Bruce Josten, the chamber's top lobbyist, has penned a sharp critique of the president's spending plan. Go here to read it.
Bookmark this: The Association of American Publishers has chosen former Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine, as its new president and CEO. Allen will replace another former representative (and fellow Harvard Law grad) Pat Schroeder, D-Colo. He'll start the first week in April.
Allen said he's excited about his new job, which will allow him to shuttle between his home in Maine and the association's policy shop in D.C. The group, based in New York City, represents most of the major commercial publishers in the United States, as well as non-profit publishers, university presses and scholarly societies.
"The industry right now is facing all sorts of complicated issues related to copyright and digitization, education, free speech, all of which are very important to the publishers," he told National Journal.
Continue reading Former Rep. Allen to Head Up Publishing Group.
Michael O'Leary, who once served as counsel to then-Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., is being promoted from senior vice president to executive vice president of government relations at the Motion Picture Association of America. O'Leary will oversee all federal and state legislative and regulatory strategies and work with CEO Dan Glickman on government policy priorities. "Michael has been integral to many of the MPAA's legislative and regulatory achievements over the past several years and in his new, expanded role he will continue to lead our U.S. government affairs team to success in its advocacy efforts," Glickman said in a statement.
MPAA also announced that Greg Frazier, who worked in the Clinton administration, will become executive vice president and chief policy officer. He will be responsible for the association's annual operating plan and coordinating its implementation across departments. Frazier will continue to manage MPAA's U.S. trade policy and to work on international affairs issues.
-- Winter Casey
From this week's National Journal: (subscription required)
Boeing has brought three new executives into its government affairs shop based in Rosslyn, Va. David Morrison, who is joining the aerospace company as vice president of government operations, will serve as the chief lobbyist covering all appropriations and authorizations matters. Sean McCormack will take on the role of vice president of communications, and Brigadier General Leo Brooks, Jr., has been tapped as vice president of national security and space. Morrison and Brooks, whose positions are new, will report to Tim Keating, senior vice president of government operations. The company is moving Phil Ruter, who is currently vice president of legislative affairs, into a new position as chief of staff for Keating.
Morrison, 51, recently worked for the Podesta Group and has served as staff director for the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee and deputy associate director for national security at the Office of Management and Budget. McCormack, 44, recently served as assistant secretary for public affairs at the State Department, reporting to former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Under the Bush Administration, McCormack also served as deputy White House press secretary and National Security Council spokesman. Brooks, 51, becomes Boeing's senior corporate liaison with the Pentagon, NASA, and the Department of Homeland Security.
-- Winter Casey
The party's over, folks.
That's the message Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., sent to all the banks receiving funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program in a bill he introduced Tuesday. Lobbying groups, however, argue that the "parties" in question are the lifeblood of an industry employing hundreds of thousands of people. Kerry's legislation would put even more people out of jobs, the groups claim.
Kerry's bill would prevent TARP-funded banks from "hosting, sponsoring or paying for conferences, holiday parties and other entertainment events." It appears as though Northern Trust Bank's Hollywood getaway was the last straw for Kerry. The bank, which received $1.5 billion in bailout assistance, recently flew hundreds of employees and clients to Los Angeles and reportedly hosted "a series of lavish parties and concerts."
The American Society of Association Executives, the U.S. Travel Association and 10 hotel chains are pushing back. The ASAE sent a letter [PDF] to Kerry Thursday urging him to "consider the unintended fallout of your proposed legislation." Ten major hotel chains, including the Hilton and Marriott, began running online ads on political newspaper sites highlighting the number of travel-related jobs lost in 2008. Geoff Freeman, the travel association's senior vice president of public affairs, called Kerry's bill just the latest move in a government-wide "witch hunt."
Whitney Smith, a spokeswoman in Kerry's office, said the senator has received "overwhelming support" for the bill, and stands by its purpose regardless of lobbyist reaction against it.
Top lobbying stories from Earlybird, NationalJournal.com's daily news roundup:
• "A foreign national employed by a top Florida Republican fundraiser has been indicted in California, accused of steering illegal campaign contributions to Gov. Charlie Crist and three presidential candidates," the Miami Herald reports. "Federal prosecutors in Los Angeles charged Ala'a al-Ali of the Dominican Republic with using straw donors to give about $50,000 to presidential candidates John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton and $5,000 to Crist's 2006 campaign."
• A lobbyist "got scolded by name for trying to spy on an administration conference call with reporters Thursday," The Hill reports. "The call was set up for the press but, information being power, at least one lobbyist was dying to hear for herself what the OMB had to say."
• "The growing prospect that there may be federal action on climate change apparently has spawned a wave of lobbyists in Washington," the Baltimore Sun reports. "The Center for Public Integrity reports that in the past year, as climate legislation finally came to a vote on Capitol Hill, more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy."
Big Business will out-muscle organized labor in workplace political campaigning by 2010.
That's the ambitious claim being made by the Business Industry Political Action Committee, which is using the Web to help companies and associations get employees up to speed on industry issues. BIPAC President and CEO Greg Casey points to his committee's booming membership -- it has swelled from 50 companies and associations in 2000 to more than 3,700 last year -- and a recent report that shows workers trust their employers more than unions for political information as evidence that he can outgun Big Labor -- and at a bargain price.
"Washington loves to measure things on the amount of money we spend, but there are some things, like the credibility of the messenger, that you can't put a price on," he said.
Others are less sure. When reached for comment, representatives of several labor heavyweights had barely heard of BIPAC and expressed a mixture of shock and bemusement at Casey's prediction. Alison Omenf, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO, argued that tradition and strong relationships with union members would keep organized labor a step ahead of the game.
"The key here is the relationships that we have with workers," she said. "That doesn't change just because they're getting information from other source."
There's also a money gap. Unions dumped more than $100 million into ads and field organizing in support of President Obama and other Democrats last fall. BIPAC's primary means of reaching employees is through relatively simple informational Web sites (like this one for HSBC). Can they compete with armies of purple-clad SEIU organizers patrolling neighborhoods every fall?
"I like it when they knock on doors!" Casey said excitedly. "I like it when they walk around in neighborhoods where 50 percent of the people aren't home. The new precinct isn't built block-by-block, it's built cubicle-to-cubicle."
Top lobbying stories from Earlybird, NationalJournal.com's daily news roundup:
• "Medical research institutions scored a major coup when Congress included an additional $10.4 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the stimulus bill, but their advocates are not stopping there," The Hill reports. "Biomedical research groups sense an opportunity to build on that victory and are pressing lawmakers and the Obama administration for more money."
• "Industries from health care to agribusiness to mining that stand to lose under" Obama's "policy agenda are ramping up lobbying campaigns to derail or modify his plans," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The day after Mr. Obama formally laid out his policy goals in his first address to Congress, the former chief executive of HCA Inc. unveiled a $20 million campaign to pressure Democrats to enact health-care legislation based on free-market principles."
The Information Technology Industry Council is bringing the former general counsel to Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, on board as a lobbyist in its government affairs shop. Lori Prater -- who handled tax, judiciary, and financial services issues for Gordon for nearly six years -- will replace Kara Calvert, who left ITI to join the Franklin Square Group. Prater has also worked for Republican Rep. Tom Campbell and Democratic Rep. Mike Honda, both of California.
