Reps. Peter Welch, D-Vt., and Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., blasted credit card companies Wednesday in a press conference hosted by 7-Eleven.
Unveiling the results of its summer petition drive, 7-Eleven advocated for credit card interchange fee legislation and touted the 1.66 million signatures it says it gathered from customers who want the same.
When Welch took the stage, he described the country's "two business models." In one, convenience store operators and "country store owners" profit from the "values of thrift, enterprise, and hard work." In the other, credit card companies use "use market power" to make others pay unreasonable fees.
Lofgren struck a similar chord, calling banks and financial institutions "greedy" and describing the battle to get Congress to pass interchange fee legislation, which would impact the amount convenience stores owe credit card companies when customers swipe their cards.
Lofgren said interchange efforts come in the face of considerable lobbying efforts by the financial industry.
Both members touted 7-Eleven's petitions as a message straight from the people--despite the fact that credit card companies say interchange fees are a business-to-business issue that has nothing to do with consumers.
"It's not the banks" who own the government, Lofgren said. "It's the people of this country, who signed these petitions."
(Photo above by Sara Jerome)
Spending on ads related to health care reform topped $110 million over the past weekend, TV News Check reports. The numbers come from Evan Tracey, head of the Campaign Media Analysis Group.
Two weeks ago, Tracey posted on Advertising Age's Campaign Trail blog noting that ad spending was about to hit $100 million. He also questioned whether any message was getting through the clutter of all these ads, which I too have wondered about. "At this point, health-care reform is an overexposed issue. With so many competing messages and messengers, the American public is likely to remain more confused than informed," Tracey wrote.
Nike joined the growing number of companies expressing unhappiness about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's position on climate change legislation and announced it is resigning from the group's board of directors.
"We fundamentally disagree with the US Chamber of Commerce on the issue of
climate change and their recent action challenging the EPA is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action," the company said in a statement.
Nike said it will still retain its membership in the business lobbying association. Two companies, PG&E and Exelon, over the past week, announced they were pulling their membership from the Chamber because of the group's stance on climate change legislation.
Kevin Martin, former Federal Communications Commission chairman, has joined Patton Boggs where he will work at the law and lobbying firm's telecommunications and technology practice.
Martin starts at the firm early next month and will oversee the practice with Jennifer Richter. Richter is also slated to become co-chair Patton Boggs' public policy practice.
Martin was named to the FCC as a commissioner in 2001 and was elevated to chairman in 2005. He resigned from the agency in January of this year and joined the non-profit Aspen Institute. Prior to the FCC, Martin was special assistant to former President Bush for economic policy and served on the White House's National Economic Council.
Whether he'll become a lobbyist isn't certain. Martin will register to lobby only if the work requires him to do so, a Patton Boggs spokeswoman said.
(Photo: Creative Commons)
The petition calls on Congress to help lower the amount merchants pay to credit card companies when customers use plastic. The store's effort, and bills in each chamber that address the interchange, are described here in this National Journal story.(subscription).
7-Eleven plans to unveil 130 boxes containing 14,000 petition pads, store officials said. MasterCard is already playing defense. It held its own unveiling yesterday, officially releasing the results of an online survey it conducted in August which questions the validity of 7-Eleven's petition drive.
On a call with reporters yesterday, Shawn Miles, the global head of public policy for MasterCard Worldwide, critiqued interchange fee legislation currently in Congress and said "consumers were ill-advised about what" 7-Eleven's petition drive actually addressed. More on that argument from National Journal:
MasterCard commissioned a study looking at whether the company's petition puts one over on consumers. According to MasterCard's findings, "After reading the 7-Eleven petition, two in three Americans mistakenly believed that consumers would directly and immediately benefit from a reduction in merchant service fees, as it would lead to lower fees on their own credit cards or lower retail prices."
In his Wall Street Journal column today, Thomas Frank strongly rebukes the Washington Post for its recent coverage of the lobbying industry.
"Now the Washington Post, that great barometer of the capital's consensus, has taken on what can only be described as a worshipful attitude toward the lobbyist set," Frank writes. "And as its journalistic leader ushers in a new era, the attitude of the capital changes: Let us give thanks that our lobbyists are prosperous."
Frank points to last Sunday's front page story about the popularity of Ristorante Tosca amongst lobbyists as proof that the Washington Post is not hitting influence-peddlers with enough investigative journalism.
"The capital's main journalistic watchdog seems perfectly content to see politics made into a kind of financial transaction," Frank concludes.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "A coalition of 46 industry groups ranging from the American Farm Bureau Federation to the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America is weighing in with lawmakers to support a permanent extension of the estate tax at a reduced rate," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "The tax expires at the end of this year and otherwise would be repealed next year -- but come back in 2011 at a higher rate -- unless Congress acts."
• "J Street, the year-old pro-Israel lobby that advocates for Palestinian statehood, will announce today that more than 160 Members of Congress, including 29 Senators, are serving on the honorary host committee for the group's first conference and gala dinner next month," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, will be the keynote speaker at the dinner."
• "With plenty of political good will in the bank, Ford got to work," today "spending it, pushing for legislation that would punish states for not penalizing drivers for text messaging while they're at the wheel," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Ford and its affiliates are the lone distributors of Sync, a Microsoft technology that converts a driver's voice into a text message."
• "A former U.S. Democratic Party fundraiser whose 2007 arrest prompted Hillary Clinton to return $850,000 in campaign contributions was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison on Tuesday," Reuters reports. "Hong Kong-born Norman Hsu, 58, was convicted in May by a jury in federal court in New York of violating election laws by making donations to political campaigns in other people's names. Hsu had earlier pleaded guilty to charges of mail fraud and wire fraud in running a Ponzi scheme of up to $60 million."
Though President Obama has limited the access of lobbyists at Democratic fundraisers where he is speaking and congressional Democrats have railed against the power of 'special interests' and lobbyists, the profession is still giving heavily to lawmakers. (Lobbyists in fact cannot attend or give money at fundraising events where Obama is the keynote speaker)
K Street lobbyists gave 70 percent of their campaign donations to congressional Democrats in the first six months of the 2010 election cycle, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The story says corporate political action committees gave 60 percent of their donations to congressional Democrats also. The party in power tends the reap more of the campaign donations, notes the Journal.
Tonight's U2 concert at FedEx Field has attracted at least four congressional fundraisers -- three of them for Republicans, reports Sunlight Foundation's Party Time blog.
The lobbying team headed by imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff spent more than $5.1 million on suites at D.C.-area sporting venues from 2000 to 2004, according to an estimate by the FBI.
The estimate of expenses at Camden Yards (home of the Baltimore Orioles), FedEx Field (home of the Washington Redskins) and the MCI Center (now the Verizon Center, home of the Washington Wizards and Washington Capitals), were submitted as evidence in the trial of former Abramoff associate Kevin Ring. He is accused of using event tickets and meals to influence and reward public officials for taking acts for his clients. Estimates did not include food and additional tickets purchased by the lobbying team at the venues.
The prosecution has now completed its presentation of evidence. The defense has submitted statements to impeach claims made in the prosecution's case, but the defense will not call any witnesses. Closing statements are expected on Monday.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "The Federal Election Commission on Monday decided that limited liability companies are not political committees when they team up with political consultants to run television advertisements and other independent expenditures," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The decision may provide cover for wealthy Democrats and Republicans to team up with like-minded donors to target candidates in the 2010 election."
• "A major lobbying battle has heated up over legislation that would establish new security standards for facilities across the country that store or process chemicals, pitting some of the nation's largest business groups against environmental and labor organizations," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "Nearly 30 industry groups sent House Energy and Commerce Chairman Henry Waxman and ranking member Joe Barton a strongly worded letter Monday opposing certain provisions in a chemical security bill making its way through Congress."
• "Nearly 50 companies, trade associations and nongovernmental organizations urged lawmakers Monday to act soon to extend trade preferences for about 130 developing countries that expire Dec. 31.," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "Lawmakers in both chambers want to update the 35-year old Generalized System of Preferences program, which allows duty-free access for nearly 4,900 products. Given the dwindling legislative calendar, advocates wrote to leaders of the House Ways and Means and Senate Finance panels that a simple extension was preferable to letting the program lapse due to differences on a broader reform approach."
• Filmmaker Michael Moore "is in town to promote his film 'Capitalism: A Love Story,' and while his movie is already being mocked by Republicans, Moore's real targets are Democrats," Politico reports. "...The group will call for a single-payer, government-run health care system -- something that isn't even on the table in the current health care debate. Moore is expected to directly target moderate Blue Dog Democrats in his press conference, which he'll co-host with Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, and Fred Redmond, vice president of United Steelworkers."
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
This coalition of 57 national and international labor unions represents more than 11 million workers.
What They Want
The AFL-CIO has long wanted a single-payer health care system, said Gerald Shea, the AFL-CIO's assistant to the president for governmental affairs. But in the context of the current health care debate -- with single-payer long off the table -- the union federation's top priority is to ensure a "stabilized employer-based system by controlling cost," Shea said.
The best way to achieve that goal is through a public option, which will "inject competition into the private insurance market," Shea argued.
The AFL-CIO supports mandates that would require individuals to get coverage and employers to either provide coverage or pay into a government-run fund.
Deal Breakers
The AFL-CIO does not support "any form of taxation of existing health benefits," Shea said. Though changing or eliminating the tax exclusion on employer-based health benefits was discussed earlier in the summer, it is not currently in proposed legislation. But a tax on insurance companies for the most expensive health plans, which is included in the bill proposed by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., would have the same effect because that tax would be passed on to the plan holders, Shea said.
"These aren't the Goldman Sachs executives who are going to get hit by this," Shea contended. Rather, workers "that have good, comprehensive benefits who might have other factors that drive up costs" will bear the burden of the tax, he said.
Cross posted from our energy topics blog:
In response to the announcement Monday by electric utility Exelon that it's leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because of differences over climate change legislation, Chamber Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer David Chavern said that while the move was "unfortunate," it's being overplayed by the media.
"We have 300,000 direct members. We represent over 3 million companies around the world," Chavern told NationalJournal.com Monday afternoon. "We have companies that disagree with the Chamber all the time. And members leave, and that's unfortunate. But we add more companies than we lose. It's just part of the business."
Speaking at a conference in Chicago this morning, Exelon Chairman and CEO John Rowe said that "inaction on climate is not an option. If Congress does not act, the EPA will, and the result will be more arbitrary, more expensive, and more uncertain for investors and the industry than a reasonable, market-based legislative solution."
Chavern disputed claims that the Chamber is blocking climate efforts. He said that his organization isn't against any one type of scheme, but doesn't support the House cap-and-trade bill because it doesn't focus enough on new technology and would "impose immediate and insurmountable costs on the economy."
He expressed openness to some of the broader strategies that have been proposed to curb greenhouse gas emissions. "You could develop a cap-and-trade system that worked or a carbon tax system that worked," Chavern said. "The devil is in the details."
With the news today that one of the U.S.'s largest utilities, Exelon, is dropping its membership to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, I thought our readers would be interested in a story that ran on National Public Radio this morning regarding the association's CEO Thomas Donohue.
The story said environmentalists and others are concerned about whether Donohue can be an unbiased leader on the climate change debate because he sits on the board of Union Pacific, which has a stake in the outcome of the debate.
Exelon CEO John Rowe said he won't renew membership in the business group because of its opposition to climate change legislation. Exelon follows utility company PG&E, which announced it was pulling out of the U.S. Chamber last week because of the group's opposition to similiar legislation.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Wall Street has showered nearly $11 million on the Senate since the beginning of the year, and more than 15 percent of it has gone to a single senator: Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York," Politico reports. "Schumer's $1.65 million take from the financial services industry is nearly twice that of any other senator's -- and more than five times what the industry gave to any single Republican senator."
• "The trial lawyers lobby has been awash in debt and bleeding members - just as it embarks on a national campaign to block any clampdown on medical malpractice lawsuits as part of President Obama's health care overhaul," the Washington Times reports.
• "Lobbying over a proposed federal agency to regulate consumer financial products will get more intense now that lawmakers have scaled back the Obama administration's proposal," The Hill reports. "Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) released a new draft of the proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) that limits the scope and breadth of the industries that are covered. Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, restricted several provisions to dampen criticism from the non-financial lobbyists opposed to the bill and to win over centrist Democrats... Frank and the Obama administration believe the new agency should set a floor for regulation and allow state officials to pursue additional or stricter regulations."
This story caught my eye today because it is an example of how campaign money can be used to get around ethics regulations. Though ethics rules have banned lobbyists from funding meals, travel and entertainment for lawmakers and staff, they can still do so indirectly through campaign leadership political action committees.
See my summary of this story below:
Lawmakers' leadership PACs are becoming "slush funds," funded by lobbyists and special interests, to be used for member entertainment, meals and travel, the Washington Post and Pro Publica report.
Lobbyists and special interests poured $355 million into leadership PACs in the last three election cycles, making them the second-largest source for donations for members of Congress, the two publications said. Leadership PACs are supposed to be used to fund other members' campaigns, but about half of the $112 million spent by leadership PACs in the two year election cycle that led to the 2008 election, was spent on entertainment, administrative costs, fundraising and other categories.
Kevin Ring, former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, will not testify in his trial, and his attorneys will likely not call any witnesses in his defense.
Several witnesses the defense wanted to call have invoked the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying. Those witnesses include David Ayres, who served as chief of staff to former Attorney General John Ashcroft; Laura Ayres, his wife; Peter Evich, who was legislative director to former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif.; and David Lopez, who was Doolittle's chief of staff.
The prosecution is expected to finish its case on Tuesday with a summarizing witness who will read into the record additional evidential e-mails, and the defense is then expected to submit statements into the record to impeach six statements in the prosecution's case.
The prosecution and defense will likely present closing statements on Wednesday, and the jury is expected to go into deliberations at the end of next week.
Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled today that former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., would not be admitted as a co-conspirator, but she did admit the rest of the officials and lobbyists on the prosecution's co-conspirator list: Doolittle and his wife, Julie; Evich; Lopez; John Albaugh, Istook's former chief of staff; Laura Blackann, Doolittle's former communications director; Ann Copland, legislative aide to former Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.; Robert Coughlin, a former liaison in the Department of Justice's Office of Legislative Affairs; Jennifer Farley, former deputy assistant directory of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; Will Heaton, chief of staff to former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio; Greg Orlando, Doolittle's former legislative director; and Ryan Thomas, an aide to former Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont.
Listing those individuals as co-conspirators means their statements from e-mails can be admitted as evidence rather than hearsay. The classification of "co-conspirator" does not necessarily mean they are being charged with a crime.
General Pharmaceutical Association
This association represents the manufacturers and distributors of generic drugs.
What They Want
GPhA's main priority for health care reform is to increase the use of generic pharmaceuticals as a way to drive down overall health care costs, president and CEO Kathleen Jaeger said.
Already, 72 percent of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. are generics, and Jaeger estimates that by increasing that percentage even a couple of points, an additional $1 billion could be saved annually.
Deal Breakers
One type of pharmaceuticals has stirred more debate during the health care overhaul than any other: biologics. And GPhA isn't happy with how proposed measures related to biologics have panned out.
Biologics are complex drugs made from living organisms used to treat particularly serious or complex conditions, like cancer and HIV/AIDS, and manufacturers argue they need an extended exclusivity period to recoup their investment in development.
The Raben Group, a Democratic-leaning lobbying and public affairs shop, has brought in two new hires as principals at the firm: Jackie Payne, former director of government relations for Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and Joel Packer, former director of educational policy and practice for the National Education Association.
In addition to her work for Planned Parenthood, Payne was a policy lawyer with the National Organization for Women's Legal Defense and Education Fund. She also chaired the National Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence. Packer spent some 25 years with NEA, a powerful teacher's union, and he also served as deputy assistant secretary for Congressional and Intergovernmental Affairs in the Labor Department in 1993.
The Raben Group is headed by Robert Raben, a former aide to Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America continues to pour millions of dollars into ads backing parts of the Obama administration's health care reform effort and the work of Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
In mid-September, PhRMA launched another round of ads which are slated to run for about four weeks in 14 to 17 states and cost some $9.4 million, say industry insiders. Many of the commercials are running in states of Democratic and Republican moderates who are still considered in play in the Senate as it edges closer to voting on health care reform legislation.
Lobbyists on "Team Abramoff" sometimes had to get creative when justifying tickets and trips to congressional staffers who worried about ethics compliance, a former lobbying associate of Kevin Ring and Jack Abramoff said Thursday during testimony in Ring's trial.
The lobbyists were worried about the appearance of compliance with congressional ethics rules, not actual compliance, testified Todd Boulanger, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud in January.
Boulanger detailed a Super Bowl trip that Team Abramoff planned for lawmakers and staffers in January 2001. In the end, no members of Congress and only two Senate staffers attended. Ring did not go on the trip "because he didn't have anyone he invited going," Boulanger said.
But after the two Senate staffers, Ryan Thomas and Will Brooke, who worked for then-Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., "asked for documentation on how they could attend" the Super Bowl trip, justifying the expensive excursion became a priority for the lobbying team, Boulanger said. First, the lobbyists considered classifying the trip as a fundraiser, then Ring suggested labeling the trip a "tribute" to members of Congress, Boulanger recalled.
"If we wanted the two Senate staffers to attend, [giving them a justification] was important," he said. "I wanted to make them comfortable."
A former associate of ex-lobbyists Kevin Ring and Jack Abramoff said in testimony at Ring's trial Thursday that other lobbying firms used the same tools used by "Team Abramoff," that many of the controversial statements made by Ring in e-mails were jokes, and that a Department of Justice official allegedly bribed by Ring was not a decision-maker on a crucial project. All three of these claims are key pillars of the defense's argument.
During cross-examination by the defense, Todd Boulanger, a former member of Team Abramoff, said that when he took officials to sporting events and restaurants, he often saw congressional staffers accompanied by lobbyists from other firms.
Ring's attorney, Andrew Wise, had argued in his opening statement that Ring's lobbying practices were commonplace: "Don't buy into the idea that this was somehow a rogue operation and no one else was doing it."
Wise had also argued in his opening statement that many of Ring's e-mails, which make up a large part of the government's evidence, were jokes, not proof of the defendant's actions or intentions. Witnesses in the trial, however, have so far not fully corroborated that. Neil Volz, another former associate on Abramoff's lobbying team, said that "some elements" of the e-mails were jokes but other elements were not.
But Boulanger on Thursday insisted that most of the e-mails in question were indeed nothing more than jokes. "We all sent some fairly outrageous e-mails," he said. He did admit, however, that one e-mail, in which Ring wrote that a DOJ official could "pay us back" for receiving a basketball ticket, was not a joke.
Continue reading Witness: Abramoff Methods Used By Other Firms.
Advocacy and lobbying stories from this week's National Journal: (subscription)
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "More lobbyists are expected to terminate their registrations because of the White House's announcement this week that federal agencies should not appoint them to advisory boards," The Hill reports. "It is unclear how many people will be affected by the decision, but at least 1,000 federal advisory committees report to the General Services Administration under the Federal Advisory Committee Act, and many of them now include registered lobbyists."
• "When Florida Republican Mel Martinez this week accepted a position with the mega-lobbying and law firm DLA Piper -- less than two weeks after resigning from the Senate -- it brought to five the number of former lawmakers since 2007 who have abandoned their constituents midterm and almost immediately resurfaced with lobbying firms, according to data provided by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics," Politico reports.
• "The army of industry lobbyists in the health-care battle is fighting on familiar terrain: More than half of them used to work for the government they're trying to influence," Bloomberg reports. "Of 2,737 lobbyists hired to promote the interests of drug companies, insurers, hospitals, health professionals, industry groups and business organizations, 1,418 -- or 52 percent -- have worked for Congress, the White House or federal agencies. That includes 55 former members of Congress."
Casting the Obama administration's call to phase out federally registered lobbyists from federal advisory boards and committees as a move against transparency, the American League of Lobbyists (ALL) is gathering feedback on how to respond.
In an email sent out today, ALL president Dave Wenhold called on members to share their candid thoughts, strategies and input regarding the White House's new directive on federally registered lobbyists.
Yesterday we reported on the administration's blog post, written by Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, describing the president's request to weaken the influence of special interests in Washington.
"It is uncertain at this time how many registered lobbyists will be affected," said Wenhold in the email, "but the trend is obvious, and every federally-registered lobbyist needs to pay attention to the overall anti-lobbying mindset."
Wenhold added that the organization's attempts to open a dialogue with the administration have fallen on deaf ears.
AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka has asked insurance commissioners in Connecticut, New York, Indiana and Pennsylvania to investigate a possible connection between rate hikes by several large insurers and their Washington lobby expenditures.
In a letter Thursday, Trumka asked New York's acting insurance superintendent James Wrynn to look into the activities of Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (now Wellpoint) and United Healthcare.
"We believe that health insurance providers' lobbying expenditures have led to excessive rate hikes and urge you to include a review of such expenditures," Trumka wrote.
Trumka makes several direct connections between insurance-rate jumps and lobby expenditures in the letter: "At the same time that Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield was preparing to request your approval to raise insurance premiums for Connecticut residents by up to 30 percent in some cases, [the company] spent more than $9.5 million on lobbying activities."
The carriers in question are currently examining the letter and we will update this story as soon as they respond to us. You can read Trumka's letter here:
aflcioltr2.pdf(This story has been updated from an earlier version with the inclusion of more information on state recipients and an updated letter)
For all those paying attention to the connection between the timing of a fundraiser and votes, Sunlight Foundation's Party Time blog has a round up of health care related fundraisers in September. At least 17 fundraisers are listed.
Also note to readers, on the right hand side of our blog you can see a rolling list of fundraisers collected by Party Time.
All of the proposed pieces of health care legislation, including the latest bill set out by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., need to focus on cost containment rather than taxation as the greatest source of reform funding, the insurance industry's top lobbyist said Thursday.
"Every committee is going to need to take a broader look at affordability," Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.
Baucus' bill includes a tax on insurance companies for the most expensive insurance plans.
Ignagni said that each insured family pays an average of $1,500 more per year because of the "underfunding of Medicaid and Medicare."
"At a minimum, there needs to be a prohibition against cost-shifting as a result of Medicare cuts," Ignagni said.
Ignagni said August was a "lost opportunity" for pushing reform efforts forward, but she still sees a "strong opportunity to pass reform legislation this year."
(Photo of Ignagni by Rick Bloom)
Continue reading Ignagni: Bills Don't Make Health Care Affordable.
After ten years at Microsoft, Ginny Terzano is leaving to join Dewey Square Group, where she will be principle and head up communications for the public affairs firm. She replaces Kiki McLean, who left in June to take a job at Porter Novelli.
Terzano joined Microsoft's D.C. office in 1999, where she was senior director of public relations and corporate communications after many years in Democratic politics. Prior to Microsoft, Terzano was spokeswoman for Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo, former vice president Al Gore and she was a former aide to Ronald Brown at the Democratic National Committee.
Dewey Square also announced the Maria Cardona will lead the firm's new public affairs practice, which will combine coaltion building, communications, constituent outreach, government relations and public policy. Cardona has been a principle at Dewey Square since 2005 and ran its Latinovations practice. Prior to Dewey Square, Cardona was senior vice president at the New Democrat Network and was communications director at the Democratic National Committee between 1998 and 2001.
She also worked at the Justice deparment's immigration and naturalization service, and the Commerce department.
(Photo of Cardona courtesy of Dewey Square)
From National Journal's TechDailyDose:
Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who was tapped last week to become the new head of the National Association of Broadcasters spoke to reporters on Wednesday for the first time since being named to the post. His conversation with the press, which followed an appearance at NAB's Radio Show in Philadelphia, included a bit of perspective on legislation that would impose new fees on AM and FM stations. NAB has been lobbying hard against the bill, which broadcasters say could do great harm. The music industry has argued paying a royalty is only fair since other platforms already pay performers for the songs they play. Click here to read more of Andrew Noyes's story.
TVNewsCheck also covers Smith's chat with the press and includes more detail about Smith's bio, how he'll be handling the two-year ban on lobbying by former senators, and how much he is getting paid to represent the broadcasters -- more than $800,000. Click here to read the story.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Despite hints to the contrary by the drug industry's top executive, pharmaceutical lobbyists are warning that a health care amendment by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) threatens to unravel an $80 billion deal the industry struck with Senate Democrats and the White House," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "At a Wednesday health care panel, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America President Billy Tauzin suggested that his organization will continue negotiating with lawmakers on health care reform legislation and reserve judgment until a final bill emerges."
• "A top-ranking SEIU official says that the powerful union could support a health care bill that doesn't include a public option -- a striking contrast to the more hard-line stance on the issue taken by the new president of the AFL-CIO," Politico reports. "But pressed as to what Service Employees International Union will do if -- as some suggest is inevitable -- a public option is not included in the final version of the legislation, [Secretary-Treasuer Anna] Burger said even getting an imperfect bill is preferable to passing nothing at all. And, she said, this year's efforts may be just a first step."
• "Changes Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus has made to his healthcare overhaul mark sparked 'serious concerns' from major health insurance lobbying groups that wrote Baucus Wednesday warning the modifications could 'undermine the shared goals of the broader reform effort,'" CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "The joint letter from America's Health Insurance Plans and Blue Cross Blue Shield Association relayed some of the harshest language insurers have used to date as they have attempted to remain actively involved in negotiations around Baucus' mark."
• "Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who has supported the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) on low-income housing issues, said he would have voted to strip federal funding for the group last week if he had been present. Frank was attending a White House Medal of Honor ceremony for a soldier from his state killed in action when the House approved the funding cuts," The Hill reports. "Frank in a lengthy memo said his support and Judiciary Chairman John Conyers's (D-Mich.) backing of an inquiry by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) into ACORN did not constitute support for the group, and may have been shortsighted."
Updated Oct. 2 with clarification.
Crying witnesses, colorful e-mails and descriptions of lobbyists as "sugar daddies" and congressmen as their "champions" -- it's all become routine in the trial of Kevin Ring, former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. With a full cast of former lobbyists and congressional staffers who have already pleaded guilty in the scandal testifying as cooperating witnesses, courtroom drama has yet to cease, and it's only bound to continue as the defense is expected to begin presenting evidence next week.
As they fight a conviction, Ring's lawyers have the tough job of separating their client from all that intrigue. He was indicted on 10 criminal counts last year for honest services wire fraud, providing illegal gratuities, conspiracy to commit those crimes and obstruction of justice. In a pre-trial hearing, Judge Ellen Huvelle ruled to move the two obstruction of justice charges into a separate trial, unless they are settled out of court.
The eight charges against Ring in this trial hold a maximum combined sentence of 127 years jail time. Abramoff received a sentence of six total years for his guilty pleas in two fraud and bribery cases, and other "Team Abramoff" lobbyists who pleaded guilty have received probation and fines instead of jail time.
Ring was offered plea agreements by the government, but unlike the vast majority of individuals caught up in the scandal -- about 20 former lobbyists, congressional staffers, executive officials and one congressman, former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio -- Ring pleaded not guilty and chose to go to trial. Only one other individual, former White House aide David Safavian, has gone to trial rather than pleading guilty. He was found guilty of lying and obstructing justice twice: first in July 2006, then in a retrial in December 2008.
So what makes Ring different? Legal experts point to Ring's interactions with the Department of Justice leading up to the trial, his status as a lobbyist and the cost of a trial.
