PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Mick Mulvaney, who holds two administrative positions in the Trump Administration, made a confession the other day – at least I call it a “confession” — that offends normal sensibilities.

He told James Hohmann, a Washington Post writer who produces the Daily 202 column, that when he, Mulvaney, was in Congress, he met only with lobbyists who had given him money. Hohmann called it a verification of the “corrosive influence of money in politics.”

Here is the way it was reported in Daily 202:

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” Mulvaney said. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

Mulvaney, who represented South Carolina in the House from 2011 until President Trump appointed him director of the Office of Management and Budget in 2017, told about 1,300 banking industry executives and lobbyists that they should push lawmakers hard to pursue their “shared agenda.”

He told the crowd that trying to sway legislators is one of the “fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy,” though his own comments about requiring money for any meeting tended to obscure that view.

To be clear, Hohmann wrote that not all members of Congress operate in this tawdry way.

“Many offices take pride in meeting with people no matter how much money they have given or might in the future.” “But Mulvaney’s comment,” Hohmann added, “appears emblematic of a mentality that pervades Trump’s orbit.”

This account resonated with me because, as the preamble to this blog notes, I was a lobbyist in Oregon for more than 25 years – actually about 40 if you count my time as a state government manager when I handled relations with the legislature.

I never – I say never – found a case where I knew a legislator would decide whether to meet with me based on how much money my clients provided to his or her race.

For us – meaning myself, state lobby colleagues in my firm, and our firm’s clients – giving money to legislative or statewide office candidates was a very serious matter, one we handled carefully to avoid any notion that we wanted to pay for a result. We simply wanted to invest in the candidacies of those who would be thoughtful in how they carried out their office.

We didn’t keep voting records. We kept relationship records.

If the candidate in question had been in office before, the question for us was whether we had access to the office holder and whether he or she would “consider” viewpoints we expressed on behalf of clients. Note, the objective was consideration. If the candidate had not been in office before, we discussed our idea that consideration mattered.

It was NOT whether the candidate had pledged or would pledge his or her vote in any particular way.

This may sound unrealistic, especially if you harbor negative views of the way lobbyists operate. To use an old saw, are there rotten lobbyists who spoil the barrel of lobbyists? Of course, the answer is yes.

But, my experience is that most lobbyists are trying to do the right thing by representing their clients and working to make sure client viewpoints are considered before action is taken on specific pieces of state legislation.

So, debits to Mulvaney and kudos to office holders who operate in an ethical and honest manner, regardless of the effect of “money in politics.”