-- Winter Casey
The wild exodus of lobbyists from embattled defense lobbying shop PMA Group is growing, with more spinoff firms starting and tensions apparently building over where longtime PMA clients will move their business.
Further, National Journal has learned that PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti has hired William E. Lawler III, a prominent criminal lawyer with Vinson & Elkins, to represent him in the ongoing federal investigation of PMA. Lawler confirmed that he is representing both Magliocchetti and PMA. The firm, which was raided by the FBI last November, is under scrutiny in a federal probe into possibly illegal campaign donations, including potential reimbursements to so-called "straw donors."
In recent weeks, veteran lobbyists have fled PMA to open their own shops. One is Federal Business Group, which boasts five former PMA lobbyists, including Brian Morgan, and is currently working out of the PMA suites in Arlington, Virginia. Two sources say that some clients have received communications from Magliocchetti suggesting he prefers existing clients go with Federal Business Group.
The other major new shop is Flagship Government Relations, which opened its doors earlier this month with eight former PMA lobbyists. It says it is making headway in trying to sign up PMA clients. "We're very pleased and encouraged about clients joining us," said Kaylene Green, president of Flagship, adding that Flagship expects to start registering new clients soon.
Last year, PMA was the tenth largest lobbying firm in Washington in terms of revenues and boasted such big-name clients as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. It also represented many smaller defense firms. PMA is slated to close its doors at the end of next month and has recently shut down its political action committee.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for PMA who is with the firm Rational PR, said, "It seems like clients are making their transition decisions based on their relationships with their individual staff lobbyists."
Meanwhile, retired Navy Captain Joe Littleton, a 14-year veteran of PMA, is about to bail out. In an e-mail dated February 14, Littleton informed old friends that he was going to be "moving on in the near future" to Defense Strategic Advantage, a small firm that he launched about a year ago.
The PMA Group's dwindling ranks have been partly spurred by federal probers' interest in PMA-linked donations to several members of Congress with whom the firm has long had close ties. The most prominent are House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa - for whom Magliocchetti used to work - and Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.
Roll Call and The Washington Post recently reported that in 2006 PMA added two Florida-based friends and neighbors of Magliocchetti to the lobbying firm's board of directors. The two were not lobbyists, but quickly became big political donors.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, PMA lobbyists and clients have donated almost $197,000 -- more than any other firm -- to Visclosky during his career. Visclosky has said he's giving to the Treasury Department $18,000 of the donations that came from the two newly added PMA board members.
Since its founding in 1989, PMA has donated $167,000 to Murtha's campaign coffers, according to the center. Murtha has not indicated whether he will return any PMA donations. At this stage, there is no evidence that these members or any others are targets of the probe.
-- Peter H. Stone
UPDATE -- Feb. 26, 12:35 p.m.
Matt Mazonkey, communications director for Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., wrote to us: "Mr. Magliocchetti never worked for Congressman Murtha. He was a staff analyst for the defense appropriations subcommittee, and reported to the chairman, who was Cong. Bill Chappell [D-Florida], at the time of his appointment and the full committee Chairman Jamie Whitten [D-Miss.]. He was never a staffer of Murtha's.
CongressDaily today reported on former OMB Director Jim Nussle's move to Growth Energy Inc., a pro-ethanol lobbying group established by Jeff Broin, a builder and operator of ethanol plants:
Nussle, an Iowa Republican who also served in the House, will work with outgoing National Farmers Union President Tom Buis, who will become Growth Energy's CEO on March 15. Retired Gen. Wesley Clark is co-chairman of the firm. In a conference call announcing the appointments, they said their first goal is convincing EPA to raise the amount of ethanol allowed in gasoline above 10 percent.
And in a separate story, CD reports on the explosion of lobbying that's taken place around the issue of climate change:
Groups hoping to influence climate change legislation are putting a lot of green in lobbyists' pockets. A new report out today by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity found that business, manufacturing, health and environmental groups last year pumped at least $90 million into efforts by more than 2,300 lobbyists seeking to nudge federal climate-change legislation in their favor.
Both stories are available to CongressDaily subscribers.
Oilman T. Boone Pickens spoke to more than 100 Washington energy elites Tuesday night at a private reception hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations. Touting natural gas and cracking jokes with audience members, Pickens was adamant about the U.S. becoming energy independent.
With his plan, Pickens emphasized that the Mideast could be "clear out of the picture" in 10 years. Pickens' plan would generate energy from natural gas and wind. Wind energy, though, raises this concern: Where to put the transmission lines from wind energy sources? This obstacle, while not addressed in any great detail at this event, was a hot topic at the Clean Energy Summit Pickens spoke at earlier this week in Washington.
Indeed, Pickens has been all over the country, airwaves and op-ed pages this month pushing Congress to go further with its clean energy investments than what the stimulus allocated. He says, for example, the country should build a more reliable electrical transmission grid and develop "smart-grid" technologies. The Pickens Plan, not surprisingly, fits squarely into the oilman's vision for what the new administration's energy plan should be.
The Campaign Finance Institute estimates that soft money spending by outside organizations, such as "527" political groups and nonprofit 501(c) advocacy organizations, declined slightly to $400 million in the 2008 election cycle. In comparison, those groups spent around $486 million in the 2004 election cycle, the institute said.
Over the past several months, National Journal's environment and energy reporter, Margaret Kriz, has sent me numerous emails of new coalitions forming related to lobbying on expected energy reform and climate change legislation. So I'm not surprised to see that the Center for Public Integrity has found that more than 770 companies and interest groups hired an estimated 2,340 lobbyists to influence federal policy on climate change in the past year. Take a look here.
-- Bara Vaida
As Congress begins to tackle an overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system, a new coalition has formed to protect some of the smaller players in the financial services field, Congress Daily's Bill Swindell reports.
Three lobbying groups -- the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies, the Credit Union National Association and the Independent Insurance Agents & Brokers of America -- have formed the Main Street America Coalition to advocate for small players in the financial-services industry. Click here to read story. (Subscription required)
Three former George W. Bush administration officials are getting ready to represent energy interests, according to The Washington Times. James L. Connaughton, who chaired the White House Council on Environmental Quality throughout Bush's two terms, is headed to Constellation Energy to direct its policy work and lobbying priorities; former Interior Department official Mike Olson, and Energy Department attorney Salo Zelermyer are joining Bracewell & Giuliani's energy lobbying team.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Former Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Robert Cresanti will soon be heading up the government relations office of SAP America, a business software company. After leaving Commerce, where he served from 2006 to 2007, Cresanti worked as a managing director at Ocean Tomo, a bank specializing in intellectual property.
While at Commerce, Cresanti served as the head of the Technology Administration, where he oversaw policy analysis staff and worked closely with the National Institute of Standards and Technology and National Technical Information Service. Cresanti has also served as a vice president of public policy at the Business Software Alliance, general counsel for the Information Technology Association of America and staff director for the Subcommittee on Financial Services and Technology for the Senate Banking Committee.
At SAP, he will be filling the old position of Mary Arnold. Cresanti may have been drawn to the German-based company in part because he was a military brat who grew up in Germany with a German mother and an American father.
Mortgage finance behemoth Freddie Mac, now under government control due to massive investment losses, has hired Covington and Burling attorneys to conduct an internal investigation of a $2 million lobbying campaign that was undertaken by Freddie Mac itself, according to the Associated Press. Read story here.
