How to Become a Lobbyist

Video Transcript

"Hello, this is Matthew Burbank. Hello, I'm Matthew Burbank an associate professor at the University at Utah and I want to talk to you a little bit about how to become a lobbyist. So, who are lobbyists is the question you may be asking yourself. Lobbyists come from a surprising range of backgrounds. Generally people who are lobbyists are people who are trying to influence legislation or legislators and they do this at the national level, they do it at the state level and so there are across the United States a large variety of lobbyists. Generally speaking when we think of lobbyists of people who represent corporations or other interests that have a lot of money and that's true. Interests that do have a lot of money do tend to employ lobbyists fairly regularly. However, you should also know that there are a lot of people who lobby and are lobbyists who work for organizations that are non-profit. that maybe organizations that support small business or other sorts of entities and they too employ lobbyists to try to influence legislation, to try to get legislators to do what they think will be good for them and for other people. And so the way to become a lobbyist is to get involved in the legislative process and to work to try to influence legislators."