‘Would you make your very best case’: enforcing lobbying regulations through stipulation practice

Interest group and advocacy researchers have closely studied how different lobbying regulations emerge in varying political systems, but less attention has been given to the practices for enforcing those regulations or the interactional work of regulatory professionals. Through presenting transcripts of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s public meetings, the article demonstrates how enforcing lobbying regulations requires a stipulation practice. Though there are multiple practices required to effectively enforce lobbying regulations, investigative staff and commissioners approach this stipulation practice by scrutinising whether proposed actions, namely financial penalties, reflect the commission’s strategy across each and every case. Drawing on ethnomethodology and studies of legal professionals, the article argues that the enforcement of lobbying regulations involves ordinary practices for passing proposed enforcement actions.