The attorneys have been questioning current and former employees for more than a month about a lobbying effort that helped quash new regulations aimed at the company, before the housing market collapsed. The investigation comes not long after the AP reported that Freddie Mac secretly hired Republican consulting firm DCI Group of Washington to stop a proposal in the Senate in 2005 sponsored by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., that would have spurred massive changes in the portfolios held by the company as well as Fannie Mae.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
This week National Journal reported on the huge battle over Cape Wind, a project off Nantucket Sound that is poised to become the country's first offshore wind farm if it can get past the remaining regulatory obstacles. In our story (subscription required) we reported that $1.4 million has been spent on federal lobbying against the project by the powerful opposition group the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Now, we've unearthed news about additional federal lobbying dollars that bring the anti-Cape Wind lobbying total to a cool $2 million. It turns out that alliance board member William Koch spent $620,000 through his company Oxbow to lobby against Cape Wind in 2006 and 2007.
--Eliza Krigman
If the nation's governors find themselves tired after days of talking about the $789 billion stimulus package, they can stop by the Sphinx Club in downtown D.C. this evening where lobbying firms Dutko Worldwide and BGR Group are hosting a late-night party in honor of the National Governors Association. The NGA has been holding its winter meeting in D.C.
Other hosts of the party include Barrick North America, Corrections Corporation of America, Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Hook & Ladder Brewing Co., Maximus, and Vox Global, according to an invitation to the event. The party goes from 8:30- midnight with live music, dancing, and open bar. See invitation.
Separately, lobbying firm BGR was also the site of governor meetings today. The firm hosted a "meet and greet" for New Jersey Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine, according to David Di Martino, vice president of BGR Public Relations, an arm of the lobbying firm. Also stopping by for "meetings" at the firm were, Republican Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi (a co-founder of BGR) Rick Perry of Texas, Charlie Crist, of Florida, Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island and Sonny Perdue of Georgia, DiMartino said.
-- Bara Vaida
Christopher Caine, the head of IBM's worldwide programs based in Washington, is stepping down, National Journal has confirmed. He will leave in March to start his own company, Mercator XXI, which will focus on navigating the global economy. Caine, vice president for governmental programs at IBM, has led the company's offices and teams in 35 countries for the past 13 years. He has worked for IBM for 25 years.
Updated at 5:19 p.m. on Feb. 23.
National Journal's Neil Munro reports that critics say the Obama administrations's two-tiered ethics rules discriminate against publicly registered lobbyists while favoring lawyers and other non-lobbyist advocates who work in Washington's huge influence sector. Lawyers and other non-lobbyists earn their living representing interested parties who pay them fees -- which is also the way lobbyists make a living.
Yet the ethics pledge that every administration appointee is required to sign imposes broader restrictions on the behavior and policy authority of those who were registered lobbyists than on those who were lawyers or other advocates.
"Everybody should be playing by the same rules," said Dave Wenhold, president of the American League of Lobbyists and co-founder of Miller/Wenhold Capitol Strategies, but "anybody with the label 'lobbyist' is an easy punching bag."
Ken Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said: "There is a great amount you can do in the private sector that falls under the general rubric of influencing and does not rise to the level of a registered lobbyist."
Read the entire story here.(subscription required)
As federal spending on bailouts and the economic stimulus soars into the trillions, the Obama administration faces growing pressure from a broad range of watchdog groups across the ideological spectrum to account for just where all those taxpayer dollars are going, reports National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney in her "Rules of Game" column.
The new Coalition for an Accountable Recovery is a diverse alliance of anti-tax activists, community organizers and government transparency watchdogs that is tracking the $787 billion stimulus package. This coalition of strange bedfellows brings together progressives, libertarians and conservatives, notes Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which co-chairs CAR with Good Jobs First, a policy center promoting accountability in economic development. Other coalition members include the Center for Cities and Schools, Public Citizen and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
OMB Watch has also helped spearhead another, smaller coalition dubbed Bailout Watch, which is bird-dogging the $700 billion financial stabilization plan. CAR and Bailout Watch are part of a growing fiscal oversight craze both on and off Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called on committee chairs to develop plans for fiscal oversight hearings. House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., has announced a "stimulus-watch program" that invites citizens and watchdog groups to report how contractors and agencies dole out the $787 billion. There's even a new "Stimulus Watch" wiki set up by a couple of senior research fellows at George Mason University that invites citizens to find, discuss and rate state and local projects receiving federal stimulus dollars.
Read the full column here.
President Obama has pledged to shun traditional lobbyists, but he has nonetheless inspired Americans across the country to take up the "lobbying" game at the grassroots level.
In a new NationalJournal.com video report, Michelle Williams examines the increased role "citizen lobbyists" are playing in the Obama era, assisted by groups such as Wellstone Action. In a recent Insider Interview, Williams also spoke with Brian Adams, author of Citizen Lobbyists: Local Efforts To Influence Public Policy," about how these grassroots lobbyists operate and what issues will most likely grab their attention in the near future.
The Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for transparency and accountability in corporate political spending, has sent a letter to 19 financial companies that received more than $1 billion under the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program urging that they adopt political disclosure measures.
The letter ( CPA.pdf), signed by 23 shareholder advocates, including unions, religiously affilicated nonprofits, asset management firms, and others, calls on the companies to disclose on their websites all political spending including soft money contributions and payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt organizations that are used for political purposes. It also calls on the companies to require board oversight of their corporate political spending, and to adopt policies and procedures for approval and review of political spending.
The 19 companies receiving the letter are Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial Corp, Fifth Third Bancorp, BB&T, Bank of New York Mellon, KeyCorp, CIT Group, Comerica, State Street, Marshall & Ilsley, Northern Trust, Zions Bancorporation, Huntington Bancshares and SunTrust Banks. Three other companies - Prudential Financial Services, American Express and Capital One -- have already agreed to full reporting and board oversight of their political spending with corporate funds, according to the CPA.
"As major political givers, banks should, as a matter of course, be open and above board in this spending," said CPA Executive Director Bruce F. Freed. "Unfortunately, many have been resistant to full disclosure. A safe and sound financial system must be based on that."
See the press release here: CPA - Press Release - TARP letter - 02-19 09.pdf
-- Robert Gettlin
The vast majority of the nearly 100 lawmakers who received campaign donations from the embattled lobbying firm PMA Group have opted to hang on to the cash -- at least for now, reports Megan Scully in National Journal's CongressDaily.
Four lawmakers announced this week they would return money after reports that federal investigators are looking into campaign contributions made by people identified as working for PMA but who might not actually have been employed with the firm. But those lawmakers, among them House Ethics Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., and Rep. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., appear to be the exceptions. Spokesmen for several others who received generous donations from the firm, which was raided by the FBI in November, said they have not decided on what to do with the contributions. Details of the government investigation are unknown, but it appears to be tied to fraudulent donations.
Egad! Give European lobbyists the option to voluntarily register with the EU Commission ... and they'll comply in droves. Since the European Transparency Initiative was launched last June, more than 1,023 organizations and individuals have stepped forward to identify themselves.
When the lobbyists register, they must also agree to a code of conduct committing them to openness, honesty and integrity. The European Commission said it opened the voluntary registry to let "citizens know which general or specific interests are influencing the decision-making process of the European Institutions and the resources mobilized to that end."
American lobbyists are required by law to register with the Congress. The Senate Office of Public Records lists 14,247 active lobbyists as of September 30, 2008.
