One man interest group

I came across an article that deals with interest group lobbying, but it had a new spin on it. Commerce Secretary Nominee shows how Kellogg executive Carlos Gutierrez is nominated to become the new United States Commerce Secretary, yet he still has a great amount of stock in Kellogg. Last year Gutierrez spent $300,000 lobbying for, among other things, sugar reform and sugar quotas between the United States and Mexico. Gutierrez was forced to open more factories in Mexico for Kellogg, leaving the U.S. behind due to the high price of sugar in America. As Commerce Secretary he will have control over the sugar issue in the U.S., possibly using his position to improve his financial standing. This process seems like they cut out the middleman of the elected official, and simply made a member of the interest group the representative. He has the ability to act just how the interest group wants, because he himself is the interest group. White House officials are meeting with the Office of Government Ethics and Commerce to see whether or not he can be involved in issues for which he has lobbied in the past. He is also meeting with ethics officials to see whether he should sell his stock in Kellogg or just put it in a blind trust. Also, this appointment marked the first time in a while that the nomination did not go to someone directly tied to political fund raising for that party. However, Jose Fanjul, president of Florida Crystals and contributor of over $200,000 to Bush’s reelection bid, was pleased to see Gutierrez appointed hoping that there was no need to step away from the sugar issue in America. With this nomination Bush ensured that several donating interest groups were still kept happy. If that link did not work here is the website: http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/30/gutierrez.commerce.ap/index.html