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Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Google Finds Workaround for Lobbying That Omits Big Bosses
(Bloomberg) -- It was the end of 2018, and Google's leaders were tired of being Number One. For the second year in a row, federal records showed the search giant had spent more than any other individual company on lobbying in Washington. Executives in Mountain View were sick of seeing that mentioned in the press, according to a former Google employee who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain For Homeless Cyclists, Bikes Bring an Escape From the Streets Then Google apparently found a workaround. A new analysis of federal lobbying data by the nonprofit Tech Transparency Project shows that Google and its parent company, Alphabet Inc., used an internal reorganization to exclude the value of lobbying by its senior executives from disclosures. The move helped keep Google off the top of the lobbying charts even as it maintained a robust network of advocates pushing its interests in the capital, during federal challenges to its dominance in search and advertising and the beginnings of artificial intelligence regulation. The findings, which were confirmed by a Bloomberg analysis of lobbying records, show that the effect of the accounting change was to lower the amount that Google reported spending to influence the federal government, likely by millions of dollars. The reorganization 'has allowed the company to shield a significant portion of its lobbying expenditures from public view,' the Tech Transparency Project said in its report. A Google spokesperson, José Castañeda, disputed the report and said the company has followed all relevant disclosure laws. 'These are inaccurate claims about a technical change that simply brought us in line with how many other companies report their lobbying activities,' he said. 'Our lobbying expenditures began decreasing in 2018, after we restructured our government affairs team and cut spending on consultants.' Internal Reshuffle Starting in 2019, Google began cutting ties with some of its external lobbying firms, a move it acknowledged publicly as part of an overhaul of its Washington operations. But the shuffling of external lobbying firms doesn't explain the whole of the decline in Google's reported lobbying expenses, which fell from more than $22 million in 2018 to $8.9 million in the Covid-disrupted year of 2020, and have subsequently remained well below pre-pandemic levels. There's been another, quieter change: in early 2020, Google moved its in-house lobbyists into a new subsidiary, called Google Client Services LLC. It's that unit which now files spending disclosures for Google's lobbying activities. The reorganization meant that the parent companies Google and Alphabet no longer directly employed any lobbyists – defined under federal disclosure law as people spending at least 20% of their time on influencing Congress or the executive branch. Companies that file lobbying disclosure reports are supposed to also account for the time that other senior executives — those who don't meet the 20% threshold – devote to lobbying, according to legal experts and the compliance guide for the Lobbying Disclosure Act published by Congressional leaders. That generally involves prorating their annual compensation to account for the days they spend influencing the government. But since Google moved lobbyists into the Google Client Services subsidiary, the parent company no longer meets the threshold for filing disclosures under the Lobbying Disclosure Act, according to the TTP analysis. That means Google no longer reports the lobbying expenses of high-ranking managers who aren't part of the Client Services unit — like Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai and chief legal officer Kent Walker — to the public, as it once did. As a result, in 2020 Google dropped out of the top 20 in corporate lobbying expenses for the first time in nearly a decade, the TTP analysis found. While Google's reported annual spending has since edged back up again, it hasn't come close to the No.1 slot in the company lobbying rankings that it used to occupy. For the past five years, that position has alternated between two other tech giants: Meta Platforms Inc. and Inc. Antitrust Challenge There's been plenty going on in Washington over the period that was crucial for Google's business. For one thing, the company — like many peers — is betting heavily on AI, a field where decisions in the US capital will shape the commercial landscape. Google has also been under assault from antitrust authorities over its dominance in search and digital advertising. The company has maintained in those lawsuits that its success is down to consumer choice and superior innovation, rather than a result of its power to shape laws and regulations. Publicity around its lobbying spending has the potential to undercut such arguments and alienate regulators. When executives are as highly paid as many in Silicon Valley, the prorated amounts can add up to millions — even for just a few days' worth of lobbying. Google reported total compensation for Pichai of more than $225 million in 2022, thanks to grants of stock. His total compensation was $10.7 million in 2024. Walker's total compensation was more than $30 million last year, the company reported. Some say the new structure Google is employing flouts the spirit of the federal disclosure law – if not the letter itself. 