The court watched a little basketball today in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, as the prosecution tried to demonstrate the value of the tickets they allege Ring swapped for favors from officials.
Todd Boulanger, a former lobbying associate of Ring and Abramoff, identified Robert Coughlin on video watching Michael Jordan from seats a few rows behind the basket at a Washington Wizards game. In e-mail evidence, Coughlin, a former liaison in the Department of Justice's Office of Legislative Affairs, asked Ring for basketball tickets.
According to evidence, Coughlin assisted Ring and "Team Abramoff" with information on how to obtain a jail-building grant from the Department of Justice for one of their clients, the Mississippi Band of the Choctaw Indians. The Department of Justice had approved a grant of $9 million for the jail, but the tribe wanted $16 million.
The jail project was the most important project for the Choctaw, and the tribe was one of Team Abramoff's most important clients, Boulanger said in testimony today. The tribe paid the lobbying firm about $120,000 every month, he reported.
Continue reading Jury Watches DoJ Official Using Ring's Tickets.
(UPDATE @ 4:52 pm to add reaction from Doug Pinkham, president of the Public Affairs Council)
President Obama has asked government agencies not to fill positions on federal advisory boards and committees with federally registered lobbyists, Norm Eisen, special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, wrote on the White House blog Wednesday afternoon.
Eisen wrote:
"The White House has informed executive agencies and departments that it is our aspiration that federally-registered lobbyists not be appointed to agency advisory boards and commissions. These appointees to boards and commissions, which are made by agencies and not the President, advise the federal government on a variety of policy areas. Keeping these advisory boards free of individuals who currently are registered federal lobbyists represents a dramatic change in the way business is done in Washington."
Eisen said federally registered lobbyists that currently serve on these agency boards and committees, may continue, but "when these appointments expire, it is our hope that agencies not reappoint anyone who is currently registered as a federal lobbyist at the time of their potential reappointment."
Click here to read Eisen's whole post.
"It makes no sense to stifle discussion about important issues like trade by keeping experts out of the conversation," said Pinkham. "Eisen's statement shows no respect for professionals who work for companies, unions and nonprofits and happen to devote part of their time to advocacy."
Another lobbyist asked why Obama's campaign bundlers and big donors weren't also included in this latest effort to reduce special interest influence on government agency decisions.
We'll update as we have more commentary.
DLA Piper has snagged former Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla. as a partner in its government affairs practice.
Martinez was elected to the Senate in 2004 and recently shook up Florida politics by resigning before completing his first term. A native of Cuba, Martinez also served as secretary of Housing and Urban Development in President George W. Bush's administration. He is also a former general chairman of the Republican National Committee. Earlier in his career, Martinez was mayor of Orange County, Florida and he spent some 25 years as a lawyer in private practice.
DLA Piper's government affairs group is co-chaired by former Michigan Gov. and Democratic representative James Blanchard. A 2005 study by Public Citizen found that of all eligible former members of Congress who had left office since 1998, 43 percent registered to lobby. The report also said that 50 percent of departing Senators became lobbyists.
(Photo of Martinez by Rick Bloom)
Gabe Horwitz, former legislative director for Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif., and Shannon O'Keefe, former deputy associate director for legislative affairs at the Office of Management and Budget, have joined McBee Strategic Consulting.
As an aide to Matsui, Horwitz crafted the lawmaker's policy agenda and managed her House Energy and Commerce Comittee and Rules Committee work. He was also Matsui's liaison to the Democrats' California delegation. Before Matsui, Horwitz was senior policy advisor to Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark. and before that, worked for Rep. Mike McIntyre, D-N.C. He also worked at Dewey Square Group.
O'Keefe was most recently senior executive at ITT's Washington corporate office and before that worked for OMB where she handled commerce, defense, energy, environment, homeland security, international affairs and transportation issues. Before that she was a professional staff member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, working with Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
With these hires, McBee's staff grows to 41.
(Photos of Horwitz and O'Keefe courtesy of McBee)
(Updated at 1:38 pm to show correct number of McBee staff)
(Updated at 5:09 PM to reflect DGA fundraising amount for first half of 2009)
The Democratic Governors Association is spurning federal lobbyists and their campaign donations at its $5,000-a-plate October 1 fundraiser in Washington, the latest Democratic political group to do so in exchange for getting President Obama to speak at their event.
In keeping with his 2008 campaign rule, when Obama refused to take donations from federal lobbyists and political action committees, the president has continued to tell groups that he won't speak at their fund raising events unless lobbyist and PAC money is banned. The restriction, however, doesn't cover state lobbyists.
State lobbyists will be able to give money and attend the DGA event, which is expected to raise about $500,000. The group has raised more than $8 million $11.6 million in the 2010 election cycle, according to the DGA.
"For Obama, clearly the distinction between influence by federal lobbyists and state lobbyists is significant to his agenda," said one ethics lawyer.
The DGA gets plenty of money from organizations that employ lobbyists including Eli Lilly, Novartis, Motorola and U.S. Cellular. Click here to see the donor list on Center for Responsive Politics.
"I don't know what the difference is between a state and federal lobbyist," said one K Street Democrat who has expressed ongoing frustration at being barred from attending events hosted by organizations he has given money to, but " I guess we are radioactive."
A staffer-turned-lobbyist said the "endless expense account" and "nearly endless tickets" at "Team Abramoff" gave him and other former members of the lobbying team, including Kevin Ring and Jack Abramoff, greater access to public officials than other lobbyists.
"We had more tools than most," Todd Boulanger said in testimony Tuesday in the trial of Ring. "It was a tremendous advantage over some of the other folks in the lobbying world."
Boulanger said that Ring joked about his use of tickets and meals in lobbying. "Hello quid, where's the pro quo?" Boulanger reported Ring saying to him on several occasions.
Boulanger, who worked as a legislative assistant for former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H., before joining the lobbying team with Abramoff and Ring at Preston Gates & Ellis and then Greenberg Traurig, described the common practice within his team of avoiding disclosure of recipients of gifts, even internally.
"I will not put names on a receipt ever," Boulanger wrote in a 2002 e-mail to Abramoff regarding a Greenberg Traurig request to fill in information on accounting forms about guests at expensed lunches.
"I didn't want people to find out who we were taking out," Boulanger said in explaining the e-mail, saying the team's rule of thumb was that if a newspaper item about a member of the firm having lunch with a particular individual was going to be embarrassing, it was best not to "leave a paper trail."
He said he dismissed lobbying guideline manuals that were given to him and other lobbyists by the firms.
"Quite frankly, I didn't pay much attention to [the guidelines]," Boulanger said. "Nobody did."
Boulanger pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud in January, and he named Abramoff and Ring as co-conspirators in his plea. He is awaiting sentence.
Greg Harris of the Department of Justice also testified Tuesday afternoon about funding for a jail on behalf of a major "Team Abramoff" client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and other interactions with Ring. Boulanger's testimony will continue today.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual legislative conference kicks off today, but don't expect to see the CBC Political Action Committee taking an active role in the events that bring together hundreds of people to discuss issues of particular interest to African-Americans," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The CBC PAC, which raises personal and corporate hard dollars, and the CBC Foundation, which attracts corporate soft dollars, are separate organizations. The CBC PAC didn't schedule any events because it didn't want to have even the appearance of trying to use the legislative conference to its fundraising advantage, according to the group's executive director, Jessica Knight."
• "A law designed to shine a bright light on big political campaign contributors on K Street has in practice not been particularly illuminating, watchdogs charge," The Hill reports. "On its Party Time! Database, the Sunlight Foundation, a watchdog group, lists dozens of fundraisers hosted by lobbyists. But political campaigns have not filed bundler reports to the FEC, which tracks campaign spending, for all of those invitations, according to an analysis by The Hill."
Today's press release announcing that the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries (ASPPA) and the National Tax Sheltered Accounts Association (NTSAA) are planning to combine some operations got us wondering what they might call the joint operation. ASPPANTSAA? (or is that "Asp... pants... aaaaaaa!!!") But ASPPA spokesperson Chris Robichaux says that since the groups aren't contemplating a complete merger just yet, "a name change is not in order." Whew!
PG&E Corp. is leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over objections to what its top executive called the chamber's "extreme position on climate change," CNN reported.
In a letter to the U.S. Chamber published on PG&E's blog, PG& E Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Darbee cited "fundamental differences" over climate change to explain why the company is pulling out of the organization, despite the Chamber's "long history as a positive force for America's businesses and its economy."
Law and lobbying firm Cozen O'Connor announced today that it formed a subsidiary to expand its lobbying practices at the federal, state and local levels, especially in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware.
Federal efforts for the subsidiary, Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies, will be led by Mark L. Alderman, who joined Cozen O'Connor in April. He is a former chairman at the dissolved firm WolfBlock. He was a member of the Obama for America National Finance Committee.
According to a release put out today, David F. Girard-diCarlo will also "play a leadership role in overseeing the growth" at the subsidiary. He was an ambassador to Austria under former President George W. Bush. Girard-diCarlo is also former chairman of the law and lobbying firm Blank Rome and was co-chair of the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia.
Though she pleaded guilty earlier this year to taking official actions because of tickets and meals given to her by lobbyists, a former Senate staffer said today in testimony that her actions would have been the same with or without the gifts. Ann Copland, a legislative aide to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., for nearly 30 years, testified this morning in the trial of Kevin Ring, a former associate of Jack Abramoff.
"The receipt of the tickets and the meals made the lobbyists more accessible to me, and I took official actions during that time. I knew it was their job to influence me," Copland said during cross-examination by the defense. But she insisted that no single action was taken "because of the tickets."
While in Cochran's office, Copland worked primarily on issues concerning the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, a lobbying client of Ring and "Team Abramoff."
Copland said that she would have taken the same actions she took for the Choctaw whether their concerns were brought to her by the lobbyists or directly from the tribe.
"I can't imagine not helping the Choctaw," she said. "They were constituents."
Copland said that she also received gifts directly from the Choctaw -- plane tickets, hotel suites, spa visits and art items -- but those gifts were permitted under an exception to the Senate rules that allowed gifts from Native American tribes and other government entities. She said her boss, Cochran, likely knew about those gifts, but she did not tell him about the tickets she received from the lobbying firm because "he would not approve."
Copland characterized Ring as a policy wonk who understood the political process "sometimes better than I understood it." Ring continued working with Copland on Choctaw-related issues after the Abramoff scandal emerged, and he moved to a new lobbying firm, Barnes & Thornburg, where he no longer provided Copland with tickets or meals.
Copland's testimony has now concluded. Greg Harris of the Department of Justice will testify next about Team Abramoff's lobbying of the agency. Todd Boulanger, a lobbying associate of Ring and Abramoff, is also expected to begin testimony this afternoon.
Yesterday, just hours before former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made his debut on Dancing with the Stars, dozens of lobbyists, politicos and consultants around town and on K Street received an urgent e-mail from his daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, asking for their help: "vote early and vote often."
The missive opened "Dear Friends" reminding the recipients that DeLay was the "most effective whip in modern Congressional history." It also gave very specific tips on how to maximize the vote for Tom, noting that unlike in elections, the rules of the show allow people to vote many times, including: "eight times from your home phone, eight times from your cell phone, eight times on the website and you can also text eight times."
To those who were scratching their heads about why this former House wunderkind might go on such a high-profile pop show at all, his daughter bluntly wrote: "For those who know what a goofball he really is, it's a perfect fit."
See letter here.
Delay letter.pdfAugust fundraising numbers for the parties' campaign committees were released over the weekend, and the Republican National Committee bested the Democratic National Committee by $1 million for the month.
The RNC raised $7.9 million to the DNC's $6.9 million in August, and for the first eight months of 2009, the RNC raised $59.9 million to the DNC's $53.6 million, The Hill reports.
The average daily contributor count for the RNC in August was 9,306 donations, averaging $41 each, Politico reports.
Roll Call breaks down contributions to each party's congressional and senatorial campaign committees through August, noting that the four committees combined have raised $118.7 million.
We wanted to alert our readers to our ongoing coverage of the trial of Kevin Ring, a former lobbyist who used to work for the now imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
National Journal.com reporter Beth Sussman is providing our readers interesting stories about the way Abramoff and his team lobbied Capitol Hill staff and how those staff responded. You can now find all of our coverage in one spot on our site.
Millions of dollars earmarked by Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., for his eponymous homeland security institute have been directed to the congressman's associates despite few funded projects having completed their stated goals, a Washington Post investigation alleges.
"In a district that also boasts a regional airport named for Murtha and nearly a dozen other facilities bearing his name, the institute is another example of how the congressman has used federal money to revitalize this economically depressed former coal-mining region," the article reports. "In doing so, he has raised questions among watchdog groups and outside critics about using taxpayer money to fund projects that appear to mostly benefit Murtha loyalists."
The John P. Murtha Institute for Homeland Security, located at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, has been awarded $50 million in federal funds, and Murtha "sought another earmark this year before abruptly changing course as investigations of his defense appropriations and lobbying connections heated up," the article says.
Tickets and meals Ann Copland received from lobbyists while employed as a congressional staffer made "life a little easier" and "a little more fun," the former aide to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said in testimony at the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring on Monday.
Copland allegedly received personal gifts valued at about $25,000 from members of "Team Abramoff," including Ring, the Department of Justice estimated. She pleaded guilty for accepting those gifts in March.
Most of the correspondence the prosecution asked Copland about was between herself and Todd Boulanger, an Abramoff lobbying associate who pleaded guilty in January and is expected to begin testifying in the Ring trial on Wednesday.
"I did not feel like I could tell Todd 'no'... because he treated me very well, which included, in large part, the tickets," Copland said. According to Monday's testimony, she assisted members of "Team Abramoff" on legislative issues for two of their clients, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and Primedia.
