By William Bole

Over the years, the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington has forged into fields of analysis that may sound incongruous -- like "ethical considerations in managed healthcare" and "the ethics of executive compensation." In like fashion, the Jesuit-sponsored research center at Georgetown University is now taking up what some skeptics would probably view as another oxymoron: lobbying ethics.

Involving lobbyists as well as people in government who are lobbied by them, the study is grappling with hefty questions like whether or how special-interest lobbying can mesh with the pursuit of the general good. The project will highlight a series of conferences, ending in two years with release of a set of ethical guidelines for practitioners in the field.

"We're very much in the early phase. Right now we're simply trying to get an understanding of what's going on in the field of lobbying," said Father Edward B. Arroyo, S.J., who coordinates the center's program, "Ethics in Public Policy." A professor of Catholic social thought at Loyola University in New Orleans, Father Arroyo edits Blueprint for Social Justice, published by the Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice. The lobbying study is a joint project with the Twomey Center.

During a small gathering in October at the center's offices in Washington, he charted the discussion with a lengthy list of questions such as:

"Do you think a lobbyist is simply an advocate for his/her position, or is there any responsibility to expose countervailing considerations to that which he/she is advocating? What about the lobbyist's responsibility to the 'other side' of his/her position, e.g., the values represented in the [opposing view]? How is the common good represented in the values advocated? How is the preferential love of the 'least of these' represented?"

In the first stage, Father Arroyo, a sociologist, has headed straight to the field. He has interviewed more than two dozen lobbyists and policy makers in Congress and the executive branch, as well as journalists, political scientists, and policy advocates who are close to the process.

One measure of the subject's sensitivity is that all of them are participating in this search for understanding -- anonymously. Lobbyists often get pegged as peddlers of narrow political or economic interests, but Father Arroyo notes that as partners in public policy, they have a serious calling in the world, as do their counterparts in business and government. In other words, "lobbying ethics" isn't necessarily an oxymoron.

At any rate, as Father Arroyo is quick to emphasize, the Woodstock Center isn't rushing to judgment. "It is much too early for us to make any generalizations or draw any conclusions," he said.

The conclusions will be saved for a singular set of recommendations scheduled for distribution in 2001. These will be unusual partly because, unlike lawyers and doctors, for example, lobbyists have no functioning code of professional ethics. (What they have in spades are federal rules and restrictions covering such activities as financial contributions to public officials and potential conflicts of interest.) The Woodstock Center isn't aiming to fill that void with its own code, but does plan to broadly circulate a monograph to "provide some ethical reflections and even guidelines for those involved" in lobbying activities, Father Arroyo said.

Besides him, members of Woodstock's Ethics in Public Policy team include the center's director, Father James L. Connor, S.J.; Michael McCarthy, professor of political philosophy at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. and author of "The Crisis of Philosophy" (State University of New York Press, 1989); and Philip Lacovara, partner in the law firm Mayer, Brown & Platt, based in Washington and New York.

The lobbying study is the first undertaking of the ethics-in-policy program, inaugurated at a February 1998 dinner.

"We decided that since lobbying is the junction point that brings together all the constituents in the public policy arena, it was a good place to start," Lacovara said at the kick-off. "What we're going to try to do is come up with some useful principles . as real-world, practical guidance for people who are involved in this process." Lacovara's Washington experience includes stints as deputy solicitor general in the U.S. Justice Department and counsel to the Watergate Special Prosecutor.

This is the first time since its early years that the 25-year-old Woodstock Center has set out to chronicle how public policy as such is formulated in the nation's capital. "Lobbying seems to be expanding to the global level and devolving to the local level. Right now we're focusing only on the Washington experience," said Father Arroyo, adding that the project might perhaps be expanded later, to analyze lobbying at other levels.

"As a sociologist, I find it really interesting to get to know the players in this field, and to work on a team with a prosecuting lawyer, theologian, and political philosopher," he added, referring to Lacovara, Father Connor, and McCarthy, respectively.

William Bole is an associate fellow of the Woodstock Theological Center.