'This is just too cute by half,' said William Luneburg, a professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and the co-editor of the manual for lobbying compliance published by the American Bar Association. 'On the face of it, it's wrong,' he said. 'They have to report all of their expenses, which would include the time of officers and directors and other employees that spend their time engaging in lobbying activity.' 'We always comply with disclosure laws and any suggestion of improper reporting is false,' said Castañeda, the Google spokesperson. TTP said it examined lobbying disclosures of several other companies that filed reports via a similar subsidiary model, but didn't find any that had used the structure to remove executive lobbying from their disclosures. --With assistance from Davey Alba and Sarah Frier. (Updates to add attribution in second paragraph) Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates Dubai's Housing Boom Is Stoking Fears of Another Crash Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan Why It's Actually a Good Time to Buy a House, According to a Zillow Economist The Electric Pickup Truck Boom Turned Into a Big Bust ©2025 Bloomberg L.P. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
9 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Defending Trump's Orders Leaves DOJ Lawyers Showing Strain, Seeking Delays
(Bloomberg) -- Mass departures from the US Justice Department and a rising flood of lawsuits are squeezing government lawyers defending administration policies, with signs of strain spilling into court. The department's public court filings, along with interviews with current and former attorneys reveal challenges facing the government as it fights hundreds of cases against President Donald Trump's agenda. In deadline extension requests since January, lawyers have taken the unusual step of publicly acknowledging to judges that they are overextended and having trouble keeping up with the workload. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider Sunseeking Germans Face Swiss Backlash Over Alpine Holiday Congestion To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain For Homeless Cyclists, Bikes Bring an Escape From the Streets The department has handled more than 450 court challenges — an unprecedented number for a new administration. In roughly one out of every seven cases, at least one of the government's lawyers was reassigned, left the department or withdrew without stating their reasons, according to a Bloomberg News review of the filings. In the Federal Programs Branch, which plays a lead role defending executive branch policies, more than half of the hundred-plus lawyers have left, according to a current Justice Department lawyer who requested anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. Those have included litigators involved in cases about Trump's ban on transgender military servicemembers, the work of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, and termination of federal grants. Government lawyers have withdrawn in more than 30 of the cases challenging Trump's immigration policies since January, according to the data compiled by Bloomberg. That includes departures from the teams defending Trump's efforts to cancel birthright citizenship, stop the flow of refugees into the US, and use of a wartime powers law to send alleged Venezuelan gang members to a Salvadoran prison. Requests by lawyers for deadline extensions filed on public court dockets offer a rare window into the upheaval in offices tasked with trying to keep Trump's policies intact in the face of the departures and the deluge of lawsuits. One attorney focused on immigration cases cited the difficulties in 'balancing competing litigation obligations' following the departures of 'multiple' colleagues. A lawyer in a different office alluded to problems keeping up with a 'substantial current workload.' An assistant US attorney in Washington put it more bluntly, saying his office is 'overwhelmed' by the 'continued surge' of cases. Justice Department spokesperson Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement that, 'our attorneys in the Federal Programs Branch and elsewhere across the Civil Division are working tirelessly to fight the unprecedented number of lawsuits filed against the President's executive orders, policies, and actions. The Department has defeated many of these lawsuits all the way up to the Supreme Court and will continue to defend the President's agenda to keep Americans safe.' Hundreds of Justice Department lawyers have resigned or been removed since Trump took office, an exodus that's coincided with a rapidly rising caseload. Attorney General Pam Bondi has ousted dozens of lawyers deemed at odds with Trump's agenda, including prosecutors who handled Jan. 6 cases and now-defunct criminal probes of Trump. And many attorneys have departed voluntarily. During a Feb. 28 hearing in a fight over Trump shuttering the US Agency for International Development, a Federal Programs Branch lawyer cited his office's understaffing and fast-moving caseload when the judge questioned why the government hadn't offered more evidence. The lawyer said they hadn't had a break since the inauguration and that he and his colleagues were 'working day and night.' The current Justice Department attorney said that a number of longtime Programs Branch lawyers had left because the job had simply become untenable, pointing to the workload, lack of resources, the administration's persistent attacks on federal employees, and policy changes like getting rid of remote work and DOGE's demands for weekly emails about how they spent their time. For others, the nature of the work was a factor, said Stacey Young, an 18-year veteran of the Justice Department who left in January and founded a network of alumni called Justice Connection. 