Copland requested tickets for an array of sporting and entertainment events, including Orioles games, Redskins games, an Aerosmith concert, an American Idols concert and a figure skating championship, and she sometimes gave the tickets to other staffers in her office instead of using them herself. In June 2003, she used Abramoff's suite at an Orioles game, along with refreshments in the suite provided by the lobbying firm, for her son's birthday party.
"I accepted gifts from the lobbyists -- the tickets and the meals -- and accepting those things had some influence on decisions I was making while [working] in the Senate," Copland said.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "In what would be a dramatic next step in its drive to insulate itself from K Street, the White House is strongly considering limiting the ability of lobbyists to serve on federal advisory panels designed to bring the voices of outside interests into the halls of the administration," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "According to sources familiar with the deliberations, the White House is likely to either tell agencies to ban lobbyists from the panels or to provide the agencies guidance -- which would be hard to resist, considering the source -- suggesting they avoid having lobbyists serve on the committees."
• "A federal grand jury charged Hassan Nemazee, a New York businessman who has ties to prominent politicians, with defrauding banks of $292 million in part to benefit the Democratic Party," the Wall Street Journal reports. Nemazee "used the proceeds of his scheme to donate to campaigns and political-action committees, according to an indictment made public Monday, though the amount allegedly spent on these efforts wasn't specified. The donations helped him rise to become finance chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, among other major roles."
• "General Electric and Pratt & Whitney are both known for making heavy war machinery. But it's their K Street desk jockeys who are now on the front lines in a fierce clash over Pentagon billions," Politico reports. "GE is accusing Pratt & Whitney and its allies of using twisted Congressional Budget Office numbers to make their case. Meanwhile, Pratt & Whitney's team is smearing GE's allies by accusing them -- including House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- of being desperate enough to employ an earmark to get their way."
Everyone else is weighing in (or screaming), so it's no great surprise that a coalition of 14 groups representing half a million doctors announced a new ad campaign Monday calling on Congress to get cracking on health care reform.
"The status quo is unacceptable," said James Rohack, M.D., president of the American Medical Association, in a statement. "America has the best health care in the world, but it's out of reach for too many people because they lack health insurance. Physicians are joining together to encourage Congress to seize this year's opportunity to make real improvements to the health system for patients and physicians."
The organizations sponsoring the ad include the AMA, The American Academy of Pediatrics, The American College of Physicians, The American Osteopathic Association, Doctors for America, the National Medical Association and the National Physicians Alliance.
"As a physician on the front lines of health care, I know that the system is broken, and if we do nothing, it will get worse," said Mandy Krauthamer, M.D., executive director of Doctors for America.
You can see the new ad here.
Twitter has proven an effective lobbying tool for the conservative masses, and a new offshoot of the social networking site is now banding together progressives.
"Twitter is the most direct way of lobbying that anybody's seen," said Tracy Viselli, a co-founder of TweetProgress, a directory of progressives on Twitter that launched last month. "It's the most direct way to communicate with lawmakers and journalists."
TweetProgress is an index of progressively-minded Twitter users -- from regular people with an interest in activism to famously liberal public officials like Al Gore -- with the goal of "trying to connect people and... trying to get more people interested in being activists and using Twitter for that," Viselli said.
The listing includes more than 3,800 members and an updating ticker showing any tweets marked with the "progressives 2.0" hash tag (#p2). From there, it's up to the user to decide how to best make use of the directory, from directly contacting others via Twitter to advocate for an issue to just reading tweets to find out what's going on in the world of progressivism. The site offers to set up new Twitter activists with a mentor to learn more about the possibilities.
Continue reading Progressives Try To Make Inroads On Twitter.
The K Street power set is alive and well and eating at the Ristorante Tosca, according to this story in the Washington Post. It's full of who's-who blather but an entertaining read in any case.
A recent lobbyist-turned-staffer shied away from a party held in her honor last week because the shindig was hosted by telecommunications industry lobbyists, Roll Call reports.
The party was held for former AT&T lobbyist Amy Andryszak, who joined the staff of Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, as chief of staff today.
The event was hosted by CTIA, the United States Telecom Association, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association and several lobbyists, the article says.
"This is something put together by my friends, and I think it's a wonderful gesture that they wanted to host this event for me," Andryszak told Roll Call. "Even though this is completely legal and ethical, to avoid any appearance of impropriety, I will not attend this event."
To some election law experts, dire warnings by vocal activists that faulty voting machines are threatening democracy tend to ring false.
After all, questionable machines are only one of the many problems plaguing an election system that's outmoded, decentralized and chronically underfunded. The best machines in the world won't help if local election officials can't hire and train enough poll workers and clean up their error-riddled voter registration lists.
But an industry shakeup that's placed one controversial vendor in charge of more than half the nation's voting technology has thrust the debate over machines squarely back into focus.
The sale earlier this month of Diebold Inc.'s election business to Election Systems and Software has alarmed election officials and civic watchdogs, and prompted calls on Capitol Hill for the Justice Department to intervene. A smaller, competing voting machines manufacturer has also filed suit.
"This acquisition may have serious adverse implications for how our country votes," wrote Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder. Schumer, who chairs the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, urged the Justice Department to review the deal, which would give ES&S control of the election systems in 68 percent of the nation's voting precincts.
Continue reading Voting Machine Monopoly Threatens Elections.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Watchdog groups are seizing on the recent edict by House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to extend the one-year lobbying ban for a former top staffer as a way to push Congress to revise lobbying rules to expand the cooling-off period for Members of Congress and senior staffers headed to K Street," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
College of American Pathologists
This medical society represents 17,000 pathologists, who study and diagnose diseases.
What They Want
Not surprisingly, the group is concerned with the "emerging role for pathologists in this system that's going to be reformed," said John Scott, vice president of advocacy.
They support the coordinated care model, which encourages communication between health care providers instead of the current fragmentary system, and hope to develop a pilot program to test the impact of bringing pathologists more proactively into health care decisions.
"When you get more and more people covered, there will naturally be an increase in the volume of testing," Scott said. "In addition to that, the science behind the testing has become more and more complex." Pathologists, he went on, are vital to ensuring "patients get the right tests at the right time."
The group also wants to eliminate the loopholes in self-referral policies that allow physicians to refer a patient to imaging services such as an MRI in which they have a financial interest. And they want to ensure that the physician payment system moves away from the sustainable growth rate system, which ties Medicare payments to doctors to the growth of the economy rather than health care costs.
As physicians receive federal incentives to go into primary care, the pathologists don't want to see the government "just taking money out of the overall physician pie" to pay for the bonuses, Scott said.
Advocacy and lobbying stories in this week's National Journal: (subscription)
Talk about a full court press! The health care industry is spending about $1.4 million per day to sway Congress as it mulls reform. That translates to about six lobbyists for every lawmaker, according to the group Common Cause.
The health care industry has also given members of Congress nearly $24 million in campaign contributions this year, on top of the nearly $170 million they donated last election, said the group.
"The public can be forgiven for feeling left out of this debate when the drug, insurance and other health-related companies are financing thousands of lobbyists and multi-million dollar ad campaigns and making generous campaign contributions to get what they want out of health care reform," said Common Cause President Bob Edgar in a statement.
Top recipients of the mega bucks, include (not surprisingly) the Gang of Six -- Senators Max Bauchus, D-Mont., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Kent Conrad, D-N.D., Michael Enzi, R-Wyo., Bill Nelson, R-Fla., and Olympia Snowe, R-Me. Total haul so far in 2009: $6,036,626.
The analysis is based on numbers supplied by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Former Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., has been tapped to head the National Association of Broadcasters, the trade group announced Friday morning.
Smith, who was defeated by Democrat Jeff Merkley in 2008 after two terms in office, starts Nov. 1. Among Smith's top priorities will be leading broadcasters' effort to stave off legislation that would force AM and FM radio to pay fees to performers whose songs they air.
NAB's former president, David Rehr, stepped down in May after four years on the job.
Smith, who served on the Senate Commerce, Finance, and Foreign Relations Committees, will be introduced to NAB members and make brief remarks at the group's annual Radio Show in Philadelphia next week and will meet the entire NAB board in mid-October.
While on Capitol Hill, Smith also chaired the Senate Republican High Tech Task Force -- a role that helped foster his interest in new media and technology issues.
His appointment comes on the heels of a string of recent defeats for the NAB, including its failure to block the XM-Sirius satellite radio merger. The association was also a key player in the nation's switchover to digital television signals.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has tapped Purple Strategies and Powell Tate to develop ads for its "campaign for free enterprise." The commercials are slated to begin in mid October with a splash on television, radio and in print outlets.
The push is fueled in part by mounting concerns of too much government regulation and interference in the private sector by the new administration and Congress as they grapple with the nation's economic woes.
The consulting team for the multi-year advertising and grassroots campaign to promote the merits of the free enterprise system includes Alex Castellanos and Steve McMahon of Purple Strategies and Lance Morgan and Howard Opinsky of Powell Tate.
A former House staffer testified in former lobbyist Kevin Ring's federal trial today that he knew it was wrong to take gifts from Ring, and when the Jack Abramoff scandal emerged, he recognized the illegality of his actions. Ring, who worked under Ambramoff, faces a variety of charges, including conspiring to provide illegal gratuities.
"I went to work thinking, 'I'm going to do something I think is wrong today,'" John Albaugh, former chief of staff to former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., said of the period between 2003 and 2004 when he received tickets and meals from Ring while helping Ring secure earmarks to fund projects for clients. Albaugh said he continued despite knowing the wrongfulness of his actions because he wanted to help Istook be "successful." Ring was a major political donor to Istook, and he helped plan fundraisers for the congressman.
After the investigations into Abramoff started, "I began to be concerned I may have broken the law," Albaugh said in his testimony. "I had terrors in the night.... I suffered. I knew I had broken the law."
The FBI searched Albaugh's house in April 2008, which Albaugh said did not surprise him.
"When my wife came to me and said, 'The FBI is here,' I knew what they were there for," he said.
After agreeing to cooperate with the government in their investigation, Albaugh regained a "peace in my soul I didn't have for a number of years," he said.
Albaugh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud last year. He named Ring as his co-conspirator in his testimony.
In his cross-examination of the witnesses, Ring's attorney, Andrew Wise, cast doubt on the trustworthiness of Albaugh's testimony. He called into question Albaugh's recollection of dates and events -- Albaugh repeatedly answered "I don't know" to his questions about specific lunches and sporting events -- and questioned whether he favored earmarks that would benefit his brother's business dealings in South Carolina.
Wise also questioned Albaugh's loyalty to his former employer in describing a phone call Albaugh made to Istook that was secretly recorded by the FBI as part of his cooperation with the government. Istook did not make any incriminating statements during the call, Albaugh confirmed.
Court has recessed for today. Wise will continue cross-examining Albaugh on Friday morning. The judge, defense and prosecution will meet this afternoon to determine whether two potential witnesses for the defense, David and Laura Ayres, can invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying. Lawyers for the Department of Justice said last week that they have not named the Ayreses as co-conspirators in the case, but it is possible that they are concerned about self-incrimination in relation to a tax issue.
UPDATE @ 12:06 pm on Sept. 18:
In a follow-up to yesterday's post, Laborers spokesman Jacob Hay said: "We have no immediate plans to leave Change to Win or rejoin the AFL-CIO. We do continue believe a united labor movement is the best way to fight for working people and discussions towards that end are ongoing."
UNITE HERE, one of the unions that broke off from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and joined the coalition of dissident unions that made up the Change to Win coalition, formally rejoined the AFL-CIO today as the federation's quadrennial convention comes to a close in Pittsburgh.
While newly elected AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka trumpeted the move, no one who follows the labor movement closely should be surprised--the UNITE HERE board voted to re-affiliate with the AFL-CIO earlier this year. Moreover, the move suggests that the return of the dissident unions to the federation is likely to be incremental, not in unison as some labor leaders had hoped last spring when the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, and the independent National Education Association began talks on uniting labor all under one roof.
In an interview just prior to the convention, outgoing AFL-CIO president John Sweeney acknowledged that "they probably won't come back as a group, at first; that it will be individual unions that may come back."
Who's the next Change to Win union that may be rejoin the AFL-CIO? That could be LIUNA, the Laborers' International Union of North America. In an interview before the convention, American Federation of State County and Local Employees Gerald McEntee said, "My own judgment is that the Laborers are coming back."
Meanwhile, not all of UNITE HERE is rejoining the AFL-CIO. The union, which was a merger of apparel workers and hotel and restaurant employees in 2004, has undergone its own bitter divorce. A faction of more than 100,000 members loyal to Bruce Raynor, who formerly headed UNITE, decided to merge with the Service Employees International Union, one the leaders of Change to Win, earlier this year.
The AFL-CIO gets the remaining 265,000 UNITE HERE members lead by John Wilhelm. While Change to Win leaders predicted four years ago that their group would become an organizing powerhouse, the coalition has not lived up that boast.
From our energy and environment blog:
Friends of the Earth this morning announced Erich Pica as its new president. Pica, 34, has coordinated the group's campaigns against nuclear, oil, gas, biofuel and coal subsidies and its efforts to regulate emerging technologies for nearly a decade. Pica replaces retiring President Brent Blackwelder, who has led the group since 1994.
"We're going to redouble our efforts and change the political climate both in Congress as well as in the grassroots," Pica told NationalJournal.com this morning. He criticized the energy bill the House passed in June as "severely compromised" and said his group will continue opposing a cap-and-trade system that could give Wall Street too much power and opportunity for more "financial mischief."
In other news of energy and environment people moves:
The American Wind Energy Association rolled outs its new federal legislative affairs team earlier this week. Chris Chwastyk is the group's new vice president of federal legislative affairs. Chwastyk was chief of staff to Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, who opposed the House energy bill. Jim Martin, a longtime Republican strategist who worked on Arizona Sen.John McCain's presidential campaign last year, was hired as AWEA's director of strategic policy initiatives. Rob Gramlich, formerly AWEA's policy director, has been promoted to senior vice president for public policy, where he will take on a larger role in representing the organization to the media and energy industry.
