The White House on Friday released information from its visitor logs for the first six months of the administration.

Among those that visited the White House were Andy Stern, head of the Service Employees International Union, which had been a key group in helping get out the vote for President Obama last November, and lobbyist duo Tony and Heather Podesta. John Podesta, head of the Center for American Progress, who also led Obama's transition team was a multiple vistor as well. (Tony and John are brothers.)

In a web posting late Friday afternoon titled "Transparency like you've never seen before," Norm Eisen, White House special counsel for ethics and government reform, announced the release of the information.

Other registered lobbyists listed include Steve Elmendorf, of Elmendorf Strategies, Linda Lipsen, with the American Association for Justice, Daniel Mica, head of the Credit Union National Association, Robert Nichols, head of the Financial Services Forum, Timothy Ryan, head of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, and Ed Yingling, head of the American Bankers Association

Joan Fitz-Gerald is the new president of America Votes, a coalition of progressive groups focused on voter mobilization.

Fitz-Gerald was previously president of the Colorado Senate from 2005 thru 2007 and was the first woman to hold that position. She was also chair of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. In 2008, she was one of several Democrats who ran for a House seat to replace Mark Udall, who is now the state's Senator. Fitz-Gerald narrowly lost in the primary to Jared Polis, who is now the representative from Colorado-2.

A Manhattan native, Fitz-Gerald relocated to Colorado with her husband decades ago. Now she's returning to the East Coast to live in Washington to fill her new position.

She replaces former Rep. Martin Frost, D-Texas, who was president of the 527 group for the 2008 election. America Votes raised $25.9 million in the 2008 election cycle aimed at getting out the vote, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

(Fitz-Gerald pictured in center from Creative Commons)

Washington experienced an $849 million lobbypalooza in the third quarter of 2009, according to an analysis by OpenSecrets.org.

The watchdog group says that's the largest quarterly expenditure tabulated since organizations began filing every three months in 2008. As of the end of September, companies, trade associations, unions and other special interest groups had spent a total of $2.5 billion on federal lobby activities.

The biggest spenders for the first nine months of the year, not surprisingly, were healthcare ($396M), energy and environment ($300M), and the financial industry ($334M).

At least 16 former members of Congress who left mid-term since 1990 went from Capitol Hill to lobbying firms or companies that hire lobbyists, an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics revealed.

The report links the sources of campaign cash for those former lawmakers with their lobbying activities after resigning. For example, former Rep. Larry Combest, R-Texas, resigned in 2003 and started his own lobbying firm, Combest Sell & Associates, which serves mostly agriculture-related clients. While a congressman, Combest received more campaign cash from agribusiness than any other sector, for a total of $1.1 million between 1989 and 2003, according to CRP.

Top advocacy and lobbying stories from this week's National Journal: (subscription)

• "Dueling Economic Outlooks On Cap-And-Trade:" Climate-change legislation will either create big headaches for the U.S. economy or give it a boost. That's the message of warring coalitions from the business and environmental worlds as Congress wrestles with the issue. Energy Citizens, a new grassroots coalition largely underwritten by the American Petroleum Institute, says it will cost jobs. The Blue Green Alliance -- a coalition of six unions, including the powerful Service Employees International Union, the Sierra Club, and the Natural Resources Defense Council - says it will create jobs.
• "Tax Reform Alarms Tech Sector:" Technology companies, among President Obama's strongest supporters in 2008, are preparing to battle the administration on tax reform policy.
• "Health Insurance Reform Or Payback?": Health insurance lobbyists are battling congressional Democrats calls to eliminate the industry's antitrust exemption, and the White House appears to be backing away from helping Democrats with their efforts.
• "K Street Is Humming": Nine months into the year, K Street is humming and the number of registered lobbyists actively lobbying has risen 6 percent, according to lobbying disclosure documents filed with the Senate Office Of Public Records.
• "Big Fish In Abramoff Scandal About To Swim Away":October marks a significant deadline in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal as the government likely runs out of time to indict anyone not yet charged on conspiracy in the long-running investigation -- including a former lawmaker who at one time was considered a key target in the public corruption probe.
• "On The Move": Lauren Faber has joined the Lighthouse Consulting Group as a senior director. She leaves the British Embassy, where she was senior policy adviser for climate change and energy.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "House ethics investigators have been scrutinizing the activities of more than 30 lawmakers and several aides in inquiries about issues including defense lobbying and corporate influence peddling, according to a confidential House ethics committee report prepared in July," the Washington Post reports. "The report appears to have been inadvertently placed on a publicly accessible computer network, and it was provided to The Washington Post by a source not connected to the congressional investigations. The committee said Thursday night that the document was released by a low-level staffer."

• "Nearly half the members of a powerful House subcommittee in control of Pentagon spending are under scrutiny by ethics investigators in Congress, who have trained their lens on the relationships between seven panel members and an influential lobbying firm founded by a former Capitol Hill aide," the Post also reports.