'They were asked to take positions they believed were illegal or unethical, including in the Civil Division,' she said. 'This number is considerably higher than most people realize.' In the Office of Immigration Litigation, a specialized division once home to more than 300 lawyers, the government litigators coordinate with local US attorney offices to defend against a swath of actions, from individual deportation orders to sweeping executive orders. The immigration litigation office's district court section is at capacity, said one former attorney, who requested anonymity to discuss internal dynamics. The office has also lost people with valuable expertise, the former attorney added. David McConnell resigned as director of the immigration office's appeals division in February after more than 30 years at the Justice Department. He said in a written statement to Bloomberg that he left because of his 'abrupt reassignment' to a Trump administration task force focused on so-called sanctuary cities. 'I feel badly for leaving people behind, particularly at a time when they are being asked to handle a tremendous workload and make challenging and new arguments without the same level of institutional support or knowledge that I and others who have since left the office had traditionally provided,' McConnell said. Another public flashpoint came in April, when Erez Reuveni, a DOJ attorney known for defending immigration policies during Trump's first term, was suspended – and eventually dismissed – after he admitted that the government had sent Kilmar Abrego Garcia to a prison in El Salvador by mistake. Reuveni later submitted a whistleblower complaint accusing senior administration officials of scheming to defy court orders and withhold information from a judge. The Justice Department has denied the allegations. Justice Connection's Young said the sequence of events leading to Reuveni's firing sent a chilling message: even some attorneys with a history of defending Trump's hard-line immigration policies were vulnerable to internal purges. 'Attorneys in the civil division know that Erez Reuveni was fired because he refused to violate his duty of candor to the court, and many are rightly concerned that they could be next,' Young said. To deal with the workload, the immigration litigation office has increasingly delegated a significant portion of new cases to lawyers in US attorney offices around the country, at least some of whom don't have the same amount of expertise handling immigration policy challenges with national consequences, according to a former trial attorney in that section. The same is true for the Federal Program Branch, with a larger proportion of cases going to US attorney offices that Main Justice lawyers would normally keep or at least lead, the current Justice Department lawyer said. Civil Division leadership is working to recruit more lawyers, the current attorney said, but new hires aren't bringing the same level of expertise and years of government experience to make up for what the litigating offices have lost. (Updates with DOJ comment in eighth paragraph.) 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Fast Company
11 minutes ago
- Fast Company
Social Security is turning 90 but it's more threatened than ever. Here's why
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) signed the Social Security Act into law 90 years ago this week, he vowed it would provide economic stability to older people while giving the U.S. 'an economic structure of vastly greater soundness.' Today, the program provides benefits to almost 69 million Americans monthly. It's a major source of income for people over 65 and is popular across the country and political lines. It also looks more threatened than ever. Just as it has for decades, Social Security faces a looming shortfall in money to pay full benefits. Since President Donald Trump took office the program has faced more tumult. Agency staffing has been slashed. Unions and advocacy groups concerned about sharing sensitive information have sued. Trump administration officials, including the president, for months falsely claimed millions of dead people were receiving Social Security benefits. Former top adviser Elon Musk called the program a potential 'Ponzi scheme.' Trump and other Republicans have said they will not cut Social Security benefits. Yet the program remains far from the sound economic system that FDR envisioned 90 years ago, due to changes made—and not made—under both