A watchdog group released its annual list of the 15 most corrupt members of Congress this week, including some members who are known to be under investigation for ethical breaches and some who are not.
The list, compiled by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, includes seven Republicans and eight Democrats. One member of congressional leadership, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is on the list, which also includes: Sens. Roland Burris (D-Ill.) and John Ensign, (R-Nev.); and Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Nathan Deal (R-Ga.), Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D-Ill.), Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), John Murtha (D-Pa.), Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), Laura Richardson (D-Calif.), Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Don Young (R-Alaska).
The most common charge lobbed by CREW against lawmakers on the list is channeling funds to friends and family via earmarks.
Under the Influence reported last month on CREW's list of lawmakers known to be under investigation at that time. Six members on the new "Most Corrupt" list -- Buchanan, Calvert, Deal, Ensign, McConnell and Waters -- were not on that list, though CREW now reports that Buchanan, Calvert and Ensign are under investigation.
The new report also checked up on those who made the list between 2005 and 2008. Of those 48 lawmakers, 27 are no longer in office.
Few lawmakers disclose that they are receiving campaign donations via events hosted by specific lobbyists because the Federal Election Commission rules on fundraising have so many loopholes, the Associated Press reported.
Lobbyists were identified as hosts on 195 fundraising invitations, but have yet to be disclosed as fundraisers by the lawmakers, the AP said.
So are lawmakers eager to receive campaign donations via lobbyist-hosted soirees but afraid to publicly disclose it? It appears so. This fits with something I was told about a month ago by a lobbyist who has raised a lot of money for lawmakers. The source said that a few lawmakers have asked that the lobbyist only raise $15,000 for the member, because anything more triggers the FEC requirement that the lawmaker disclose the lobbyist as a fundraiser for them.
Readers, any thoughts? Feel free to email me here.
Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy
This association represents 5,700 pharmacists and other health care professionals who design and administer drug benefit programs for health insurance plans and employers.
What They Want
AMCP's role in the health care debate has focused on medication therapy management and comparative effectiveness. Both measures are included in proposed legislation.
AMCP wants to ensure that the pharmaceutical benefits that are part of any mandated insurance policies include not only medication, but also the "therapy and counseling that goes along with those," said Judith Cahill, executive director of AMCP.
Encouraging those therapies through incentives like grant programs would "utilize the pharmacists for greater services beyond delivery of the product," said William Hermelin, AMCP's director of government relations.
The group supports comparative effectiveness because it wants to maximize the benefits of treatments. Comparative effectiveness measures seek to encourage and disseminate research into the cost-effectiveness of treatment options.
Continue reading Include Counseling In Drug Benefits, AMCP Says.
The prosecution and the presiding judge in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring sparred at times over the legal limitations of lobbying today as a former Hill aide outlined the favors he had done for the defendant.
Witness John Albaugh, who served as chief of staff to former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., was asked by the prosecution about various contributions given to Istook by Ring, as well as personal gifts -- meals and tickets to concerts and sporting events -- given to Albaugh. In addition to campaign contributions, Ring also helped raise funds for an organization that Istook's wife was involved with, the Congressional Spouses Club.
"This is so indirect. This is just making someone happy," Judge Ellen Huvelle said, contesting the relevance of the prosecution's questions about the fundraising for the club. The prosecution maintained that the fundraising was done with the intent to influence.
A lobbyist can legally make a political contribution to a member of Congress, but personal gifts exceeding $50, or more than $100 total per year from one source, are not allowed. Because Ring made political donations to Istook and organized fundraisers for him, but also allegedly provided personal gifts exceeding the legal limits to the congressman's staffers, Judge Huvelle took extra precautions during Albaugh's testimony to distinguish for the jury between alleged illegal actions and those that were legal or at worse questionable.
In an e-mail to a colleague who had suggested giving Istook tickets to a hockey game, Ring said he thought Istook would be "skittish" about accepting the tickets because the "face value" would be visible on the ticket. The prosecution implied that this meant Ring knew the gift would be outside the legal bounds. Ring said in the e-mail that he would check with Albaugh, but Istook did not take the tickets from Ring.
Continue reading Legal Bounds Of Lobbying Questioned In Trial.
Kevin Ring, an associate of imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, was treated with more preference than other lobbyists, said John Albaugh, former chief of staff to former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., in testimony today at Ring's trial.
An analysis of highway funding requests in 2003 to the transportation subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, which Istook chaired, revealed that 83 percent of requests lobbied for by Ring were fulfilled, compared to 33 percent of all requests, Albaugh said.
He responded in the positive when asked if he "did things for Ring" that he did not do for any other lobbyists. Albaugh also said that he took action on issues "not based on merit" as a direct result of his relationship with Ring.
Albaugh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit honest services fraud last year. His testimony is part of his cooperation with the Department of Justice's investigation, and his sentencing is expected in the next few months, said his attorney, Jeffrey Jacobovitz.
Albaugh's testimony will continue this afternoon.
In todays proceedings of the trial of Kevin Ring, associate of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former congressional staffer-turned-lobbyist Neil Volz described Ring as the "COO of Team Abramoff" and the No. 2 lobbyist in the group starting in mid-2002.
Volz also said Ring was "not as close" personally to Abramoff as other lobbyists on their team such as Todd Boulanger, who is expected to testify in the trial next week and pleaded guilty earlier this year for his involvement in the scandal.
Volz responded emotionally to questions about his personal relationship with Ring. The day before Volz pleaded guilty for his involvement in the Abramoff scandal in 2006, the two played basketball. On the day of his plea, Ring brought him dinner, Volz said.
In its cross-examination, the defense asked Volz if the numerous e-mails being used by the prosecution were "bittersweet" jokes, meant to be funny at the time. Volz agreed that he read some elements of the e-mails as jokes at the time they were sent, but believed that phrases like "sugar daddy" that showed up in the e-mails "exemplified" how the lobbying group was doing business, and overall he did not read most of them as jokes.
Volz' testimony, which began on Monday, has now concluded.
As Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., introduces his committee's health care bill today, the Associated Press takes a look at the political contributions from the industry flowing to Baucus' campaign war chest. See story here.
The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct announced today that it has voted to extend investigations into activities by Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., D-Ill., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif.
The committee did not say what activity it was investigating regarding Graves or Waters.
It did say, however, that the investigation of Graves was authorized, though the committee "did not find a 'substantial reason to believe' that there was a substantive violation of any provisions of the Code of Official Conduct or any law, rule, regulation, or other standard," because the panel had identified "exculpatory evidence" gathered by the Office of Congressional Ethics that had not been provided to Graves, and "in the interests of justice" should have been provided to him.
In the case of Jackson, the committee said that it was investigating whether or not Jackson "may have offered to raise funds for then-Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich in return for the appointment" to the Illinois Senate seat vacated by President Obama.
Mohamed A. el-Erian, CEO of Pimco, stated the obvious to the Washington Post this past week when he said his financial services company has had to think more about the role of the government in this economy, says Doug Pinkham, president of the Public Affairs Council, in a recent blog post.
Says Pinkham:
"It seems that certain Wall Street firms have suddenly realized that federal policy-making not only affects their short-term profitability, it has become integral to their future business plans.Though companies receiving federal assistance clearly have a reason to stay close to Washington, other financial firms have also awakened to the reality that government matters. Many banks and investment firms have had a presence in Washington for years, but some apparently only recently got the message."
Click here to read more of Pinkham's post on the importance of lobbying and his views on how to do it effectively.
Lobbyists in the health care industry are hosting lots of fundraisers as Congress continues to struggle with health care reform legislation.
The Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time blog notes that industry lobbyists have hosted or are hosting at least six fundraisers this week. The pharmaceutical industry is hosting or has hosted 16 fundraisers this month.
Click here to see the full post.
Also, Under the Influence readers can see Political Party Time's daily list of fundraisers on the right-hand side of this blog. Take a look.
Blug Dogs, the 52-member group of fiscally conservative, pro-business Democrats, have been excercising their power as a voting bloc this year on major legislation, making aides to those members in hot demand on K Street, Roll Call (subscription) reports. Stacey Alexander , former chief of staff to Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Drew Goesl, former chief of staff to Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ark., are the most recent senior Blue Dog staffers to head to K Street, the paper said.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "A former government official facing corruption charges for accepting improper gifts from Jack Abramoff is taking an unusually aggressive approach in fighting the Justice Department's case," The Hill reports. "Horace Cooper, a legal commentator and conservative writer who was a senior aide in then-Rep. Dick Armey's (R-Texas) office, is accusing prosecutors of dozens of mistakes and has invoked the prosecutorial abuse investigation that overturned the conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) in an attempt to undermine the government's case."
• "The cost of preparing, filing and arguing the complaint the United Steelworkers union filed against China is relatively inexpensive, according to experts in the field," The Hill also reports. "Legal fees for most cases will run well under $1 million, according to a K Street source with experience on the filings. The safeguard case could cost as little as $750,000."
Ongoing criticism and media attention surrounding the Obama administration's ethics and lobbying rules this year have served to remind executive branch officials that they are working for the "public interest" and not the "special interests," Norm Eisen, White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, told a standing-room-only crowd gathered at the Center for American Progress on Monday.(Photo by Rick Bloom)
The Department of Justice revealed the remainder of its witness list today in the trial of Kevin Ring, a former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Several anticipated witnesses were not on the list, most notably David Lopez, former chief of staff to Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., and Greg Orlando, Doolittle's former legislative director. Before becoming a lobbyist, Ring was an aide in Doolittle's office, and in testimony yesterday, another staffer-turned-lobbyist, Neil Volz, characterized Doolittle as one of Ring's lobbying "champions."
Numerous e-mails between the accused and Lopez and Orlando are part of the prosecution's evidence, and the two former Doolittle staffers could have given testimony about Ring's relationship with their office.
The prosecution's witness list is:
John Albaugh, former chief of staff to Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla.
Michael Deaver, Department of Justice
Ann Copland, former staffer for Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.
Su Daly, Department of Justice
Greg Harris, Department of Justice
Todd Boulanger, former lobbying associate of Ring and Abramoff
Tim Peckinpaugh, former lobbying associate of Ring and Abramoff
Jason Hickox, former vice president of company that owned Abramoff's Signatures Restaurant
The prosecution will also call an FBI agent at the end of its case to read additional e-mails into the record.
Francine Friedman, currently counsel at Hunton & Williams, is joining the lobbying firm Parven Pomper Strategies as senior vice president.
Prior to Hunton & Williams, Friedman's bio says she "played a key role in the opening of [Democratic] Senator Dianne Feinstein's national fund raising office in 1992" and was an executive assistant at the National Association of Medical Equipment Suppliers. She also interned at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in 1989 and 1990. Friedman attended Georgetown University and William & Mary School of Law.
At Hunton & Williams, Friedman focused on tax, energy, housing, health care, privacy and trade issues. She also worked on civil litigation, with an emphasis on consumer law, contract disputes and class actions.
Friedman's hire brings Parven Pomper staff to six.
(Photo from Hunton & Williams)
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Some of the most influential aides in the closed-door Senate Finance Committee negotiations over health care reform have ties to interests that would be directly affected by the legislation," Politico reports. "There's no evidence that the aides' ties have shaped the bill that" Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., "hopes to release" today, "and the ultimate decisions over its provisions rest with the senators themselves. But critics say the involvement of such well-connected insiders could lead to dangerous conflicts."
• "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce planned to launch the first phase of its $100 million Campaign for Free Enterprise" today, "which includes an effort to get the White House to spell out its trade agenda," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "Activists opposed to existing trade pacts are ramping up their efforts, urging" President Obama "to remember his 'reform' campaign rhetoric when he attends the Group of 20 meeting next week."
• "For more than a decade, trial lawyers used their deep lobbying bench and fundraising muscle to beat back Republican efforts to curb medical malpractice lawsuits," Politico reports. "Given that their political donations went overwhelmingly to Democrats -- generally, by a 3-to-1 ratio -- this should be a period of respite. But it won't be, now that" Obama "has injected tort reform into the health care reform debate."
A former congressional-staffer-turned-lobbyist called himself a "sugar daddy" as he described the type of lobbying that went on within "Team Abramoff" in today's testimony in the trial of Kevin Ring, an associate of imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
"I got calls: 'Let's go drinking.' To me, that meant 'bring the credit card,'" said Neil Volz, a former lobbyist with Ring and Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig and a former chief of staff to former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, when the prosecution asked him why he described himself as a "sugar daddy" for Ney's office. Volz pleaded guilty in 2006 over his involvement in the Abramoff scandal, and he was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine in exchange for cooperation with prosecutors.
Volz compared the relationship he had with Ney's office to the relationship Ring had with the office of California Republican John Doolittle. Ring was an aide in Doolittle's office before leaving Capitol Hill to become a lobbyist with Abramoff. Volz called Doolittle one of Ring's "champions," just as Ney was his own.
Ring referred to himself as a "sugar daddy" in an e-mail to several Doolittle staffers that was shown to the jury as evidence. The jury has been given several binders full of evidential documents, mostly e-mails between Ring, other lobbyists and public officials or their staffers.
Volz described his lobbying team's practice of giving tickets, meals and drinks to public officials and staffers who were deemed valuable, as well as taking those individuals on trips.
"Really we just wanted to party," Volz said about a trip he took to New Orleans with Ney, former Ney chief of staff Will Heaton, and other lobbyists. He said the group met a client and toured some homes, but those were not the main objectives of the trip, which he described as "part of the corrupt relationship" he had with Ney and his staffers.
Ney resigned and pleaded guilty in 2006. Heaton pleaded guilty in 2007. Ney served 17 months in prison, and Heaton was sentenced to probation, community service and a fine.
