Worse than warts: lawyers and lobbyists

"Politicians are like warts on the body of society. And the only thing worse than warts are lawyers and lobbyists."
― Jarod Kintz, Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal With Change by Deciding to Let Indecision Into Your Life

I set off looking for quotes about lawyers and lying and found one above at Goodreads.

The Sacramento Bee has somewhat closed its comment policy, so I’ll make my comment here. Apparently, the word “Viewpoint” is now an acceptable replacement for “Editorial.”

Lobbyists on Immigration ‘Business’ Letter = 59.4%

Weasel-word alert:  Majority of  Immigration ‘Business’ letter signatures are from lobbyists.

I had read about a letter to Congress, signed by more than “450 Business Groups,” the business groups phrase made  my “weasel-words alert” go off and I went looking for the document.  By my count, 461 groups signed the letter, but 274 of those are not businesses, they are lobbying and trade association groups.  (In reality, 187 of the signatories are actual businesses, but weasels will be weasels.)

Welcome Back Congress

More than 450 Business Groups Stand United:

Enact Immigration Reform NOW

http://images.cesweb.org/edm/2013/im/cea_immigration.pdf

At the bottom of the letter, we have a list of the signatories, I grabbed a copy and fired up the old trusty spreadsheet.   In each of the titles, I looked for keywords that would give away the fact that these signatories are Lobbyists or Trade Associations (same thing really). 

Here is a list of the words that I searched for:

Alliance Associated Association Bureau Chamber Coalition

Committee Commission Council Federation Forum Greater

Immigra Institute Lawyer League

List of signatories