Democratic and Republican presidents. Here's a look at past and current challenges to Social Security, the proposed solutions, and what it could take to shore up the program. The go-broke date has been moved up The so-called go-broke date—or the date at which Social Security will no longer have enough funds to pay full benefits—has been moved up to 2034, instead of last year's estimate of 2035. After that point, Social Security would only be able to pay 81% of benefits, according to an annual report released in June. The earlier date came as new legislation affecting Social Security benefits have contributed to earlier projected depletion dates, the report concluded. The Social Security Fairness Act, signed into law by former President Joe Biden and enacted in January, had an impact. It repealed the Windfall Elimination and Government Pension Offset provisions, increasing Social Security benefit levels for former public workers. Republicans' new tax legislation signed into law in July will accelerate the insolvency of Social Security, said Brendan Duke at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. 'They haven't laid out an idea to fix it yet,' he said. The privatization conversation has been revived The notion of privatizing Social Security surfaced most recently when Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this month said new tax-deferred investment accounts dubbed 'Trump accounts' may serve as a 'backdoor to privatization,' though Treasury has walked back those comments. The public has been widely against the idea of privatizing Social Security since former President George W. Bush embarked on a campaign to pitch privatization of the program in 2005, through voluntary personal retirement accounts. The plan was not well-received by the public. Glenn Hubbard, a Columbia University professor and top economist in Bush's White House, told the Associated Press that Social Security needs to be reduced in size in order to maintain benefits for generations to come. He supports limiting benefits for wealthy retirees. 'We will have to make a choice,' Hubbard said. 'If you want Social Security benefits to look like they are today, we're going to have to raise everyone's taxes a lot. And if that's what people want, that's a menu, and you pay the high price and you move on.' Another option would be to increase minimum benefits and slow down benefit growth for everyone else, which Hubbard said would right the ship without requiring big tax increases, if it's done over time. 'It's really a political choice,' he said, adding, 'Neither one of those is pain free.' Nancy Altman, president of Social Security Works, an advocacy group for the preservation of Social Security benefits, is more worried that the administration of benefits could be privatized under Trump, rather than a move toward privatized accounts. The agency cut more than 7,000 from its workforce this year as part of the Department of Government Efficiency's effort to reduce the size of the government. Martin O'Malley, who was Social Security agency commissioner under Biden, said he thinks the problems go deeper. 'There is no openness and there is no transparency' at the agency, he said. 'And we hear about field offices teetering on the brink of collapse.' A Social Security Administration representative didn't respond to a request for comment. Concerns persist An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in April found that an increasing share of older Americans—particularly Democrats—support the program but aren't confident the benefit will be available to them when they retire. 'So much of what we hear is that its running out of money,' said Becky Boober, 70, from Rockport, Maine, who recently retired after decades in public service. She relies on Social Security to keep her finances afloat, is grateful for the program, and thinks it should be expanded. 'In my mind there are several easy fixes that are not a political stretch,' she said. They include raising the income tax cap on high-income earners and possibly raising the retirement age, which is currently 67 for people born after 1960, though she is less inclined to support that change. Some call for shrinking the program Rachel Greszler is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, the group behind the Project 2025 blueprint for Trump's second term. It called for an increase in the retirement age. Greszler says Social Security no longer serves its intended purpose of being a social safety net for low-income seniors and is far too large. She supports pursuing privatization, which includes allowing retirees to put their Social Security taxes into a personal investment account. She also argues for shrinking the program to a point where every retiree would receive the same Social Security benefit so long as they worked the same number of years, which she argues would increase benefits for the bottom one-third of earners. How this would impact middle-class earners is unclear. 'When talking about needing to reform the system, we need to reform it so that we don't have indiscriminate 23% across the board cuts for everybody,' Greszler said. 'We need to reform the system in a more thoughtful way, so that we are protecting those who are most vulnerable and reliant on Social Security.'