Volz described a discussion he had with Ring about "getting the joke," a term used for a lobbyist getting a staffer to prioritize an issue because the lobbyist is "taking care of them," after the Abramoff scandal began to surface in 2004.
"We thought, 'Boy, it would be pretty difficult to defend the idea of getting the joke,'" he said of his conversation with Ring.
Volz also testified about a $2,200 birthday party for Heaton that he expensed to clients of the lobbying firm, calling that type of spending "corrupt." He spoke about the various lunches and dinners for public officials that he paid for and witnessed Ring pay for, and tickets that he and Ring gave to officials to sporting events and concerts.
Henry Schuelke, an external investigator hired by Greenberg Traurig after the scandal emerged, testified this morning.
Volz's testimony will continue in the morning. Following the conclusion of his testimony, John Albaugh, former chief of staff to former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla., is expected to testify. Albaugh pleaded guilty last year for his involvement in the scandal.
Late last week, the Treasury Department announced lobbying guidelines for communications regarding bailout funds, a year after the bailout package was passed by Congress.
The guidelines state that communications about Troubled Asset Relief Program funds between an outside person, registered lobbyist or not, and a Treasury Department official are not permitted once a formal application for funds has been submitted. Communications concerning logistics and communications at a "widely attended gathering" are allowed.
William Minor, a partner at DLA Piper said the guidelines appear to have been modeled on the rules the White House laid out for lobbying on the stimulus package.
The Hill reports on the guidelines also. See here.
Read the Treasury guidelines in full here.
Jody Powell, chairman of public affairs firm Powell Tate and former press secretary to former President Jimmy Carter, died this afternoon at his house on the Eastern Shore in Maryland, according to ABC News.
Powell had an apparent heart attack, a family friend told ABC. He was 65.
A reporter at National Journal was also alerted to the news. Powell Tate officials did not have an immediate comment.
(Photo by Rick Bloom)
From this morning's Earlybird:
• Former aides to Sens. Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., and Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, "are finding a new crop of prospective business sprouting up" as Lincoln takes over the Senate Agriculture Committee and Harkin moves to Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• "President Barack Obama's new special interest rules are having unexpected consequences with some lobbyists giving up their formal registrations and finding other ways to influence policy as they try to maintain access to key agencies or hope for future government jobs," Reuters reports. "Congressional aides, industry executives and watchdog groups say the rules have also slowed Obama's ability to fill key government jobs, eliminated some highly qualified candidates and kept away some others who worry tougher 'revolving door' rules could tie their hands in the future."
National Association of Children's Hospitals
This organization, the public policy arm of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, speaks for 141 hospitals, medical centers and health systems that treat children.
What They Want
NACH's main priority in the health care discussion is to ensure that children also feel the benefits of reform and have consistent access to quality care, but that task has been difficult because the challenges in children's health care are different from the overall system, said Jim Kaufman, the group's vice president of public policy.
"The one thing [Congress has] really missed and has been missing in the discussion overall is children's access to care," he said. In President Obama's speech to Congress last week, Kaufman said, "kids were mentioned as an afterthought."
For example, he said, the pediatric health care field is lacking in specialists, while the adult side of the system needs more primary care physicians. So measures in proposed health care legislation that provide incentives for doctors to go into primary care ignore the needs of children.
Because 1 in 4 children receives health care coverage through Medicaid, NACH has focused on reforming Medicaid's payment system to make it equal to that of Medicare. But Medicaid "has pretty much been left out of the discussion," Kaufman said.
Congress encouraged the lobbying tactics employed by former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, the defense contended in its opening statement in Ring's trial today.
"You're going to hear about things that should be a crime, but they were not," defense attorney Andrew Wise told the jury. "Kevin Ring played by the rules."
Wise said that the rules encouraged lobbyists to "wine and dine and entertain members of Congress and their staffs," and that though those rules were changed in 2007, the actions taken by Ring between 2000 and 2004, for which he is now on trial, were legal at the time. Not only were they legal, he said, but they were common practice.
"Don't buy into the idea that this was somehow a rogue operation and no one else was doing it," Wise said to the jury.
Continue reading Defense: Ring's Tactics Were Business As Usual.
During opening statements today in the trial of Kevin Ring, a former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the prosecution drew a distinction between legal and illegal lobbying, contending that Ring knowingly acted outside the normal bounds of the profession.
"The defendant, Kevin Ring, was a lobbyist in name, but a corrupter in reality," said Nathaniel Edmonds, an attorney for the Department of Justice.
The prosecution's main argument, as outlined today, was that by providing tickets to events like the NCAA basketball tournament and a U2 concert and paying for expensive dinners and drinks, Ring intended to "reward and influence" public officials and their staffs for "official acts" that brought him and his clients millions of dollars worth of business.
Edmonds described legitimate tools of lobbying as influencing with arguments based on policy, political merits, or even campaign contributions, but said that while Ring used those methods, he also sometimes gave "illegal personal gifts."
Ring "did all the things lobbyists do. But he did more," Edmonds said.
Jury selection concluded this morning in the trial of Kevin Ring, a former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Opening statements will begin this afternoon.
Ring is being tried on eight criminal counts, including conspiracy to provide illegal gratuities and commit wire fraud.
Ring served as chief of staff to former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., and a Senate Judiciary subcommittee aide to Sen. John Ashcroft, R-Mo., before joining Abramoff's lobbying team at Greenberg Traurig. The Department of Justice charges that while working with Abramoff, Ring was part of an elaborate scheme to bribe public officials and defraud clients, most notably several Native American tribes.
To date, 20 people have been convicted, pleaded guilty or are awaiting trial in relation to the scandal. Abramoff pleaded guilty in January 2006. One congressman (former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio), other lobbyists, congressional officials and Bush administration officials have also pleaded guilty.
Only one other individual involved in the investigation, former White House aide David Safavian, has gone to trial rather than pleading guilty. He was found guilty of lying and obstructing justice in July 2006.
Two witnesses who are expected to be called by the defense, David and Laura Ayres, have threatened to invoke the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying. This morning, the presiding judge, Ellen Huvelle, said a hearing will likely be held next week to determine whether the Fifth Amendment applies. Lawyers for the Department of Justice said that they have not named the Ayreses as co-conspirators in the case, but it is possible that they are concerned about self-incrimination in relation to a tax issue.
(Photo of Kevin Ring courtesy of the Senate)
Updated at 5:00 p.m. on Sept. 11.
American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons
This association represents 36,000 musculoskeletal specialists.
What They Want
AAOS supports many of the basic measures most groups want out of reform -- affordable access to quality health care -- but with a couple slants from the perspective of specialist surgeons. "There should be freedom to choose doctors and directly access specialty doctors, like orthopaedic surgeons," said Peter Mandell, chair of AAOS' council on advocacy and a surgeon in California.
AAOS supports widely discussed insurance reforms like eliminating denials based on pre-existing conditions. But the surgeons group also emphasizes the need to focus on "streamlining the insurance claims process to reduce the extra paperwork and time," Mandell said.
The association would like to see medical malpractice reform addressed in health care legislation and was encouraged by President Obama's mention of the issue in his address to Congress this week, though it is currently not part of proposed legislation.
AAOS says that if a public option is included in health care reform, it should comply with free-market principles and not be mandatory for doctors or hospitals. A public option "should be part of the overall menu of insurances that some people are talking about through the exchange, but it should be on a level playing field," Mandell said.
Continue reading Don't Forget About The Specialists, AAOS Says.
Lobbying stories from this week's National Journal (subscription):
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Congressional investigators on Thursday uncovered yet another forged letter sent to a House Democrat purportedly from a local nonprofit -- but actually from a Washington, D.C., lobbying firm -- urging opposition to controversial climate change legislation," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The discovery means that at least 14 fraudulent letters were sent by Bonner & Associates, a subcontractor for the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, to at least three different House Members in an effort to sway their votes on the climate change bill before it narrowly passed the House in June."
• Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., "has come down on the side of a labor-backed petition for relief from a surge in Chinese tire imports this decade, making good on a pledge to United Steelworkers union president Leo Gerard," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "'Such relief is important to the tire industry, and the workers and communities it supports throughout America,' Reid wrote" to President Obama "in a letter dated Sept. 2."
• "Six of Washington's biggest business lobbies are urging lawmakers to boost the nation's debt limit above $12.1 trillion as the economy confronts historic mountains of red ink," The Hill reports. "The associations said in a letter on Thursday that it is 'critical to ensuring global investors' confidence in the creditworthiness of the United States, that Congress approve the administration's request for a higher debt limit.'"
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce didn't hear much to get excited about in President Barack Obama's health care address to Congress.
In a memo Thursday to K Street colleagues, the group's top lobbyist, Bruce Josten, called the speech "persuasively delivered," but added that the president "did not lay out a plan for health care reform." He further wrote that, based on the principles that Obama enunciated, the president "should oppose the current partisan plans produced by the House and the [Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions]." Josten concluded Obama should ask Congress to "go back to the drawing board and develop a bipartisan solution that can actually achieve the goals he laid out."
Last month, the chamber ran $15 million worth of ads in 21 states arguing that current health care reform bills would mean big tax increases, more government control and larger deficits.
Click here for memo.
The Supreme Court reheard oral arguments on Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission yesterday morning, examining two decisions underpinning laws that constrain corporations from spending on elections.
Court-watchers walked away predicting a win for Citizens United. What remains debatable is how broad the Court's decision will be.
Most broadly, the Court could entirely scrap Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and part of McConnell v. Federal Election Commission, gutting some significant portions of campaign finance law including a ban on corporations using their treasury dollars to influence campaigns, and a ban on corporate funding for broadcast ads that mention federal candidates in the days leading up to a federal election.
The Court could also rule more narrowly, hewing closely to the particulars of the original issue, which involved whether the FEC was justified in limiting Citizens United's capacity to broadcast a disparaging film about then-candidate Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primary.
The Court's decision might not come for a while--experts guessed anywhere between a few weeks to the end of the year. In the meantime, yesterday morning's arguments provided new fodder for predicting where this case is headed.
Below, a handful of experts weigh in on what they saw as yesterday's key indicators--from Chief Justice Roberts' demeanor to the seeming concessions of Solicitor General Elena Kagan. In particular, they looked for signals on how broadly the Court will rule--agreeing very little about what yesterday portended.
They also graded Kagan and new Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor on their Supreme Court debuts.
Continue reading Citizens United Predicted To Win In High Court.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Conservative members of the Supreme Court indicated Wednesday that they could not reconcile government restrictions on corporate spending in elections with constitutional protections of free speech and may rule broadly to strike what has been a long-standing fixture of campaign finance law," the Washington Post reports. "A majority of the court seemed impatient with an increasingly complicated federal scheme intended to curb the role of corporations, unions and special interest groups in elections."
• "The campaign finance reform community was expecting the worst Wednesday after a Supreme Court hearing that could significantly loosen spending restrictions on corporations, trade association and unions in federal elections," Roll Call (subscription) reports. After the oral arguments "at least one campaign finance reform group said it did not like what it heard."
• "Sparked by complaints at town hall meetings last month about the impact of medical malpractice suits on healthcare costs, a battle is brewing between business advocates and lawyers over whether to limit damages in lawsuits against physicians and other medical professionals as part of a healthcare overhaul," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "In advance of President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, the American Association for Justice -- formerly the Association of Trial Lawyers of America -- has been mounting a public relations effort to dispel what it calls the 'myth' that the fear of malpractice lawsuits accounts for astronomical healthcare costs."
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
This union speaks for 1.6 million local and state government employees including nurses, corrections offers and sanitation workers.
What They Want
AFSCME's priorities for health care reform are also some of the most fragile parts of proposed legislation: a public option, an employer mandate and federal funding for an expansion of Medicaid.
The public option "is a critical way to make the insurance companies honest and to help bring costs down," said Chuck Loveless, AFSCME's legislative director.
Congressional leadership and President Obama have come under pressure from some Republicans, moderate Democrats and interest groups to forgo a public option in favor of a co-op system or similar alternative. But Loveless said the public option and the employer mandate are necessary to achieve near universal coverage.
The union wants to see an expansion of Medicaid, but it worries that the cost will be pushed onto state governments. To avoid this problem, AFSCME wants reform legislation to provide for federal funding of a Medicaid expansion.
The states are under "severe fiscal distress at the moment," Loveless said. "This can not be laid on the backs of the states."
Continue reading AFSCME Fights For Public Option, Employer Mandate.
In this week's National Journal, I looked at the legal strategy of campaign-finance law foes, led by Indiana attorney and Republican Party activist James Bopp. Bopp filed the original suit in the Citizens United case, which is having an unusual rehearing today at the Supreme Court. Supporters of campaign finance laws fear the Court's ruling in the case could re-open the floodgates to corporate campaign money. That could be a huge boon to the Republican Party and GOP candidates. Although Bopp lost out on arguing the Citizens United case before the court -- the honor went to former U.S. Solicitor General Ted Olson -- Bopp is still getting his due. Today he was named "Republican Lawyer of the Year" by the board of governors of the Republican National Lawyers Association -- on which he currently serves -- for "his years of service to the Republican Party, and in particular, his outstanding professional accomplishments in support of the party's ideals." He'll also be a featured speaker at the Cato Institute's Constitution Day confab next week.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Months after the Obama administration announced billions of federal dollars for a U.S. high-speed rail system, a new trade association has emerged to help firms get their foot in the door of a potentially lucrative new market," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "'We saw this as the perfect opportunity to go ahead and turn this into an official association and start to bring together some of the experts,' Andy Kunz, president of the newly minted U.S. High-Speed Rail Association, said in an interview last month."
• "The trial of one of Jack Abramoff's close associates -- a case that will test how far lobbyists may push influence and access -- began Tuesday under the watchful eye of K Street," The Hill reports. The associate, Kevin Ring, "says the expensive tickets and meals he gave government officials and congressional aides were normal tools of the lobbying trade. Prosecutors argue they were part of a pay-to-play conspiracy that involved illegal gratuities intended to curry access and influence government action in favor of clients."