• The House Ethics Committee Thursday "again slammed the year-old Office of Congressional Ethics -- declaring the OCE's earlier review of the" case of Rep. Sam Graves, D-Mo., "case and recommendation that it merited further consideration by the Ethics Committee was procedurally 'deficient,'" CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "Immediately firing back were the OCE's co-chairmen, former Reps. David Skaggs, D-Colo., and Porter Goss, R-Fla., declaring there were no procedural problems."

• "Business groups blasted the House healthcare bill released Thursday, and a key trade association for doctors declined to endorse it," The Hill reports. "Health insurance and pharmaceutical industries that take hard hits from the bill also took shots, saying it would drive up costs for seniors and companies alike."

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct unanimously voted Thursday to open investigations on Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif.

The ethics committee will examine whether Waters violated House rules through alleged conversations with the National Bankers Association or OneUnited Bank. Her husband owns stock in OneUnited and previously sat on its board of directors.

In Richarson's case, the committee will look at whether she broke House rules by failing to disclose "real estate, income and liabilities" on her financial disclosure forms. Also at issue is whether Richardson received an impermissible gift or received preferential treatment regarding loans on her property in Sacramento, Calif.

Corporations with an interest in maintaining the current international tax code have spent millions of dollars lobbying to stop reforms, according to a study by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

U.S. PIRG analyzed the lobbying activities of a dozen active members of Promote America's Competitive Edge, a coalition that advocates for policies that will encourage international competitiveness for American businesses.

The 12 companies spent a total $37 million in lobbying activities and more than $6 million in campaign contributions in 2008, according to the study. The companies are: Dell, Exxon Mobil, General Mills, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Cardinal Health, Eaton, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft Foods, Merck, Oracle and PepsiCo.

"The truth is, corporations know that contributing to campaigns and spending liberally on lobbying can help reap valuable dividends in policy decisions," Lisa Gilbert of U.S. PIRG said in a statement. "Our flawed system helps to slow the pace of reform on important issues like closing tax loopholes."

International tax code changes have been considered as a way to help pay for health care reform. One proposed change would make multinational corporations that are incorporated in tax haven countries pay taxes in the U.S. on income earned in the U.S.

Those corporations cost the U.S. $100 billion in lost tax revenue every year, according to PIRG.

The House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has concluded that Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., did not violate House rules or standards when he invited a witness to testify before the Committee on Small Business earlier this year.

The ethics panel, as well as the Office of Congressional Ethics, investigated the relationship between Brooks Hurst and Grave's wife, both of whom are investors in two renewable fuels cooperatives. Graves approved Hurst to testify before the Small Business committee on March 4.

According to an ethics committee report on the matter released Thursday, "The Standards Committee found that no relevant House rule or other standard of conduct prohibits the creation of an appearance of a conflict of interest when selecting witnesses for a committee hearing. In addition, neither the Standards Committee nor OCE identified any evidence that the March 4, 2009, hearing or Mr. Hurst's testimony resulted in any action that could benefit Representative Graves, Mrs. Graves, or Mr. Hurst."

Case closed. But the Graves investigation is more interesting for the turf fight is caused recently between the House ethics committee and the OCE. You can read about that here. (Subscription required).

A coal trade group has a lot more to worry about than just the fraudulent climate change letters sent to lawmakers, Democrats warned today. The group's overall lobbying tactics on energy legislation -- in the form of advertisements, phone calls and outreach on Capitol Hill -- have been misleading, Democrats said at a hearing of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming.

"You remind me of a guy who hired a hit man and said to him, 'Don't tell me if you used a knife or a gun,'" Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., told Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Inslee compared the coal industry's lobbying on climate change to the tobacco industry's attempts to hide information about the harms of smoking in previous decades.

"This is a deeper defrauding," he said, pointing to a training document given to individuals who made phone calls for a company hired by ACCCE. The document instructed callers to say the House climate change legislation would double electricity bills, Inslee said, which was a lie meant to "scare the dickens out of voters."

Miller apologized for the sending of the fraudulent letters and maintains his group "never opposed" the House climate change bill. Rather, he said his group was lobbying to change portions of it and supports a cap and trade bill "so long as it is reasonable." He also said the training document that Inslee pointed to wasn't authorized by ACCCE.

ACCCE hired a public relations firm, the Hawthorn Group, which hired a subcontractor, Bonner & Associates, to handle grassroots efforts related to climate change legislation. Miller and Jack Bonner, Bonner & Associates' CEO, said during the hearing that the fraudulent letters were written and signed by a temporary employee on his first day of work at Bonner, who was fired after the incident was uncovered.

Continue reading Democrats Condemn Coal Group's Lobbying

Bruce Springsteen will be in DC next Monday playing at the Verizon Center, and at least four lawmakers are using the event for some fundraising, the Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time reports.

The four are: Rep. John Carter, R-Texas, Rep. John Barrow, D-Ga., Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y.

Sunlight notes that: "Last time, ordinary people had a tough time getting tickets, while the lobbyists attending the fundraisers got easy entre, if for a price higher than face value."

