A 2010 report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog group, lists eight staffers to Sen. Shelby that left his office to join or create lobbying firms: Ray Cole, Stewart Hall, Richard Roberts, Wesley Ryan Welch, Amelia Blackwood, Phil Rivers, Jennifer Bendall and Geoffrey Gradler.

Ron Crumpton

I think Matt Yglesias is wrong to declare that the world of 'This Town' is dying, unless he thinks publicly financed elections, strict lobbying bans and Scandinavian-style wealth distribution are imminent.

Alex Pareene

Finance Yin Wrong

The great esteem in which the Nobel prizes are universally held is due to the fact that for several generations they have been given purely on scientific merit and not through lobbying and politicking. I do hope that it will stay this way, and the prizes will never be given according to the number of votes in live TV contests!

Andre Geim

Hope Great Yin

I want to make it clear that the lobbying sector does an important job. It is very useful to the government to hear the views of a broad range of groups to make sure we get the best.

Andrew Lansley

Men Government Yin

I don't want to put words in Geithner's mouth, but I think he is generally against the revolving door of government officials taking jobs with companies that they have overseen or in roles that involve lobbying. At minimum, I'm pretty sure he felt that way about himself.

Andrew Ross Sorkin

Men Government Yin

Businesses have moved from doing business to doing lobbying, and I think that's a very bad thing.

Angus Deaton

Business Yin Very

I'm in favor of inequality if it comes about from people making great innovations that make us all better off. And I think those people deserve to be rich. But the people who get rich by lobbying the Congress to give them special protections that come out of the hides of the workers seems to be a bad idea.

Angus Deaton

Work Great Equality

After all, Wall Street is clearly the most powerful lobbying force on Capitol Hill. From 1998 through 2008, the financial sector spent over $5 billion in lobbying and campaign contributions to deregulate Wall Street.

Bernie Sanders

Power Yin Wall Street

I don't believe in lobbying only progressives and liberal members of Congress. I don't believe in doing interviews only with those who share my views. I want to reach a wider audience.

Bianca Jagger

Yin Wit Wider

Our criteria is that it's okay to invest in companies so long as they stop lobbying in Washington, stop exploring for new hydrocarbons, and sit down with every one else to plan to keep 80 percent of the reserves in the ground.

Bill McKibben

Car Yin Wit

The truth is, the 'Fortune' 500 prefer lobbying to campaigning.

Bradley A. Smith

Truth Yin UN

Government unions should not be allowed to influence the public officials they are lobbying, and sitting across the bargaining table from, through campaign donations and expenditures.

Bruce Rauner

Men Government Yin

I don't find myself lobbying for projects. Filmmakers almost always come to me.

Carter Burwell

Yin Ways Way

Certainly, my advice is that communicating, lobbying, fundraising and engaging the public in policy and politics is far more exciting and inexpensive via the Internet. Old guard organizations like Common Cause had to evolve to embrace this new environment.

Chellie Pingree

Politics Men Yin

When the power of private prisons is diminished, so, too, is their ability to engage in back-door political lobbying that has an impact on public and private prisons alike.

Clint Smith

Power Age Yin

Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view.

E. O. Wilson

Time Men Environmental

The important thing to remember with the Internet is that there are large companies that have an interest in controlling how information flows in it. They're very effective at lobbying Congress, and that pattern has locked down other communication media in the past. And it will happen again unless we do something about it.

Eli Pariser

Communication Yin Wit

The groups who spend the most on lobbying lawmakers in Washington are well-known: ExxonMobil, Boeing, AT&T, General Electric.

Elizabeth Flock

Yin Who Well

Wall Street banks have the right to express their views to lawmakers and regulators through lobbying, but the law is clear: If they want to influence lawmakers, they must disclose their lobbying expenditures.

Elizabeth Warren

Yin Want Wall Street

KWMR is my radio station, and I intend to have a job there as I get older. That's what I'm lobbying for. They don't need me. They've got plenty of people. But let's see if I can make myself indispensable.

Frances McDormand

Yin Tend Ten

I'm always lobbying for the irrepressible strength of love.

Gregory Porter

Strength Love Yin

I run a taxpayer group - the most powerful guy in D.C., nonsense. OK? There are buildings with thousands of people in them, all lobbying for more spending and higher levels of spending and more government commitments. And there are a handful - a handful of groups that fight for less spending.

Grover Norquist

I'm a lobbyist and had a career lobbying. The guy who gets elected or the lady who gets elected president of the United States will immediately be lobbying. They would be advocating to the Congress, they'll be lobbying our allies and our adversaries overseas. They'll be asking the business community and labor unions.

Haley Barbour

Lobbying has become a term of reproach, as if it were improper to push for a particular belief. This has happened because of paid lobbyists whose opinions are for hire and the fear that decision-makers, whether politicians or officials, are susceptible to their charms and wiles. This has tarred entirely proper lobbying with the same brush.

