Quote:
Originally posted by rsl12
onetime2: lobbyists would not be my 1st pick of people to become regulators--although they would be intimately familiar with the regulations, their bias makes them bad choices even from a PR standpoint. There are plenty of people who have worked their whole lives in government, people who have experience with policy analysis (rather than advocacy, which lobbyists practice), who are just as familiar with the technical issues, if not more. Hiring people from the industry is fine--it happens all the time in government. People in industry have a great knowledge of the issues that are important. but hiring *lobbyists* seems like an odd choice, when there are scientists, engineers, doctors who have been performing policy analysis for the industry. It's like picking the marketing employee to do regulatory work.
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Where do you think lobbyists come from in the first place? In many cases they come from the industry they are lobbying for. In others they become lobbyists simply because they know certain people of power. Appointments typically come either from knowing the subject or knowing the person doing the appointing. The qualities that make a person a good lobbyist (ability to exert influence, educate, generate press, raise awareness with the public, private, or government decison makers, etc) are qualities that are valuable in a position of leadership of government agencies and departments.
Policy analysts, scientists, engineers, doctors, etc are typically not good leaders as they often work alone and have little experience building concensus. Leaders need to get people to buy into their plans and influence decisions.