• "Lobbyists for banks big and small expect Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and other panel members to offer measures that would go further than the Obama administration in overhauling the existing regulatory scheme," The Hill reports. "Community banks that think their regulatory system works well fear Congress will push them under a single regulator with big banks."
We are getting a dizzying number of e-mails this week from interest groups on the left and the right and what they are doing to promote their viewpoint on health care reform, so we thought we'd attempt to do a roundup of the highlights of the e-mails we received to put it in some kind of perspective:
Straddling that line between advocacy and education, libertarian think tank Cato Institute is planning to run radio ads on Washington's major news/talk radio stations for 10 days, starting today, to "educate" Americans about the problems with current congressional plans for health care reform.
MoveOn.org, meanwhile, has posted a new video with photos of people showing how they or friends and family members are suffering from lack of insurance, accompanied by a specially made soundtrack by rockers R.E.M.
The conservative National Center for Policy Analysis and the Salem Radio Network have plans to use an ambulance, gurney and six conservative radio talk show hosts to deliver a petition opposed to current health reform legislation to Congress tomorrow.
The labor-backed Campaign for America's Future, meanwhile, is collecting signatures to petition Obama not to drop the public health insurance option, which the group promises to deliver to him before his speech tomorrow night.
With all these competing interest group voices on the air waves, is anyone getting through?
Frustrated by a country that argues about sound bites instead of facts, veteran marketing team Eric Yaverbaum and Mark DiMassimo launched the "Read to Vote" campaign today. The initiative calls for lawmakers and citizens alike to read high-priority legislation facing Congress today, including the health care and climate bills.
"If you can't read it, you can't pass it" is the motto of the campaign, which is asking for 1,018 "chalkers" to write every page of America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 on the steps of Capitol Hill.
"I'm a regular on Fox and find myself to be somewhat of a lighting rod," said Yaverbaum. "We all argue about 'mis'facts and we all should all read the bill."
Drawing funds from their successful "tappening" campaign to promote tap water and discourage the unnecessary use of bottled water, Yaverbaum and DiMassimo have invested $750,000 in the Read to Vote campaign. The whole pot of money, directed to marketing and advertising, includes Web site development, public relations, "creative" on ads and wild posting -- ads (see here) will be posted in Washington, New York City, Chicago, L.A. and Miami.
DiMassimo founded DIGO in 1996, an advertising, design and digital agency whose clients have included Crunch Fitness, Pfizer and Gateway among others. Yaverbaum, founder of Ericho Communications, has authored five books including "PR for Dummies."
(From Eliza Newlin Carney's weekly "Rules of The Game" column)
At a time when partisan rifts threaten to paralyze Capitol Hill, it's a shame that more people don't follow the example of Republican Trevor Potter and Democrat Marc Elias.
The two prominent election lawyers have set aside past disagreements to rally behind a shared cause: modernizing the nation's outdated voter registration system. Together, they have set up a Committee to Modernize Voter Registration that could give pending congressional legislation a shot in the arm.
Senate Rules and Administration Chairman Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has said he is drafting a voter registration bill, but the issue has been a flash point for partisan differences. Democrats tend to assail obstacles that block voters from registering, while Republicans fixate on safeguards that would prevent voter fraud.
Potter and Elias have set out to convince lawmakers on both sides of the aisle that an automatic voter registration system would solve both problems.
Continue reading Election Lawyers Put Aside Partisan Differences.
Robert Hoffman, vice president for government affairs and public policy for Oracle, is leaving to open a D.C. office for New Jersey-based Cognizant Technology Solutions where he will steer global public policy.
Hoffman joined Oracle in 2001 after working on Capitol Hill for former Senators Mike DeWine, R-Ohio and Larry Pressler, R-S.D. and for former Republican California Governor Pete Wilson.
Oracle spent $4.99 million on lobbying in 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2008 election cycle, Hoffman gave $4,000 in campaign donations to Republican Senate candidates and party committees.
(Photo of Hoffman courtesy of the Ashcroft Group)
On Friday, Norm Eisen, the White House special counsel to the president for ethics and government reform, wrote a blog post announcing the creation of a central repository for the public to track presidential appointees that received limited waivers from ethics rules.
Wrote Eisen:
"We have previously reported six limited waivers that have been granted by the White House pursuant to the President's Executive Order on Ethics for Executive Branch personnel - the strongest ethics standards in U.S. government history. Three of these waivers involved lobbying-related issues and three did not. We blogged about them here, here, and here.
Several months ago, the public-interest community suggested that we also make available in a central place limited waivers granted by other federal agencies besides the White House. Today, we are releasing all ten such agency-granted waivers (none of which involve lobbying). The President's Executive Order calls for an annual report to be completed in early 2010 that will include all waivers granted pursuant to the Order. We are, however, pleased to make all of the pledge waivers granted to date by this Administration available now--more than four months early."
Robert Weissman has been named the new president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, stepping into the shoes that were long worn by Joan Claybrook, who announced her departure in December 2008.
Weissman, 43, has been the long-time director of corporate accountability for the citizens' action group Essential Action, editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine the covers corporate actors worldwide, and an attorney for the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
Weissman's top priorities are climate change, health care reform, financial regulation and campaign finance reform.
"Public Citizen will do everything it has done so well for nearly 40 years - and more," Weissman said in a statement. "We will invest more in organizing people, both virtually and through traditional, on-the-ground means. I am proud to follow in the footsteps of Public Citizen's first president and founder Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook."
(Photo of Weissman provided by Public Citizen)
UPDATED @ 4:23 PM to add Campaign Legal Center commen to court decision)
A federal appeals court today in Washington, ruling unanimously in favor of greater transparency in government, upheld the constitutionality of a reform law that requires associations to publicly disclose certain members who are active participants in lobbying.The National Association of Manufacturers, a regular lobbyist on issues that include global warming and nuclear power, challenged the constitutionality of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 in a suit filed last year in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The Campaign Legal Center applauded the court decision in a statement.
"Today's decision is a huge victory for sunlight on our political process. The ink was barely dry on the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) before the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) challenged the law in an attempt to keep the membership of its lobbying coalition secret. The challenged provision of HLOGA simply requires trade associations to reveal those member organizations that spend large sums of money to support the coalition's lobbying efforts. The Court of Appeals rightly found that the law was a reasonable measure to ensure "transparency in government" which "remains a vital national interest in a democracy."
John Runyan, who led International Paper's federal affairs team for 12 years, has left to launch his own lobbying firm, Runyan Public Affairs.
Runyan's first clients include International Paper, R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. and the Coalition for Transportation Productivity. Runyan will also be a strategic affiliate of the Business and Industry Political Action Committee (BIPAC), where he will help the organization with business development. Runyan previously chaired BIPAC's grassroots and voter education program aimed at businesses called the "Prosperity Project."
Prior to International Paper, Runyan was senior government relations adviser to McGuiness & Williams, and worked on government relations at Printing Industries of America. He also worked for former Sen. Donald Stewart, D-Ala.
In 2008, International Paper spent $2.88 million on lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. In the 2008 election cycle, Runyan gave campaign donations of $2,000 to former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani and $1,000 to Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
(Photo of Runyan courtesy of Rational 360)
Updated at 2:50 p.m. on Sept. 8.
American College of Emergency Physicians
This society of 25,000 members focuses on issues related to emergency health care.
What They Want
Since 2005, ACEP has pushed in vain for passage of the Access to Emergency Medical Services Act, and now it wants to see the measures from that bill included in health care legislation.
The group's priority is to reduce overcrowding in emergency departments, a problem it says is mostly caused by "boarding", the practice of keeping patients who have already been admitted to a hospital in the emergency department for prolonged periods of time. Those patients often wait 24 to 72 hours to move from the ER to the hospital, ACEP reports.
"That slows down life-saving medicine for everybody," said Angela Gardner, president-elect of ACEP and a medical professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Though it is commonly thought that overcrowding in ERs is caused by people who go in with non-emergency conditions, those individuals only account for 12 percent of patients, while "boarded" patients account for 30 percent, Gardner said, citing reports by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To reduce crowding, ACEP wants a federal commission to investigate emergency department practices and develop nationwide policies. ACEP would also like to see the establishment of a working group under the Department of Health and Human Services made up of emergency medicine experts to address the same issues of crowding and boarding.
The group also wants a 10 percent increase in Medicare funding for subspecialists, like orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists, who are required to provide emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
On the eve of the Supreme Court's unusual Sept. 9 rehearing of the Citizens United case, in this week's National Journal (subscription required), I examine how conservative and Republican legal activists -- led by Indiana legal gadfly James Bopp -- have been stepping up challenges to campaign finance law as the Court has moved to the right.
Service Employees International Union
This union represents 2.1 million workers in the health care, public services and property services industries.
What They Want
The SEIU has five priorities for health care reform legislation: affordability, inclusion of a public option, employer responsibility, investment in health care workforce training and investment in long-term patient care.
The union's demand for a public option puts it at odds with other influential groups involved in health care discussions, like the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and America's Health Insurance Plans, that are vehemently opposed to it.
A public option "is the only way we're going to have true competition," SEIU spokeswoman Lori Lodes said. "It's the only way we can drive down costs."
As the representative for workers, the SEIU is also on the other side of the table from business groups on the employer mandate. The union says employers should either have to provide coverage or pay into a fund, though small businesses should receive tax credits or be exempt.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Financial services lobbyists are quietly pushing for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to give up his chairmanship of the Banking Committee and take up the gavel of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where he is next in line following the death of Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.)," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Such a move, they say, would remove a thorn from the banking industry, since Dodd has upped his anti-industry rhetoric ahead of his tough 2010 re-election bid."
• "The Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday in a case that challenges decades of restrictions on corporations and unions spending unlimited cash on just those sorts of ads. Even more broadly, the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, gives the court's conservative majority a chance to fundamentally redefine the role of corporations and unions in American politics," Politico reports. "Campaign finance experts predict the court, which has demonstrated an inclination towards incremental loosening of rules restricting the flow of money into politics, will expand the types of ads corporations and unions can pay for."
A liberal advocacy group looking to break through the torrent of ads about health care reform took a chance on Facebook that it says paid off big, a possible sign of things to come.
Americans United for Change decided to go after a specific audience -- Sarah Palin supporters -- by using keyword targeting long offered by Facebook. The feature takes advantage of profile information and group and page memberships to deliver a message to a select audience. So targeting the keyword "Sarah Palin" let Americans United for Change advertise to anyone sounding off about the former Alaska governor's "death panels" theory, including her more than 850,000 self-proclaimed fans.
It was the first time the group had tried such specific targeting, and spokesman Jeremy Funk calls it "a very successful experiment." Over the course of the weeklong campaign, the ad got about 220,000 impressions, and as a result of some media exposure and about 530 clickthroughs (a higher rate than most Facebook ads, Funk noted), the group managed to get 4,600 people to write Palin protesting her statements on health care.
A few years ago, such a pinpointed campaign would have been difficult to pull off, but as more and more people join social networking sites and publicly share opinions on nearly everything (even while those sites take advantage by equipping advertisers with microtargeting tools), yesterday's advertising dreams have become today's reality. And if Americans United for Change's claims of success are any indication, keyword targeting with Facebook could have a significant impact on how advocacy groups make their cases.
"There's really no other advertising network that so specifically hits the people you want to hit," said Kombiz Lavasany, a new media consultant at New Partners who worked on the Americans United for Change campaign. "It's got a lot of potential for issue-based targeting."
A watchdog group's repeated lawsuits have prompted the administration to release the names of all White House visitors, an unprecedented step. The White House announced this morning that lists of visitors would be posted online every month, covering the previous 90 to 120 days.
"We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside it," President Obama said in a statement. "Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process."
During the Bush administration, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a transparency watchdog group, sued for access to records concerning visits by lobbyist Stephen Payne and conservative Christian leaders. Since Obama took office, the group has continued filing suits for access to records detailing visits by health care and coal executives.
The group said the information should be made available under the Freedom of Information Act, but the White House originally maintained that the visitor logs were presidential records, not public information.
In July, the White House released a list of health care executives who had visited the White House, but CREW continued pushing for full disclose of the visitor lists. The group has now dropped its lawsuits and is pleased with the White House's new policy.
"The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. "The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House."
The new policy will apply to records kept after Sept. 15, and the first online list is expected to be posted in December. The White House also released the information requested by CREW in the suits from both the Bush and Obama administrations.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "The liberal Progressive Change Campaign Committee is launching a petition drive to rally President Barack Obama's own campaign supporters to pressure him to stand up for a public insurance option as part of a sweeping health care overhaul," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The push comes as White House aides are signaling that Obama will not throw his support behind such a provision when he makes a critical public pitch for reform Wednesday in an address to a joint session of Congress."
• "Environmental-, civil- and women's-rights groups have set up a new hotline for tips on faked letters or other suspect lobbying efforts to undermine cap-and-trade legislation," The Hill reports. "The hotline follows the discovery more than two months ago of forged letters a grassroots group working on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE) sent to three House Democrats."
• "The National Association of Manufacturers is ramping up its lobbying effort against pro-labor legislation as Congress heads back to work," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "NAM is launching a direct mail and advertising campaign through its Labor Policy Institute opposing the Employee Free Choice Act."
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "A coalition of business groups, led by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, filed for an emergency court order" Wednesday "to prevent a rule from going into effect that would require federal contractors to verify the legal status of their workers," CongressDaily (subscription) reports. The group "asked the U.S. District Court for Maryland for an emergency injunction to stop the Homeland Security Department from requiring contractors to use the so-called E-Verify system."
• "The incoming president of the AFL-CIO signaled Wednesday his union could accept a card-check bill that preserves an employer's right to demand a secret-ballot election," The Hill reports. "Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka hedged on whether a card-check bill must include the provision that gives it its name."