Jacob Rees-Mogg

Since I'm a fan of collections and anthologies, believe that the best writing often shines in shards and galloping stretches, I never find myself lobbying for a writer I enjoy reading regularly to hole up in Heidegger's hut for four or five years to bring forth a mountain.

James Wolcott

You read constantly that banks are lobbying regulators and elected officials as if this is inappropriate. We don't look at it that way.

Jamie Dimon

I find it extremely ironic that Bush says that personal opinion should not be a tool in the interpretation of the Constitution, when he's the one who's lobbying for a Constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If that doesn't stem from personal opinion, I don't know what does.

Jessi Klein

Our Keystone legislation received strong bipartisan support in the Senate. Although it didn't receive the 60 votes necessary for passage, 56 senators - a majority - voted in favor of the bill. Despite President Obama's actively lobbying against the bill, we still won the support of 11 Democrats.

John Hoeven

Every single dollar spent lobbying a legislator on behalf of oil and gas is a toxic dollar that undermines public health and safety laws that protect Americans. That's contamination of the political system.

Josh Fox

In the U.S. you have a system of lobbying and influence on our policy and law makers which is incredibly pronounced. The gas industry spent $250 million getting an exemption from our Safe Water Act. Every one of those dollars is toxic; a contaminant in our political system. It disrupts the normal flow of justice, science, fact and reporting.

Josh Fox

There are good people in the lobbying industry. Lobbyists can serve a very useful purpose.

Kevin Spacey

As long as we, in the United States, continue to insist that our politicians have to spend all of their time raising millions of dollars for television ads, it will be corrupt. If we leave it up to the politicians to clean up lobbying and finance reform, nothing is going to change.

Kevin Spacey

Watching AIDS play its evil game of give and take has made me understand why lobbying for increased research funding should be an urgent priority - not only for the gay community but for us all.

Laura Ingraham

Family law is institutionally anti-male. I've been lobbying MPs, and I'm not going to give up campaigning for equality until I get equality.

Louis de Bernieres

As a young woman, I was always interested in lobbying. I thought to find a cause you're passionate about, to really work on behalf of that cause, work on lobbying your state legislatures or your federal legislatures, that was of interest to me.

Lucy McBath

I don't know anything about politics or lobbying in the film world.

M. Jayachandran

Real lobbying reform must end the practice of corporate lobbyists writing our laws.

Marty Meehan

In reality, everybody in Congress is a stand-in for some kind of lobbyist. In many cases it's difficult to tell whether it's the companies that are lobbying the legislators or whether it's the other way around.

Matt Taibbi

As more wealth and political power is amassed - as bitcoins rise in value - Congress and various lobbying groups will be influenced to an ever greater extent by the interests of Bitcoin owners who - in turn - will lobby to keep the Internet and Bitcoin alive and growing.

Max Keiser

Positive market incentives operating in the public interest are too few and far between, and are also up against a seemingly never-ending expansion of perverse incentives and lobbying.

Mo Ibrahim

Lobbying is a legitimate profession... Many congressional spouses act as lobbyists.

Patricia Schroeder

One is only susceptible to lobbying if they're weak and they trust what an individual tells them without verification.

Richard Burr

A 2010 report by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a non-partisan watchdog group, lists eight staffers to Sen. Shelby that left his office to join or create lobbying firms: Ray Cole, Stewart Hall, Richard Roberts, Wesley Ryan Welch, Amelia Blackwood, Phil Rivers, Jennifer Bendall and Geoffrey Gradler.

Ron Crumpton

If drug development becomes the domain of government researchers, it's a sure bet that political lobbying will eventually trump scientific promise and commercial viability when it comes to investment decisions.

Scott Gottlieb

Every time the DSM prepares for a new edition, there are countless groups lobbying to get their particular mental illness recognized by the diagnostic manual. Surely, this is a social and cultural phenomenon.

Siri Hustvedt

Big business, for all its lobbying, is often put in line by investigative reporting, public scandals and multi-million-dollar judgments in court against those who put products on the market that are dangerous to their buyers.

Stanley Crouch

There is talk that badminton may not make it as a sport in the 2020 Olympics. We must bear in mind that other sports are strongly lobbying to be included.

Taufik Hidayat

Money has transformed every watchdog, every independent authority. Medical doctors are increasingly gulled by the lobbying of pharmaceutical salesmen.

Thomas Frank

Our laws governing lobbying and campaign contributions have struck the right balance between the wishes of the people and those of private industry, so why are we so quick to doubt that the same great results can be achieved by putting the government's justice-dealing branch on the same market-based course?

Thomas Frank

In the process of ego, in the process of lobbying and in the process of just criticising for stake of criticism or in the process of politicising, don't commit national crime. Don't prevent exploration in the country. Let us move ahead more aggressively; it is in the best interest of the country.

Veerappa Moily

Cable companies aren't bad because they're parts of unwieldy media conglomerates. They're bad because they're monopolies (even where they are no longer legally exclusive) and because the government policies that made them monopolies rewarded lobbying over customer service.

Virginia Postrel