Does Big Food Influence Government Decision Making

Section 3: How does Big Food influence government decision making?

As explained in previous sections, Big Food has immense power to influence government decision making. It is important to understand how Big Food is able to participate and use the political system to their advantage. The main way that Big Food influences government decision making is through lobbying. Lobbying is a common practice within the American political system that is utilized by industries to further their interests. Lobbying manifests in two major ways within the political system. Industries lobby Congress for favorable regulations, and the White House for beneficial trade agreements. For this purpose of this thesis, the aspect of lobbying surrounding favorable regulations in Congress will be explored as it pertains to Big Food.

There are two ways in which lobbyists working for Big Food obtain favorable regulations in Congress. The first is the recurrent pattern of job exchanges between federal officials and lobbyists. This career pattern of lobbyist to federal official or vice versa is well known within politics. In fact this occurs so often that the metaphor associated with this pattern is often called the “revolving door.” The graph below illustrates just how prevalent this

phenomenon is within the Federal Government.
The rate of members in the Legislative Branch retiring to lobby has grown steadily over time. The graph also shows that in 1970s and 1980s the
“revolving door” was not as apparent.

The increase of the “revolving door” correlates with the prominence of lobbying in the United States as an industry. This is evident as the lucrativeness of Washington lobbying has grown staggeringly since the 1990s.

Big Food is not immune to the “revolving door.” In fact, it occurs more often between lobbyists and government bodies such as the USDA because agency heads for departments are appointed politically. These appointments are picked due to support of the department’s initiatives and political party affiliation. While there are dozens of cases to exemplify this career pattern, the biggest person to discuss is JoAnn Smith of the USDA and Dr. John Hathcock of the

FDA.
JoAnn Smith, a participant of the “revolving door,” was the president of the National Cattlemen's Association before she was appointed as the USDA’s Food Marketing and Inspection Division. Two of Smith’s decisions are highly contentious as they illustrate her favoring the interests of the processed meat industry over the consumers. First, as McGraw explains, Smith allowed the use of the euphemism “fat-reduced beef” for bits of processed meat that should have been categorized as unusable by-products of slaughtering. Second, Smith opposed the American Heart Association’s proposal to put a seal of approval on meats that were low in fat (McGraw 1991). These two actions prove that while she no longer worked for the National Cattlemen's Association, Smith still fought for their interests, even at the expense of consumers. While not all participants of the “revolving door” are puppets of Big Food, it is important to analyze their actions once they make the switch to ensure they are not progressing the agenda of their former employers. Smith is just one participant of the “revolving door,” a exemplifies how people in her position are able to obtain favorable regulations in Congress for industries within Big Food.
The second and most prominent strategy is the exchange of funds from lobbyist to politician. Lobbyists use monetary resources in order to sway politicians to support or create favorable regulations. The two ways in which funds are given to politicians is through “hard” and “soft” money. “Hard” money is from political donations that are regulated by law through the Federal Election Commission. These political donations come from Political Action Committees (PACs). As this money is regulated by legislation it is legally sanctioned. This means that PACs and individuals have a donation limit that they can spend per candidate.
Big Food does not generally exert much of its financial influence on politicians in the form of “hard” money. This is clear as there are not many PACs that represent Big Food interest directly. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, in the 2016 election cycle agribusiness PACs contributed to individual candidates totalling $14,320,607 in the Senate and $32,021,009 in the House. While the donations previously mentioned are totals, PAC funds from agribusiness can go directly to members of the House and Senate Agriculture Committees. This ensures that the funds go where the PAC would most benefit.
While there is a lack of research to indicate that PACs buy influence, there is a correlation between contributions are desired outcomes. As Nestle explains, “about 95% of the funds from agricultural PACs go to incumbents. Thus PAC money follows voting records and reinforces them” (Nestle 2007,104). A study examining the connection between “hard” money and congressional votes on sugar subsidies concurred this notion. The study found that sugar PACs gave larger donations to politicians who voted for the subsides. It also found that the larger the PAC contribution, the higher likelihood that the incumbent would support their initiatives (Brooks 1998). Giving “hard” money is one of the ways Big Food can obtain favorable measures from Congress.