Lawyers for six lobbyists fighting what they call a “constitutionally problematic” Obama administration policy want a federal appeals court in Washington to revive their lawsuit. The challengers, represented by a team from Mayer Brown, argue in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that a judge got it wrong when she upheld the administration’s ban on lobbyists serving on agency boards and committees.
“It would seem self-evident that the ability to serve on a government advisory committee is a desirable and beneficial opportunity that many would regard as valuable,” Mayer Brown special counsel Charles Rothfeld and associate Joseph Minta, representing the lobbyists, wrote in a brief filed on May 6. “And that opportunity is withheld from plaintiffs here solely because they engage in the constitutionally protected activity of petitioning the government, thus both punishing and discouraging that constitutionally protected activity.”