On February 19, the EU Commission issued guidance to staff on contact with lobbyists. "This is an easy way for you to see whether your lobby contacts have already joined and to get more information about them."
Check out this chart showing the registration trend line.
--Winter Casey
With the recession intensifying and mortgage lenders hurting badly, the Mortgage Bankers Association of America is considering slashing its workforce by as much as 25 percent within the next month or two, according to three sources familiar with the group's financial picture. The expected layoffs, which would amount to the third round of job cuts at the MBAA over the past year, are likely to reduce the overall staff to below 100 people, sources say.
The planned cuts are spurred partly by the mortgage industry's financial woes, which have translated into the MBAA losing such key members as Countrywide and Wachovia due to mergers and bankruptcies. Further, the association is suffering from its own real estate headaches in Washington: the trade group is having a tough time finding tenants for the 12-story building at 1331 L Street that it bought about a year ago, and difficulty leasing space it used to occupy at 1919 Pennsylvania Ave.
Cheryl Crispen, an MBAA spokesperson, said that the group is going through a "reengineering process" that could last another six or eight weeks to determine what is the "right size to meet our members' needs." Crispen stressed that "nothing has been decided or determined yet," and called the 25 percent estimate "speculative."
Asked about the group's real estate problems, Crispen said the MBAA recently signed two leases and two letters of intent with tenants for its L Street building. When completed, those agreements will bring the building's occupancy level to about two-thirds, she said. Further, she said that the MBAA has made progress in finding tenants for its previous office space on Pennsylvania Ave.
-- Peter H. Stone
Former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H, has a new project, called Americans for Accountability, or A4A, which debuted yesterday with a Freedom of Information Act request seeking "all Obama Administration documents and data pertaining to Sen. Tom Daschle's tax evasion." See here.
The group, which styles itself as an ethics watchdog, is described as a project of the American Patriot Foundation, a 501(c)(3) group, and is soliciting tax deductible contributions. That foundation was set up in 2003, by Smith and his friend Paul Rolf Jensen, a Costa Mesa, Calif. personal injury lawyer whose law office and the foundation share an address.
In its last tax filing, for 2003, the same year it was founded, the group reported spending more than half the $29,000 it received in contributions. That was shortly before Smith, who moved to Florida to sell real estate after his 2002 defeat in New Hampshire's Republican primary, briefly entered the Florida senate race for the seat now held by Sen. Mel Martinez. With Martinez retiring in 2010, Smith has been weighing another run at the seat, according to an article in late January in the New Hampshire Union Leader.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
The White House announced today that President Obama has chosen Derek Douglas to serve as special assistant to the president for urban affairs. Douglas also happens to be the most recent former lobbyist Obama has welcomed into his administration despite his hard stance against influence peddlers during the campaign.
According to Senate records, Douglas lobbied for O'Melveny & Myers and for the Center for American Progress.
Douglas previously served as counsel to New York Governor David Paterson and was director of Paterson's Washington, D.C., office. He was also associate director of economic policy at the Center for American Progress where he founded and ran the the Economic Mobility Program. Earlier in his career, Douglas was an assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.
-- Winter Casey
Texas financier R. Allen Stanford who was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission this week with fraud to the tune of $8 billion, has retained Williams & Connolly -- the home of famed white collar attorney Brendan Sullivan -- to represent him, according to two sources familiar with the case. Calls to Williams & Connolly were not returned.
Stanford's financial empire, based in Houston, includes Stanford Financial Group, Stanford International Bank, as well as banks in Antigua, a lightly regulated Caribbean Island. In a civil complaint, the SEC alleged that Stanford enticed investors by promising very lucrative returns on certificates of deposit, but put their funds into a "black box" of assets that were hard to trade. According to the SEC, Stanford's ads for the investments claimed the CDs were safe and suggested the monies would be in "liquid" securities. But the complaint charged that a large part of the bank's portfolio was actually invested in private equity and illiquid real estate.
-- Peter H. Stone
The Obama administration, leery of trolling K Street for experts, has been recruiting heavily from some Washington think tanks. Indeed, the administration (with an assist from the Democrat-controlled Congress) may have nearly put two newish think tanks out of business: The foreign policy focused Center for a New American Security and the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project.
Obama tapped CNAS President and Cofounder Michele Flournoy to become under secretary of Defense for policy, and the center's other cofounder, CEO Kurt Campbell, is widely thought to be in line to become assistant secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific affairs. In addition Obama hired away the group's chief operating officer, and two of the group's board of directors: Dennis Blair and William Lynn.
Meanwhile, between Obama and the congressional leadership, the Brookings Institution's Hamilton Project has been pretty much cleaned out. Obama made Larry Summers -- a member of Hamilton's advisory council and one of its leading thinkers -- the head of the President's National Economic Council, and named Jason Furman -- who quit as Hamilton's director to advise Obama's campaign-- as Summers' deputy at the NEC. Furman's replacement, Doug Elmendorf, was snapped up in January by another repeat recruiter: the Congressional Budget Office. The CBO had already spirited away Hamilton's first director, Peter Orszag, only to lose him to Obama's Office of Management and Budget.
Since both think tanks were founded in recent years largely to help set the agenda for a Democratic administration, they could have declared victory and closed up shop. But instead, both are hoping to reinvent themselves. CNAS is replacing all those tapped by Obama: retired Army Officer John Nagl, the co-author of the Army's counterinsurgency manual, will be the group's new president, and former marine officer Nathaniel Fick is its new COO.
The Hamilton Project is still searching for replacements, but Brookings Institution Vice President for Economics William Gale says the project wants to continue to fill "the niche it carved out for itself [helping government officials] think more than five minutes ahead, which is hard given the pressures" of being in office.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Here's what is new in this week's National Journal: (all stories require a subscription)
When Google users look up information on the stimulus package, Freedom Project and Freedom Works want to be there to persuade them.
In buying targeted advertising slots on the popular search engine, the two right-leaning advocacy groups have joined a list of organizations looking to build a network of Internet users who can push lawmakers to vote for or against certain legislation -- in this case the stimulus, which is expected to be voted on in the House on Friday.
Thomas Keeley, Freedom Works' online marketing coordinator, said search engine advertising is the most straightforward way for his group to reach the most people. The organization's anti-stimulus Web site and petition, www.destimulus.com, pops up in Google's "Sponsored Links" column when a user searches for the keyword "stimulus." Freedom Works has been using this tactic for two years, a lifetime in the Internet age. Keeley touted it as a way to keep up with the 24-hour news cycle, since his group can put up a new ad within a day, and it's cost-effective: groups only pay for ads when users click on them.
This latest round of online advertising suggests a future for lobbying that's less about cocktail parties and K Street and more about reaching as many people as possible around the country through the Web and e-mail. While these latest search engine ads have come primarily from right-leaning groups, Peter Greenberger, the head of Google's D.C. political sales team, said organizations from all over the political spectrum have capitalized on the strategy.
Groups can influence the Beltway audience both indirectly, by targeting Web users around the country, and directly, by tailoring ad buys to the Washington area, Greenberger said. The latter is what the National Association of Realtors did with the wording of some of its search engine ads urging Congress to "fix the housing crisis." That campaign ends Friday, but it may be extended depending on what Congress does with the stimulus and how the provisions related to home foreclosures fare, said Erica Kraus, media director of Fenn Communications Group, which is coordinating NAR's campaign.