• "Thousands gathered Wednesday night at events held across the nation, including at least four in the Washington area, to urge Congress and the Obama Administration to approve a bill soon," the Washington Post reports. "'These vigils are to remind decision makers that the debate around health-care is not about politics but about people who are being crushed under the current health-care system,' said Nita Chaudhary, the national campaigns and organizing director of MoveOn.org, a liberal group that helped organize the 'We Can't Afford to Wait' vigils."
American Academy of Family Physicians
This organization represents about 100,000 family physicians, family medicine residents and medical students.
What They Want
The AAFP has formally endorsed both the House bill and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the two pieces of legislation that have so far left committee. The group supports these pieces of legislation because of they include provisions that will expand coverage, primary care access and the primary care work force.
The group reports that 70 percent of doctors in the U.S. are specialized, while internationally the breakdown is split 50-50 between primary care and specialized physicians. The group sees a need for a more even health care field, which it believes can happen through reform legislation.
To expand the primary care work force, the AAFP wants to see incentives put in place to draw more physicians into the primary care field, such as increasing payments for primary care services as well as scholarships and loan assistance for medical students.
"It's a terrible problem that's developing and that's already developed in terms of a work force imbalance," said Ted Epperly, AAFP's president and a family physician in Boise, Idaho. "If we don't have the right type of doctors for [people] to go to, then we won't be able to improve their health."
The group also supports a focus on prevention and insurance reforms that will eliminate coverage denials based on health status and variable rates based on gender and age. The AAFP would also like to see tort reform included in the discussion, though such measures aren't currently included in proposed legislation.
Doug Pinkham of the Public Affairs Council has launched a new weekly blog talking shop about messaging, ethics, laws and strategies. Check it out here.
The liberal and environmental blogosphere is reacting heatedly to Duke Energy's decision Tuesday to terminate its membership in the pro-coal group, American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Among those reports are speculations that the company left because of ACCCE's involvement with a firm that in mid-June sent fake letters to lawmakers urging them to oppose the House energy legislation. Duke spokesman Tom Williams said in an interview this morning with NationalJournal.com, though, that the reasons for termination were "separate" from that incident.
ACCCE is a pro-coal coalition formed last year that has opposed the House energy legislation that passed in June. Duke publicly supported that bill but said it would like to see parts of it tweaked in the final version. The company uses coal to produce 70 percent of the energy it generates in the U.S.
As reported on NationalJournal.com this morning, the company said it decided to leave over differences with "influential member companies who will not support passing climate change legislation in 2009 or 2010."
The liberal blogosphere is having a heyday with Duke's termination, predicting that this could be "potentially devastating move" for the coal lobby movement and highlighting more companies with potentially conflicting coalition memberships.
In what is likely among the first of many similar statements yet to come, the Sierra Club used Duke's termination in ACCCE as a way to pounce on the coalition's opposition to energy legislation. Bruce Nilles, director of group's Beyond Coal Campaign, said that "the revelations from Duke Energy should not be surprising." Nilles continues: "The defection of Duke Energy is a clear sign that this front group has gone too far -- even for energy companies like Duke that are heavily invested in coal and are attempting to build even more polluting coal plants."
Duke Energy has left the American Coalition for Clear Coal Electricity due to policy differences over global warming legislation. These alliances have grown shaky lately. Here's a clip from Amy Harder's story at NationalJournal.com:
As the Senate prepares to return to Washington and resume its debate over climate change legislation, energy companies are walking a fine line. Many have dual membership in groups on opposing sides of the issue, and their attempts to play both sides are becoming increasingly apparent -- and potentially damaging to the companies and the coalitions alike.
General Electric, Alstom Power and Caterpillar are members of both the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. The former is a pro-coal group that opposed the recent House energy legislation, and the latter is an industry-environmentalist coalition whose recommendations provided much of the basis for the that bill, which passed the House by a vote of 219-212 in June. On a similar note, ConocoPhillips, Siemens and BP America are members of both the American Petroleum Institute (which opposed the bill) and USCAP.
These dual memberships shouldn't be surprising but could be problematic if they become more common, according to Burdett Loomis, a lobbying expert who teaches political science at the University of Kansas. "It seems to always be a mix of motivations," Loomis said. "And, as coalitions have become increasingly important on all sides of the issue, it's not surprising that there are some real or perceived conflicts."
You can read the full story here.
The ADA represents 157,000 dentist members and works to advance dentistry and advocates for issues related to oral health, especially access to dental care.
What They Want
The ADA's top priority for health care reform legislation is an increase in funding for dental Medicaid. "When it comes to access to dental care in this country, it's low income Americans that are facing the biggest struggle," said Bill Prentice, director of the ADA's Washington office. "We'd like to see the federal government step up more."
Currently, a provision related to dental Medicaid is not included in proposed legislation. "We're working to get that fixed," Prentice said.
The ADA would also like to ensure that insurance reforms apply to stand-alone dental plans, as well as the larger all-encompassing health insurance options.
Deal Breakers
The ADA is apprehensive about inclusion of a government-sponsored insurance option and an employer mandate in health care reform legislation.
"Like a lot of folks, we have some concerns bout the ramifications of the public plan option, depending on how it would be constructed," Prentice said, citing the possible impact on the private insurance market.
Because dental offices are often small businesses, Prentice said the ADA worries that an employer mandate would result in "unnecessary burdens on small employers."
The employer mandate included in the House bill would require businesses with payrolls above $250,000 a year to either provide satisfactory insurance for employees or pay a tax.
How Much They've Spent
The ADA spent $1.5 million on all lobbying activities in the first half of 2009, according to lobbying disclosure forms. Not all of the group's lobbying was directly related to health care reform legislation. In the first half of 2008, the ADA spent about $710,000 on all lobbying activities.
The ADA's PAC and individuals associated with the group have donated $530,800 to federal candidates and political parties during the 2010 election cycle and donated $2.1 million during the 2008 election cycle. This cycle, 60 percent of the donations have gone to Democrats and 40 percent to Republicans, while 54 percent of the donations went to Democrats and 46 percent to Republicans in the 2008 cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Recipients during the current election cycle include House Minority Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
The ADA has not spent money on advertising related to health care reform legislation, but the group is considering running ads during the fall, Prentice said.
The group's total revenue for 2007 was $111.1 million, according to IRS forms.
Key Players
Prentice heads a staff of 20 in the ADA's Washington office, and says reform has been the "number one issue...over the past 6 months." He became director of the office in 2006, after working there for six years. Before joining the ADA, Prentice was director of government affairs for the New Jersey Dental Association.
The ADA's president, John Findley, has also been involved in health care reform discussions. Prentice is a registered lobbyist. Findley is not.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "A new Web site has compiled a list of hard-to-get e-mail addresses -- including addresses for Members of Congress and top Congressional staff -- and is allowing the general public access to the list to send messages to this select group about the Democratic health care bill," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Over the August recess, top House Republican and Democratic aides confirmed receiving hundreds of e-mails with the subject line 'HR 3200' -- the bill number assigned to the House Democratic health care reform bill -- and the greeting 'To the House of Representatives' from people around the country. The messages were apparently facilitated by houseofbills.com."
• "Former Gen. Wesley Clark, chairman of the pro-ethanol group Growth Energy," launched a campaign Tuesday "urging lawmakers to establish mandatory country of origin labeling for gasoline," CongressDaily (subscription) reports. Clark announced "the 'Label My Fuel' campaign in Decatur, Ill., at the Farm Progress Show, an exhibition of advanced technology, business practices and manufacturing for agricultural producers."
Progressive activists, outflanked by their conservative counterparts this summer on health care reform, are trying to increase their visibility -- at least in the press.
Today, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) staged a "rocking block party" at the AFL-CIO's Washington headquarters "to celebrate the success of the union's "Highway to Health Care Reform" bus tour which visited 19 cities in 10 states, a union press release says. The bus tour is part of the union's $6 million "Make America Happen" campaign, which "includes ads, canvassing, phone calls, online activities and the deployment of dozens of campaign field organizers to key states in support of President Obama's efforts to win real healthcare reform."
The liberal advocacy group, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, has launched what it calls a "Truth Squad" Web site to counter "scare tactics aimed at seniors" and "give seniors the facts about how health care reform will benefit Medicare beneficiaries." Included is a Web video series debunking "the most egregious myths," a tool kit for activists, petitions and letters to Congress, and a tool that allows sample letters to be e-mailed directly to members of Congress.
Beyond the Beltway, a network of lefty state activist groups spearheaded by Denver-based ProgressNow, is touting the release of a book by its founder and CEO, Michael Huttner, called 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America. To promote the how-to book, the group offers those who submit related ideas and stories a shot winning at a trip for two to Honolulu. But don't pack the beach togs yet: the jaunt only entails "a private tour of the hospital where President Obama was born, followed by an opportunity to take part in a community service project there on MLK Day of Service, January 18, 2010."
Then there's Organizing for America, the network of campaign supporters that Obama bequeathed to the Democratic National Committee in a bid to harness their enthusiasm in support of his governing agenda. The Washington Times chronicles the progress and pitfalls of having a semi-autonomous grassroots political network housed within the party.
The former Treasury official in charge of overseeing the $700 billion financial bailout told the department's inspector general shortly after his resignation that President Obama sought restrictions on lobbyist intervention for solely political reasons, the Washington Times reports based on a document it obtained.
"Months after the administration's pledge, the lobbyist rules haven't been implemented and Neel Kashkari, the one-time czar of the agency's Troubled Asset Relief Program, told the office of the special inspector general for TARP that the pledge to craft safeguards against lobbyist influence was a defensive move," the newspaper reported today.
Kashkari assumed oversight of TARP fund distribution last October, when he was appointed under the Bush administration. He announced his resignation in April. He made his remarks to auditors in the inspector general's office on April 30.
"Mr. Kashkari believed that this statement [pledging lobbying rules] was purely for political reasons with Obama's new entering administration, and that there was no substantive reason for this announcement," the document obtained by the Washington Times states. "He noted that, at that time, there had been headlines in the press regarding lobbyists influencing the process, and Treasury wanted to show that they were taking action."
The newspaper said that while an audit last month found no evidence of lobbyist influence on the TARP money, "limitations on Treasury's record-keeping made it impossible to be certain of that."
New Republic's Jason Zengerle has a cover story in the magazine's latest issue, exploring the paradoxes of Rep. John Murtha's D-Pa., one-man "industrial policy" for his hometown of Johnstown, Pa. Zengerle adds rare context to the tales of pork and shady associates that have swirled around Murtha, showing how the former Marine used his chairmanship of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Defense to reinvent the economic base of a flood ravaged and depressed former steel town. But Zengerle also makes clear that the federal largesse comes with its own risks -- not only to the federal Treasury and ethical government, but to Johnstown itself. "All major corporations have succession plans, and, if you want to think about this as a business model, if Jack is the CEO of the area, what is our succession plan here?" former Johnstown mayor Donato Zucco tells Zengerle. "I don't think we have one, and I don't know that people are even thinking about it."
After Microsoft and Yahoo announced their search engine team-up in July, lobbying has heated up against Google, Daily Finance reported last week.
Microsoft's head lobbyist and outside consultants are holding regular meetings referred to by "some beltway insiders as 'screw Google' meetings," the Web site reports.
Microsoft, the No. 3 player in the search engine field, and Yahoo, No. 2, have ample reason to attack Google: It's the top provider by a wide margin. The article says that Google holds about 70 percent of the search ad market.
"Microsoft is at the center of a group of companies who see Google as a threat to them in some combination of business and policy," one anonymous source was quoted as saying. "The effort is designed make Google look like the big high-tech bad guy here."
"Microsoft is trying to harm Google in the regulatory, legal, and litigation arenas because they're having problems with Google in the competitive marketplace," another source said in the article. "... Microsoft has got some of the best, highest-priced lobbyists that money can buy in Washington."
Microsoft's Washington spokeswoman, Ginny Terzano, told Daily Finance that Google has been mentioned in meetings with consultants and lawmakers, but she called the alleged "screw Google" angle of those meetings "absurd" and told the site that its sources were "badly misinformed."
Since Microsoft and Yahoo announced their 10-year partnership in July, the companies have worked in D.C. to ensure the deal would be approved by the Department of Justice under antitrust laws. The companies said in a statement that Microsoft would power Yahoo's search engine while Yahoo would handle advertising sales.
Read about Google's lobbying spending at Tech Daily Dose.
From this morning's Earlybird:
• "Reynolds American Inc., Lorillard Inc. and several other tobacco companies filed a lawsuit Monday seeking to block various provisions of a new federal tobacco law on the grounds that the provisions violate the companies' First Amendment rights," the Wall Street Journal reports. "The tobacco companies said the recently enacted law, which placed the industry under the oversight of the Food and Drug Administration, sharply restricts the companies' right to advertise their products to adult tobacco users."
• "Union leaders are launching a new offensive around Labor Day to provide fresh momentum for legislation aimed at making it easier to organize new locals," Politico reports. "The events begin" today, "when AFL-CIO President John Sweeney plans to release a new survey of young workers that sheds light on their experiences and expectations. Among its findings: 31 percent of young workers don't have health insurance -- up from 24 percent 10 years ago."
• "American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist Larry Frankel was found dead in Rock Creek Park late last week, the organization confirmed on Monday. Frankel, who worked at the organization for 15 years, was the state legislative director at the ACLU's Washington, D.C., office," Roll Call (subscription) reports.
• "A former aide to Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) has filed suit against the company for whom he helped secure a controversial $1.6 million earmark for a blimp project last year," Politico reports. "In his lawsuit, Adrian Plesha says that James Ferguson IV -- the son of the owner of the company that got the blimp funding -- owes him more than $262,000 in unpaid lobbying fees and expenses."
