Big Pay Raise from Congress to Lobbyist: The Jo Ann Emerson Truth

Last November, Jo Ann Emerson asked voters in MO8 to reelect her. By January, as her term was beginning she decided she no longer wanted the job. She decided by then she would become a lobbyist. In her vocational change decision, she is going to cost Missouri voters hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more, in a special election to find her replacement. So what is motivating her?

Consider this from Republic Report:


Republic Report combed through the few disclosures that are out there to find out how much lawmakers make when they sell out and lobby for interests they once oversaw as public officials. To be sure, this list only shows the tip of the iceberg (out of the 44 lawmakers who left office in 2010 for a lobbying-related career, only one is at an organization that discloses his salary).

Our research effort uncovered the partial salaries of twelve lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Republic Report’s investigation found that lawmakers increased their salary by 1452% on average from the last year they were in office to the latest publicly available disclosure.

This is why Jo Ann Emerson is quitting Congress.