By Peter Onear

My university for three years employed two different Washington lobbying firms. That is not particularly unusual for a large research university with an enrollment of more than 20,000 students and assorted professional schools.

I'm not going to elaborate on the particular reasons why we had hired two lobbyists. But state budget cuts and the recession made it clear that we need to terminate our contract with one of them, if not both. Each of them cost about $125,000 annually. Together, their expense was about 30 percent of my annual government-relations budget.

The two lobbying firms—I'll call them Firm D and Firm R to reflect their particular political leanings—had different backgrounds. Firm D has headquarters in an adjoining state, but has a law office in Washington with a lobbying branch. Firm R is a national lobbyist that specializes in higher-education earmarks.

The debate over which firm we should fire or whether to keep both (and cut somewhere else) or fire both took place among three people: the university president, the vice president for research, and myself, as the vice president for government relations. Who won and why is illustrative of the status of government relations in higher education today.

Some essential background:

• My university president was predisposed to favor Firm D. He had worked extensively with one of the company's principals at a previous job.
• The vice president for research had a longstanding relationship with Firm R and repeatedly pointed out that company's critical assistance in helping our university attract increased earmark financing.
• Firm D asserted that it now had greater Washington influence with the new Obama administration. However, certain staff members in the office of the Democratic member of Congress who represents our university admitted that they preferred to work with Firm R despite its party leanings.
• Almost no one else at the university knew this debate was going on except for a few administrators like the vice president for finance. And almost no one knew that a great deal could depend on who won or lost.

What exactly was at stake? Well, plenty at the federal level for all of higher education regardless of whether an institution receives earmarks. For example, federal stimulus money was used by many states to bolster higher-education budgets. Student-loan programs are essentially now going to be financed directly by the federal government instead of using banks as the middlemen. Federal assessment of degree programs appears to be back under consideration. National laws governing peer-to-peer file sharing will be a huge issue for students. And there are dozens of other issues still emerging out of the recently passed Higher Education Reauthorization Act.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of higher-education institutions have no presence in Washington much less employ two separate lobbying firms. Couldn't university staff members, including myself and the vice president for research, go to Washington to advocate for our positions as well as shop around research projects as potential earmarks?

Indeed, our president suggested that if some of us (including himself) were more active on the federal level then perhaps the university could terminate both firms and save a quarter of a million dollars. But the vice president for research and I both argued that despite this age of e-mail, twitters, cellphones, and convenient flights, it is still difficult to arrange meaningful and productive trips to Washington. Congressional staff members are usually friendly and helpful. But it is hard to get to know other DC staffers and agency heads. It is also a full-time job to understand the nuances of tracking federal legislation.

For example, I had a bias toward Firm D because it had proved capable of putting together a day of useful meetings for myself and my president that would have taken me and my government-relations staff months to arrange, if we had been able to manage it at all.

But the vice president for research maintained that Firm R could put together an even better set of meetings. More important, he said, why would we want to jeopardize our successful earmark program that Firm R managed?

I countered that maybe Firm D could even obtain more earmarks given its party affiliation with the current administration.

Children! Children!

The debate lasted several weeks as the turmoil over the budget (both ours and the state's) roiled around us. Sometimes it looked like we would have money to keep both lobbyists. At other times, it looked bleak for all of us.

Finally, the president made his choice. It was essentially a "bird in the hand" decision. Earmark financing was too important to risk. Firm R won out. But as a sign of the times, Firm R agreed to take slightly less money while picking up the work of Firm D. I, meanwhile, got to deliver the bad news to the lobbyists in Firm D. They took it very well. Perhaps they ascribe to the old baseball axiom that "it's not over till it's over." Frankly, they may be right.

Peter Onear is the pseudonym of a vice president for government relations at a university in the Midwest.