Feeling heat from lawmakers, consumer groups, investors, and others to provide a concrete plan on loan modifications that would help millions of people facing foreclosure, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner yesterday hosted a roundtable of dozens of interested parties.
The meeting, held at the Treasury Department, drew lobbyists from the American Bankers Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, Mortgage Bankers Association of America, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and more. Also in attendance were representatives from the Center for Responsible Lending, La Raza, the NAACP, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. "It was a listening session," says one financial sector lobbyist who sat in on the session. Geithner, he adds, "asked for everybody's ideas" and their priorities in dealing with foreclosure mitigation.
Lobbyists say that the administration seems to be on a very short timetable and may unveil a proposal in about two weeks that would detail how the $50 billion pledged by the administration to assist distressed homeowners would actually work. Shaun Donovan, the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was also at the meeting.
-- Peter H. Stone
Nothing stimulates law firms inside the Beltway -- or outside -- quite as much as the prospect of new business. And the $789 billion stimulus package clearly looks like a potential bonanza to some lawyers. So within hours of the announcement by congressional leaders that a deal had been struck, Foley Hoag rolled out its new "cross-discipline stimulus response team" in an e-mail release that a number of reporters received early today. See the release here.
The Foley Hoag team includes lawyers with backgrounds in energy, the environment, life sciences, government strategies, and other areas. It is being led by Douglas McGarragh, who chairs the firm's infrastructure group, from the home office in Boston. The e-mail accompanying the release concludes that the firm would be happy to provide prospective clients with a "stimulating conversation" with McGarragh or other lawyers on the stimulus team.
-- Peter H. Stone
Lawmakers plan to face off against D.C. lobbyists in a March 6 ice hockey game to raise money for the Fort Dupont Ice Hockey Club.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass, and Rep. Brian Higgins, D-N.Y., are slated to play. Also on the lawmakers team will be a number of Hill staffers, including Jeff Burton from the Office of the Republican Whip, Stephen Kraly with the office of Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., and Tory Mazzola with Republican Sen. John Ensign of Nevada. Playing on behalf of the lobbyists will be Brad Card of the Dutko Group, Brooke Coburn of the Carlyle Group and John "Goody" Goodwin of the National Rifle Association.
"It's hard to believe it's been more than forty years since I took my first real cuts on the pond in Hew Hampshire playing in high school," said Kerry in a statement. "Then again, it's worth the risk for a chance to leave a few lobbyists on the ice."
The Fort DuPont Ice Hockey Club, a program to get inner-city youth on the ice, is soliciting support through corporate donations and will charge a $5.00 admission fee on the date of the event. The game will be played at Kettler Capitals Iceplex in Arlington, Va.
--Winter Casey
AeA, formerly the American Electronics Association, and the Information Technology Association of America have officially joined but there remain some branding issues to iron out. The invitation to a recent merger celebration declared the two associations had formed the Technology Association of America, but a spokesman said the new entity actually intends to use the moniker TechAmerica, with the tagline "Where the future begins." The group is communicating the new TechAmerica brand to member companies and the name Technology Association of America will live on some legal documents only, said the official.
Rebranding is nothing new for these associations. The AeA started life as the West Coast Electronic Manufacturers Association and then became the Western Electronic Manufacturers Association. ITAA was originally called the Association of Data Processing Services Organizations.
--Winter Casey
Lobbyists in the nonprofit world are increasingly frustrated over the Obama administration's rules barring lobbyists-turned-executive branch officials from handling issues on which they once lobbied. Writing in Foreign Policy, Laura Rozen reports this policy is cutting key experts out of the new administration.
Specifically, she cites concern in the nonprofit world that Tom Malinowski, the Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, isn't being considered for several administration posts because he had registered to lobby for his organization.
"Malinowski should be a shoe-in for [the State Department's Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Bureau], but since he 'lobbied' for [Human Rights Watch] he appears to be out of the running," one Washington pro-democracy activist on condition of anonymity told Rozen. "Seems to be a silly application of a rule that's supposed to apply to big money influence peddlers, not those trying to help human rights activists."
Critics are also frustrated that the Obama administration issued a waiver from the president's strict ethics rules for William Lynn, the newly confirmed deputy secretary of Defense, Rozen writes. Some even see sexism in the decision. Lynn had been a lobbyist for Raytheon, leading reporters to hound White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for days on why Lynn was given a waiver.
This issue of how lobbyists are being treated by the Obama administration will be a theme of National Journal's annual "state of lobbying" issue that will be published on March 20. We'd be interested in hearing from readers on the topic. E-mail me here if you have some thoughts.
Meanwhile, to read more of Rozen's very topical story, click here.
--Bara Vaida
Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. is keeping busy in his post-congressional life.
Today the Atlantic Council, a nonprofit that promotes transatlantic dialogue, announced Hagel has been selected as chairman. Hagel succeeds James Jones, who stepped down to serve as a national security adviser to President Barack Obama.
Hagel has also decided to take a teaching post at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service. In addition, he is joining private equity firm McCarthy Capital Corp. as a senior adviser. Finally, Hagel has joined the board of advisers for Corsair Capital, a private equity firm investing in the global financial services industry.
Hagel retired after serving two terms in the U.S. Senate.
-- Winter Casey
The Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery, a coalition of liberal groups formed to lobby for passage of the stimulus bill, today released 21 new radio ads targeting Republican lawmakers in both chambers who voted against the legislation. The group also released a general pro-stimulus TV ad in D.C. and on national cable. That brings the total number of spots the group has run to 40 since mid-January, for a cost approaching $800,000.
But judging from the list of 21 targeted Republicans, the group could have saved its money for the next legislative battle; even if every representative and senator targeted by the Campaign again votes against the bill, the legislation will still pass both chambers. Further, two of those targeted aren't even running next year: Ohio Sen. George Voinovich has announced he won't seek another term in 2010, and Nevada Sen. John Ensign isn't up for re-election until 2012.
"We feel that it's important that it's not just passed but that it gets a broad support base, and we really think that in some of these districts, it's really important they have this package," explained Lauren Weiner, a spokeswoman for Americans United for Change, one of the groups funding the campaign. "Our campaigns aren't strictly political, election-oriented."
MoveOn.org this afternoon expanded the ad onslaught with a radio spot attacking Texas Sen. John Cornyn that it plans to run the rest of the week. The buy has some symbolic resonance because of Cornyn's position as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but -- like Voinovich and Ensign -- Cornyn voted against the stimulus bill on Tuesday, he is likely to do so again, and he won't face re-election next year.
Updated at 5:08 p.m. on Feb. 11.
He's Back!....Ralph Neas is a bit of a Washington institution and a longtime power player in activist liberal circles. Now he is going to be taking over as chief executive officer of the National Coalition on Health Care.
Neas is the former president and CEO of People for the American Way, a position that afforded him substantial influence with Democrats on judicial nominations. During a battle over U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Judge Charles Pickering, The Wall Street Journal editorial page described Neas as the "liberals' puppet master" for Senate Judiciary Democrats. In a release sent out by the National Coalition on Health Care, the group even points out Massachusetts Democratic Sen.Ted Kennedy's description of Neas as the "101st Senator for civil rights." Neas has also served as executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
Given his ties to Democrats, it's easy to forget that Neas was an aide to two Republicans on Capitol Hill: then-Sens. Edward Brooke, R-Mass. and David Durenberger, R-Minn. Brooke was known as a progressive Republican and a co-author of the 1968 Fair Housing Act; Durenberger later endorsed Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., for president in 2004 and disassociated himself from the GOP. Neas graduated from University of Notre Dame and got his law degree from University of Chicago, where he also taught.
