John Wonderlich of the Sunlight Foundation writes about a May 6 meeting he and his colleagues and others in the nonprofit community had with White House officials on President Obama's rules for lobbyists.

Many in the nonprofit world have been highly critical of the revolving-door rules, which have eliminated many lobbyists for nonprofits from being considered for administration posts. And many on K Street have been critical of the administration's rules restricting lobbyists' communications to writing when it comes to discussing specific stimulus requests with executive branch officials.

Wonderlich provides both an interesting defense and a criticism of the rules. He writes:

"To me, this looks like an imperfect law (the Lobbying Disclosure Act)
being used as a foundation for imperfect lobbying restrictions, in the
face of enormous and unprecedented stimulus spending. Whether the
restrictions are proportional to the sudden need for competent spending
is certainly up for debate. There seems to be little debate, however
over whether the LDA is a sufficient vehicle for lobbying regulation.
It isn't. The LDA requirements are easily skirted, enforcement is lax,
and many terms are insufficiently defined. (It's probably fair to say
that position was the consensus of the groups present, but certainly
not presented as administration policy.)"

Read more at Sunlight Foundation.