1

Revolving Door and Issue of Ethics

Your Name

Department, Institute

Course Code: Course Title

Instructor Name

July 28, 2020

 2

Revolving Door and Issue of Ethics

The movement of employees from public sector to private sector and vice versa is

referred to as revolving door. When public sector employees with their deep knowledge of the

political system, government procedures and policies, and most importantly their connection,

move to a private sector organization then their knowledge and connections become their power

and they use this power to manipulate the public sector for benefits of their own private sector

organizations (Lazarus and McKay, 2012).

To encourage ethical practices in public sector and to keep track of revolving door effects

government enacted ‘Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA)’,and

registered the lobbyist to keep track of their movement to and from public sector. After this the

number of registered lobbyists declined reasonably (Holman, 2014).

Cooling-off period is also a good practice to prohibit public office holders and their high

level staff to get private sector jobs right after their tenure in public sector. This practice cut them

off from their previous position.

Lobbying Disclosure Act is also a measure to ensure transparency and to limit the abuse

of public sector knowledge and connections. This act is not a whole solution but provide the

protection to some extent (Petersen, 2006).

 3

References

Holman, C., 2014. The Tension Between Lobbying and Campaign Finance Laws: Rolling Back

Gains Made Under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007. Election

Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy, 13(1), pp.45-74.

Lazarus, J. and McKay, A., 2012. Consequences of the Revolving Door: Evaluating the

Lobbying Success of Former Congressional Members and Staff. SSRN Electronic Journal,.

Petersen, R., 2006. Lobbying Disclosure And Ethics Proposals Related To Lobbying Introduced

In The 109Th Congress. [Washington, D.C.]: Congressional Information Service, Library of

Congress, p.11.