based on their portfolio, we also differentiate between individual companies and industry trade associations, a distinction that is often missing in empirical studies of political activity. Beyond this paper's conceptual focus on commercial actor diversity, it also seeks to investigate which characteristics of commercial lobbying are feasible to capture at scale. In so doing, it supports efforts to systematically monitor the CDoHs. Attention to CDoHs has grown in recent years, with the World Health Organization (WHO)’s launch of a new program of work in 2021 and the launch of The Lancet series on CDoHs offering two prominent illustrations. Within this emerging discipline, there are many streams of work analyzing different aspects of CDoHs, including system dynamics such as neoliberalism and capitalism, the diversity of commercial actors, commercial practices influencing science, marketing, and politics; and the myriad of case studies concerning harmful industry sectors such as alcohol, gambling, tobacco, UPFs, guns, and fossil fuels.
The authors state
This study focuses on one commercial activity: lobbying. Lobbying is one of several political strategies that commercial actors use to influence policymaking. Evidence demonstrates that countries with a greater degree of corporate permeation are less likely to implement evidence-based health policies endorsed by the WHO, and more recently, lobbying practices by companies and trade associations have been linked to efforts to influence US participation in and funding of WHO. Although the tobacco industry has a long history of lobbying to deliberately stall, weaken, and block public health regulations of its industry, there is growing evidence that the same political practices are used by gambling, alcohol, and UPF industries to oppose policies that threaten their business interests. We note that much of this research relies on documentary analysis, as empirical data sets of lobbying are rare. Analyzing and monitoring political practices like lobbying is challenging, as information about commercial lobbying and political donations is often poorly disclosed, delayed, or lacking relevant information. In this study, we aimed to explore the utility of one notable non-governmental organization (NGO) database (OpenSecrets) to monitor corporate lobbying. This study is part of our broader program to explore approaches to monitor CDoHs. Lobbying is defined in different ways, with an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development survey noting that no country used the same definition. In 2022, a number of NGOs developed the International Standards for Lobbying Regulation, which defined lobbying as “any direct or indirect communication with a public official that is made, managed, or directed with the purpose of influencing public decision making.” Many different activities have been conceptualized as a form of lobbying, including meeting with public servants, coordinating public campaigns to influence voters, funding astroturf organizations (designed to appear as genuine grassroots advocacy), or submissions to policy processes. In some cases, companies have staff employed in-house to specifically focus on lobbying (e.g., government relations units). In other cases, companies hire third-party (external) lobby firms to lobby on their behalf. Although concerns have been raised about the undue influence of some businesses and industry sectors in politics, it is important to note that lobbying itself is a legitimate practice in democratic governments and can support representative policymaking.
Lobbying can be a resource intensive activity, with an estimated US $4.1 billion spent on lobbying in the United State in 2022. This makes it easier for well-resourced organizations (like many businesses and trade associations) to engage in lobbying and other political activities. Lobbying resources can go beyond the money spent hiring lobby firms (or employing lobbyists directly). One longer-term strategy that can increase the effectiveness of lobbying is the revolving door, which is the movement of individuals from employment in government in political or administrative roles (e.g., elected officials or civil servants) to private industry, and vice versa. Revolving-door practices are particularly common for third-party lobbyists and are understood to confer three main categories of benefits to the lobbyist and their clients: they can leverage professional networks to achieve their clients’ goals; they have intimate knowledge of governmental processes, which can inform strategies; and they may also have insider knowledge regarding government preferences concerning specific policy matters. In the absence of enforced cooling-off periods after exiting public office, the revolving door can also present risks for conflicts of interest to arise, especially if the former government employee moves into a lobbying role that focuses on their former portfolio.
Efforts to systematically monitor lobbying face several challenges. No single measure of lobbying is consistently available internationally, presenting challenges for efforts to develop global indices of corporate political activity or CDoHs. Of the three monitoring frameworks proposed to measure the influence of commercial actors, lobbying only appears as an indicator in one: the CDoHs index. Authors of the Corporate Permeation Index and Corporate Financial Influence Index excluded lobbying indicators, as there were insufficient comparable data on this metric across countries, though the authors acknowledged lobbying as an important mechanism of CDoH influence on policymaking. Alongside academic efforts to monitor lobbying and corporate political activity are the civil society groups and NGOs who play an active role in monitoring commercial practices, drawing public and policymaker attention to commercial harms and advocating for transformative changes so that people are prioritized over profits.
Some NGOs have developed databases for monitoring and sharing information about commercial lobbying. OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization that maintains one of the most extensive databases on political donations, lobbying expenditure, and revolving-door practices in the United States. This database presents an opportunity to monitor corporate lobbying over time and to compare the practices of different industry sectors. This study seeks to expand our understanding of the corporate political activities of four industries that profoundly affect health (tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and UPFs). By exploring one of the more complete data sets concerning corporate lobbying, we aim to answer two questions. First, which patterns could be identified about how different commercial actors engage in lobbying over time? Second, what are the opportunities and limitations afforded by the OpenSecrets database? In the discussion, we reflect on our learnings as well as some of the challenges we faced. We conclude by proposing ways that this database could be adapted and modified so that other jurisdictions can more easily monitor corporate political activity.
