Defenses of The K Street Project
The few Republicans and political conservatives who have chosen to defend the project claim that after 40 years of a near-total Democratic control of Congress, most of the top lobbyists in Washington were former Democratic congressional staffers and aides, since lobbyists are valued for their access to power more than their political ideologies. They might be more loyal to their party and former employers than their present ones.
In fact, Republicans claim, Democrats in Congress had informally done the same thing and forced lobbies to hire former staffers of their own. In this view, the K Street Project was simply a way of ensuring that those lobbying in Congress had political views in line with those who hired them to lobby. Labor unions, they noted, hire people to advocate for them in Washington who share their viewpoints regardless of their access to power.
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