--Gregg Sangillo
The Fix Housing First Coalition prides itself on innovation, and is leaving no stone unturned. It's using Twitter so that it's members -- and everyone else -- can stay abreast of the fast-moving developments on the stimulus bill. Go here to see.
PMA Group, the beleaguered defense lobbying shop that's long had close ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and which was raided by the FBI in November, seems to be in freefall, with longtime lobbyists and other staff looking for new homes, according to lobbying sources.
Kaylene Green, who was at PMA for 17 years but is now president and CEO of a new firm, Flagship Government Relations, said in an interview that seven other PMA lobbyists had recently joined the new lobbying and consulting shop. Among those who have made the move is John Lynch, who is No. 2 at Flagship.
Sources say that others among the 10 or so lobbyists who remain at PMA are reaching out to firms in the Washington area for jobs. Flagship, which is in temporary quarters in Arlington, Va., seems well placed to land some of PMA's defense clients. But Green declined to say how much business the new firm's lobbyists brought with them. "We're working on building our client base," says Green.
Separately, lobbying sources familiar with the FBI raid say that one area that interests the feds involves campaign contributions from lobbyists to Hill lawmakers, including Murtha. Further, sources say that federal officials were also seeking information about whether lobbyists were reimbursed for their contributions.
PMA, founded and run by former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti, had long been a source of campaign funds for Murtha, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, who has helped several PMA clients with federal earmarks. It is not known whether Murtha is a target of the FBI raid.
-- Peter H. Stone
MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser is, well... moving on as the group's executive director, according to a press release from the group. The pioneering online activist group is promoting its national organizing director, Justin Ruben, to the top slot, while Pariser plans to remain as president of the board. Ruben, a former organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, has been with MoveOn since 2004. He helped create the organization's field organizing program and run its 2006 campaign efforts, and has spent the last two years supervising its issue campaigns.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Five of PMA Group's defense lobbying team, including Kaylene Green, John Lynch and Daniel Cunningham, have left and formed their own partnership, Flagship Government Relations, Roll Call reported this afternoon. (Subscription required)
As we get updates on this story, we'll post them.
Since the merger of AeA (formerly the American Electronics Association) and the Information Technology Association of America closed on Jan. 1, the two groups have been working on building a successful marriage.
As part of that effort, unsurprisingly, they have a new name: The Technology Association of America. They have also been "fleshing out a brand initiative," says spokesman Charlie Greenwald. He adds that the new group has been working on communicating the new brand to member companies.
In addition, the tech associations are celebrating their unity tonight with a Capitol Hill reception hosted by Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif. Intel CEO and President Paul Otellini will be a "special guest" at the event, says the invitation. (For more on Otellini's trip to Washington, check out Tech Daily Dose's story here.)
The new federal lobbying team for the Technology Association of America will be headed by Josh Lamel, who joined ITAA in May of 2008 as a vice president for Internet, telecom, technology policy, and the commercial sector. Lamel previously served as chief of staff to Rep. Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., and legislative counsel to Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. The group has 15 registered lobbyists working on federal issues. Roxanne Gould, who has been AeA's senior vice president for state government affairs, will be heading the group's extensive state lobbying operation, says Greenwald.
The combined staff of the Technology Association of America (nicknamed "TechAmerica") totals about 100, making it "the largest tech policy advocacy organization in the industry," says Greenwald.
The new group could become even bigger. TechAmerica has been in merger discussions with the Electronic Components Association, says a source. National Journal wrote about the possibility of more tech association mergers here.
(Photo of Eshoo by Liz Lynch)
-- Winter Casey
In unveiling the plan for fixing the financial system, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner today made a point of mentioning that his agency will continue to keep lobbyists at arm's length, National Journal's Alexis Simendinger reports.
The government's actions will "build on what we've done," he said -- meaning they'll build on the framework created under the Bush administration. He also said the new steps and new commitments by Treasury will be "independent of lobbyists and politics." In a nod to the Obama administration's promise of transparency, Geithner directed the public to the administration's new website, financialstability.gov.
He went on to say how closely they are consulting with the banks and financial institutions. We assume that doesn't include their lobbyists.
On January 27, Treasury announced new rules on the lobbyists working for organizations receiving or interested in receiving money from the Troubled Assets Relief Program. The rules restrict contacts between officials and lobbyists in connection with applications for funds from the bailout program. The new restrictions are modeled on the limits imposed on political lobbying of Treasury Department officials on tax matters.
Here's Treasury's press release on the rules.
--Bara Vaida
PMA Group, the defense lobbying shop with very close ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and which we reported last month was in "turmoil," was raided by FBI agents in November, apparently seeking information about its links to the congressman whose name has become famous for his advocacy of defense earmarks, ABC News reported.
Citing sources, ABC said that it's unclear if Murtha is a target of an investigation, but noted that the raid is the second in recent months on defense companies with links to Murtha, the chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
ABC reported that a spokesperson for PMA, Patrick Dorton, confirmed the raid in a statement Monday afternoon. "Government representatives did come to the PMA offices. They requested a number of different kinds of information," Dorton said. "The firm is cooperating with their requests."
Last month, news organizations reported that the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, two defense contractors in Pennsylvania that have received about $100 million in earmarks via Murtha, had been raided by FBI and other federal agents. PMA was founded and is run by former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti, who, we reported last month, was in talks with a number of the firm's lobbyists about a buyout deal.
--Peter Stone
Dale Oak, staff director at the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government, and principal adviser to subcommittee Chairman José Serrano, D-N.Y., is leaving the Hill and will soon join the Podesta Group as a principal. The Podesta Group says Oak "will provide strategic counsel to the firm's financial services and appropriations sectors."
"We are experiencing an expansion period," says Missi Tessier of the Podesta Group, a DC-based government relations and public affairs firm. She adds that the firm's lobbying business grew by about 40 percent from 2007 to 2008. The group also recently announced that Israel Klein, former deputy staff director for communications at the Joint Economic Committee chaired by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., would be joining the group as a principal this month. Tessier says several more announcements of staff additions are expected in the coming weeks.
-- Winter Casey
Alyssa Rosenberg at Government Executive has the story that the Council for Excellence in Government is closing its doors after 25 years. The majority of its staff and programs will join the nonprofit Partnership for Public Service.
"The current economic climate has made it extremely difficult to raise the funding required to continue and grow these vital programs," John Macomber, chairman of the council's board of trustees, tells Rosenberg. "Moving these programs to the partnership will improve efficiency, increase their impact, and provide needed services to more government executives and organizations."
Arthur Brooks, the economist who recently took over as president of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, made waves two years ago with a data-heavy book concluding that political conservatives tend to be more generous contributors to charity than their liberal counterparts. The main reason: Conservatives are more likely to be religious and religious folk tend to give more--even to non-religious causes.
So, in light of recent events, I asked him whether liberals were less likely to pay their taxes than conservatives. Brooks diplomatically declined the opportunity for a cheap shot. "There's no evidence for that," he said. There was, he allowed, some evidence that "religious people are more likely to be honest with their taxes than non-religious people, but that's not a political thing." Brooks also said there are some data suggesting that hard-core ideologues at either end of the spectrum "behave less ethically" than those of less extreme views. "I'd love to know the answer," he mused, then quickly reconsidered. "No, actually I'm glad I don't."
