John Cooper shares the good, the bad and the ugly of being a lobbyist
John Cooper: ...I don't have any advantage over a constituent that makes regular contact with a legislator. Do we have an advantage over people that don't involve themselves in the process? Sure.
Q: Don't legislative outcomes sometimes strike the public as having been determined solely by lobbyists?
Cooper: If the public reaches a critical mass on any issue, it tends over time to happen. They run over us. It's said that the worst day for a lobbyist is the day they actually get their legislation passed, because they might lose a high-paying client. Is there any truth in that?There's an old saying that you work yourself out of a job. But the truth is if you're successful and you pass legislation, other opportunities come along. So you really want to pass those bills...
Cooper: ...If you look to the future, just to fund the operation of state government with 120 counties, which are way too many, but who's going to have the guts to make that move to reduce that administrative overhead? It's such a radical idea in a state like this, but it's radical and practical at the same time. It's the root of a lot of our problems.
We've got school districts that have declining income, and this year that have to do a lot of road miles on buses that have very few kids to pick up and are burning all this diesel fuel. They're going to be laying off teachers to pay for fuel. It's really troubling. I come from one of those little counties. They have a lot of issues. There's a lot ahead of us....
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