For more on the latest internal workings at AEI, check out my upcoming feature in the February 14 issue of National Journal.
--Julie Kosterlitz
Theresa M. Fariello, a former official in the Clinton Energy Department, is poised to assume the top lobbying slot at ExxonMobil's Washington office this spring, say two energy lobbyists. Fariello, who now spearheads the corporate policy shop in Dallas for ExxonMobil, will be replacing Dan Nelson, whose retirement was announced recently, effective in early spring. A former lobbyist in Washington for Occidental Petroleum, Fariello worked for then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson during the Clinton years as a deputy assistant secretary for international affairs.
-- Peter H. Stone
Under the the 2007 Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, corporations and their lobbyists are now required to report donations they make to lawmaker-supported charities and charities with a large number of lawmakers on their board.
We are now seeing the benefit of that disclosure. In a good story today, Roll Call details the names of corporate donors to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. The story is important because there is no limit on contributions to these charities and such donations could be used to garner corporate access to lawmakers.
Here's the story. (subscription required)
Two other interesting lobbying-related stories from the Associated Press:
Congress Risks Criticism Over Luxury Retreat Trips
GOP Seeking to End Ban On Some Donation Limits
--Bara Vaida
In this week's "Rules of the Game," National Journal colleague Eliza Newlin Carney takes a look at how President Obama's executive order on ethics may affect lobbying related to government contracting, and she explores the mixed message Obama is sending by nominating a former lobbyist to the No. 2 position at the Defense Department.
She says the flap over former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D. may be dying down, but ethics questions continue to dog another controversial Obama nominee, former Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn.
Like the uproar over the former Senate majority leader's candidacy for Health and Human Services secretary, Lynn's nomination for deputy Defense secretary points up the direct conflict between the new president's stated policies and his Cabinet selections.
Read the rest of the column here.
Just a few months after Bank of America acquired financially troubled Merrill Lynch, Merrill's top Washington lobbyist, Steve Berry, has departed. Berry, who joined Merrill in March 2008, was the second top lobbyist to leave the Merrill office since the acquisition.
It's not known if Berry, who has previously held top lobbying posts with the Direct Marketing Association and the National Cable and Telecommunications Association, has landed another position. Last month, the Managed Funds Association hired Lou Costantino Jr. away from Merrill, which, sources say, still has a few lobbyists left in its shop.
-- Peter H. Stone
In a Feb. 5 story, the Los Angeles Times points out something that National Journal noted a few weeks ago. President Obama's likely leading candidate, Mark Gitenstein, to head the Justice Department office that oversees legal policy and judicial nominations, recently has been a lobbyist for several business clients, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and would require a waiver from the Obama administration's recently imposed ethics rules.
Gitenstein, the likely nominee to head the Office of Legal Policy, worked as a lobbyist for the chamber between 2000 and 2008, helping his firm earn more than $6 million in fees, according to federal lobbying records. Here's the LA Times story.
-- Bara Vaida
From this week's National Journal: (subscription required)
When President Obama signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program expansion into law Wednesday, the relative quiet of third-party groups was a dramatic counterpoint to previous SCHIP efforts -- and, perhaps, an argument that when it comes to getting results, a willing White House trumps advocacy.
In the fall of 2007, left-leaning groups bombarded the airwaves with ads slamming George W. Bush for vetoing the SCHIP renewal and pushing lawmakers to override it, to no avail. MoveOn.org, Americans United For Change, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had campaigns going -- not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing -- in an effort to renew SCHIP. This year, even though these groups' attention has been focused on economic legislation, the legislation passed with relative ease.
Why the drastic change? That's easy, according to Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United For Change: Bush is now out of the equation. Funk pegged the former president as the "only impediment" to renewing SCHIP two years ago. The legislation moved so quickly this time, Funk said, because "it's always been a high priority of Democratic leadership" and there was no pushback from Republican lawmakers.
In 2007, rebuking Bush soaked up hundreds of thousands of advertising and promotional dollars, Funk said. Today, he said, his group's money is needed to help pass Obama's economic stimulus package.
Nita Chaudhary, campaign director for MoveOn.org, said Obama's signing proves there are "enormous opportunities in front of us now that there weren't before." Once getting wind that Congress was going to take up the bill soon, MoveOn "put in thousands of calls and sent thousands of letters" into lawmakers to urge its passage, Chaudhary said. By then, though, the SCHIP ball was rolling.
Saying the time is ripe for fundamental reform in Washington, Common Cause has published what it calls an "agenda for change" -- a to-do list of eight actions that it argues would "utterly change the pay-to-play nature of how business gets done in Washington." Read the news release and download the report here.
-- Robert Gettlin
The National Association of Realtors and the National Association of Homebuilders of the U.S. scored a lobbying coup when an amendment was added this evening to the Senate stimulus bill that doubles the maximum size of the homebuyer tax credit from $7,500 to $15,000 on all purchases of principal residences. The existing credit is scheduled to expire at the end of June, but the measure cosponsored by Sens. Johnny Isakson, R-Ga., and Joseph Lieberman, ID-Conn., would extend the credit for one full year from the date the bill is enacted. It adds an estimated $19 billion to the stimulus package. The amendment was approved by the Senate without dissent after Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd D-Ct. signed onto the provision. "It's a recognition that housing has to be fixed if the economy is going to recover," said one industry lobbyist.
-- Peter H. Stone
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, raised conflict of interest questions about an executive and former lobbyist who may have provided advice on the nation's digital television transition to John Podesta, who headed Barack Obama's presidential transition.
The executive, R. Gerard Salemme, works for wireless services company Clearwire, which "may gain a competitive advantage" from the digital transition delay, Issa charged in a press release.
Podesta wrote to Congress in early January, asking for a delay in the digital television transition, which is scheduled for Feb. 17. The House today passed a bill that will delay the transition to June 12.
Salemme "is believed to have been a key adviser to" Podesta, Issa said, and he asked White House Counsel Gregory Craig to look into the matter. He also had urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to hold off on today's DTV vote until questions were answered, Congress Daily reported on Tuesday. (subscription required)
-- Bara Vaida
Beneficiaries of the government's $700 billion Toubled Asset Relief Program spent $77 million on lobbying and $37 million on political contributions in the 2008 election cycle. Those same firms received $295.2 billion in TARP money, according to a Center for Responsive Politics analysis of lobbying disclosure reports.
"Even in the best economic times, you won't find an investment with a greater payoff than what these companies have been getting," said Sheila Krumholz, the center's executive director. "Some of the companies and industries that have received payments may now consider their contributions and lobbying to be the smartest investments they've made in years."
-- Bara Vaida
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has tapped one of Washington's top environmental lobbyists to advise her on energy issues, Greenwire reports. (subscription required)
Karen Wayland, legislative director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, will be Pelosi's energy adviser. Wayland has been at NRDC for the past five years and has been a key player in major energy legislation, including the 2007 energy bill and global warming measures.
-- Bara Vaida
The other piece is a column by Ruth Marcus titled "The Scarlet Lobbyist." Marcus links to a story I wrote in August for National Journal's Convention Daily about lobbyist Heather Podesta who handed out Scarlet Letter "L" patches at the Democratic Convention in Denver. Podesta saw it as a way to tweak the Democratic National Committee and Obama's refusal to accept campaign donations from lobbyists. Marcus also writes that lobbyists have unfairly become a "reviled" class. Her point jibes with how National Journal has approached the coverage of K Street.
"Lost in the popular vision of martini-swilling lobbyists is the reality that, in a government grown so sprawling, lobbyists perform an indispensable mediating function, simultaneously translating the legitimate needs of the clients they represent to policymakers and vice versa," she writes.
Marcus also says she has "misgivings" about the new ethics rules on lobbyists imposed by the Obama administration because "the rules treat all lobbyists as equally reprehensible; they make no distinctions based on the nature of the lobbying client."
I'm curious, what do readers think about these stories? Send me an email.
--Bara Vaida
Automakers put their most environmentally friendly cars forward to greet lawmakers yesterday at the 2009 Washington Auto Show. The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers was also there with a gathering of prominent policymakers.
Alliance President and CEO Dave McCurdy (a former Democratic congressman from Oklahoma) shepherded Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., White House Assistant to the President for Energy and Climate Change Carol Browner, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood around the showroom of hybrids, plug-ins, and other fuel-efficient vehicles. Markey expressed optimism about the future of the auto industry, but it is money, not optimism, that car manufacturers need to stay financially stable.
It remains to be seen how much, if at all, the auto industry will benefit from the stimulus bill.
At a news briefing, Markey, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, was mum on specifics about what the automakers might expect to gain from the stimulus. On the issue of fuel economy standards, Markey said he supports having, "maximum feasible fuel economy standards adopted." He declined to be specific.
In an interview later in the day, McCurdy told National Journal that he stressed to policymakers at the show that the auto industry should not have a system where the industry has to deal with a mix of different state rules. "We think it's important that there not be a patchwork of regulations when it comes to regulating the economy and (carbon) emissions," said McCurdy. "Our message has been to find a process to bridge the concerns and competing voices."
With American car manufacturers suffering more acutely than others, survival is the most pressing concern for the AAM. "This is an industry hit very hard because of the credit crunch and lack of consumer confidence in the economy as a whole," McCurdy said.
(Photo: Dave McCurdy talks to Carol Browner, by Eliza Krigman)
--Eliza Krigman
Congress Daily colleague Andrew Noyes has an item in his blog Tech Daily Dose on possible nominees for the Federal Trade Commission.
He says FTC Commissioner and onetime Hollywood lobbyist Jon Leibowitz is a top contender to lead the agency. Leibowitz, who served as vice president for congressional affairs at the Motion Picture Association of America and worked as Democratic counsel for the Senate Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee, was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2004. Another former FTC commissioner whose name is being floated is Mozelle Thompson, a policy adviser to social-networking site Facebook.
The decision by former Sen.Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to withdraw his nomination over a furor regarding his handling of his taxes won't be the end to questions about President Obama and his commitment to "changing the culture of Washington."
As Peter Baker of The New York Times wrote today, though Obama signed tougher ethics rules for lobbyists than any of his predecessors, he hasn't talked much about the exceptions he has made for certain people. They include William Lynn, the former Raytheon lobbyist who has been nominated for the number two job at the Pentagon. "Faced with the perennial clash between campaign rhetoric and Washington reality, Mr. Obama has proved willing to compromise," Baker wrote.
Meanwhile, anyone interested in a primer on how the ethics and lobbying issues are being discussed in Washington may be interested in a segment from PBS's NewsHour on Feb. 2, the night before Daschle withdrew his nomination.
In the segment, ethics lawyer Kenneth Gross squares off against Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, over the issue of the revolving door and why some are so worried about the exceptions Obama has made to his rules. See video and transcript here.
--Bara Vaida
The Treasury Department's new restrictions on financial bailout lobbying have won praise from government watchdogs, but they've left some on K Street confused and angry.
Read Eliza Newlin Carney's column "Rules of the Game." (Subscription required)
Ryan Guthrie, the former chief of staff to Rep. Baron Hill, D-Ind., is joining the government affairs consulting firm Bockorny Group as a vice president. Guthrie, who hails from Seymour, Indiana, plans to work on Indiana-related issues for the firm.
-- Winter Casey
Heidrick & Struggles is cutting 12 percent of its workforce, making the headhunting industry the latest sector hit by the economic downturn.
According to numerous sources, the cuts include two people well-known in the Washington executive search community, Wendy Pangburn and Lonnie Taylor. Neither could be reached for comment.
A receptionist in Heidrick's Washington D.C. office said both are still working for the firm but neither are "in the office" and referred the call to Heidrick's human resources department in Chicago. E-mails to Pangburn bounced back. Neither person's name is listed on the firm's D.C. website.
A spokesman for Heidrick & Struggles declined to confirm or deny that Pangburn and Taylor had been let go.
Pangburn has placed a number of high-profile chief executives at trade associations, including former Rep. Richard H. Baker, R-La., now CEO of the Managed Funds Association.
When we have more information, we will update this story.
-- Bara Vaida
We received a phone call from the White House that John Brennan, homeland security advisor, is not the same John Brennan who was a registered lobbyist for the Brennan Group, as we previously reported.
We regret the error.
Here is a link to the corrected list that is an update to our story in the Jan. 24 issue of National Journal noting former lobbyists now working in the White House.
--Bara Vaida, with reporting by Julie Kosterlitz and Eliza Krigman
"There's just so damn much money in it," Robert Strauss, former Democratic National Committee chairman and partner at law and lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, tells Washington Post writer Robert Kaiser in a new book on K Street.
That line clearly served as the inspiration for the title of Kaiser's book, "So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government." The book stems from a series the reporter wrote for the Post several years ago on the top lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates. See the Post's review of the book here.
Kaiser also penned an editorial in the Post this weekend arguing that Washington is broken because lobbyists and special interests have turned the process of making public policy into a game that "only they can afford." He also charges that today's Washington takes for granted that people who have worked in public service can use it for private gain.
This was the argument candidate Barack Obama made on the campaign trail. As president, he is attempting to address the concern through an executive order reigning in the behavior of former lobbyists he hires for his staff and regulationg what they can do after they leave his administration. The rules say no one can work on contracts or policy issues on which they lobbied during the past two years and once they return to the private sector they can not lobby the executive branch during Obama's presidency. Watchdog groups have called the new rules the most extensive ever implemented.
But the administration has already had to issue at least one waiver to the rules for William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist who is Obama's nominee for the No. 2 job at the Pentagon. The reason for the waiver is Lynn's "unique" experience, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs .
The situation shows how hard it is to draw a clear line between lobbying and government policy work. Among the many reasons for the tight link between the two: the government relies on lobbyists for information and many of those lobbyists are experts in public policy.
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--Bara Vaida
What really jumped out at me in reading about former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle's tax problems in the Washington Post yesterday is that he made $2 million over a two-year period at law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.
Here's the relevant section:
"For part of the $2 million he received from the law firm Alston & Bird over the past two years, Daschle also reported that he gave "policy advice" to United Health, a conglomerate that sells insurance, helps the government administer Medicaid, advises drug companies and physicians and dispenses prescriptions."
And he received another $3 million over the past two years from speaking fees, serving on boards, book proceeds and investments, the Post says. Daschle never registered as a lobbyist however. Only those who spend more than 20 percent of their time directly lobbying Capitol Hill and are paid more than $5,000 must register to lobby.
-- Bara Vaida