(Photo courtesy of Creative Commons)

• "Democratic Rep. Laura Richardson, embarrassed by a foreclosure dispute back home in California, may soon find herself the subject of a House ethics committee investigation," Politico reports. "Sources tell POLITICO that the Office of Congressional Ethics has referred Richardson's case to the House ethics committee, which will be required to announce within days whether it's going to pursue a full investigation. Richardson's case is one of three OCE referrals the committee will consider Thursday. The others -- both previously reported -- involve Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Sam Graves (R-Mo.)."

• "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is facing mounting pressure to intervene in an intense dispute between an outside ethics office she pushed through the House and the full ethics committee," The Hill reports. "Board members and senior staff of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) are threatening to resign if the ethics committee doesn't meet a deadline the OCE believes is critical to its role, according to several sources within the ethics community."

• "Dozens of lobbyists were invited to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser Tuesday night with a Cabinet member even though President Barack Obama has sworn off taking money from lobbyists," The Hill reports. "A DNC official said it was a mistake that lobbyists were invited to a small gathering with Lisa Jackson, Obama's administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The official said a review of attendees indicates that no lobbyists attended the event."

• The affair of Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., "has had a devastating effect on his political fortunes, but it's also taking a huge toll on the coterie of Senate aides, K Street lobbyists and political operatives who hitched their star to a man once thought to be a future leader of the Republican Party," Politico reports.

Anthony Coley is set to join communications firm Brunswick Group as a director. Coley was most recently communications director to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass and at the Kennedy-chaired Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Coley starts in his new role in late November, and he's taking a vacation in Costa Rica in the interim. A North Carolina native, Coley got involved in student government while in high school, and he has enjoyed government work ever since. "Government and public service is still a noble profession," he says.

He started his career in politics working on Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign and then he worked for former-Rep. Harold Ford Jr, D-Tenn., and former-Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga. "I'm the only Democrat in America who worked for Zell Miller and Ted Kennedy," he jokes.

Coley also was a spokesperson to New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine in both his senate and governor's offices, and he was promoted to be Corzine's communications director just before Corzine's near fatal car accident made headlines.

Coley earned a "public relations professional of the year award" in New Jersey for his handling of the accident and the one week government shutdown in the state. Outside of work, Coley has been running a lot and he recently lost about 60 pounds.

"I thought losing it was hard, but keeping it off is harder," he says. He will take part in an upcoming 5 K race for the D.C. charity "So Others Might Eat."

Coley is excited about working in the private sector with Brunswick Group, and he likes the firm's public affairs focus. The managing partner of Brunswick Group's D.C. office is Hilary Rosen.

Given the number of times President Obama has talked about leveling the playing field between monied interests and public interests in Washington, this story in the Washington Times today raises some big questions.

Matthew Mosk, a well-known investigative reporter who recently joined the Washington Times, reports:

During his first nine months in office, President Obama has quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings.

High-dollar fundraisers have been promised access to senior White House officials in exchange for pledges to donate $30,400 personally or to bundle $300,000 in contributions ahead of the 2010 midterm elections, according to internal Democratic National Committee documents obtained by The Washington Times.

If this story is correct, it doesn't sound much like a level playing field to me. I plan to ask Norm Eisen, Obama's special adviser on ethics and government reform, about it.

Stay tuned.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Not yet a year since the lobbying shop PMA Group abruptly shut its doors, castaways from Paul Magliocchetti's once-vast appropriations empire are continuing to divvy up his former clients among themselves. And they appear to be generating a handsome profit," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Four new lobbying firms emerged from the demise of PMA, which closed last spring in the wake of an apparent federal investigation reportedly exploring its possible ties to Reps. John Murtha (D-Pa.) and Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) and other House appropriators."

• "Unions converged on Chicago on Tuesday to protest lobbying by major banks against proposed reforms of the financial system," The Hill reports. "The AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and other labor groups were leading a rally expected to draw 5,000 participants outside the annual conference for the American Bankers Association (ABA)."

• "While much of Washington, D.C., has been focused solely on health care reform, the technology industry has been quietly undergoing a massive shuffling of the decks on the personnel front," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Since the beginning of the year, more than half a dozen tech companies have installed new government relations office heads."

UPDATE@4:19 PM. We got a call from the Mortgage Bankers who said the purchase price was $76 million, not the $100 million reported by the Post.

The Mortgage Bankers Association, which has been reeling from the recession, told its members that will put its recently-purchased headquarters up for sale.

We reported in February that the MBA was experiencing real estate problems of its own and was having difficulty finding tenants to fill its 12-story building at 1331 L Street. The association purchased the property in May 2008, right before the collapse in the market.

"These factors, coupled with a challenging leasing environment, led the MBA board to conclude that continued ownership of 1331 L Street was economically imprudent," CEO John Courson wrote to members.

According to an April 2008 Washington Post story, MBA paid about $100 million for the building.

The MBA paid $76 million for the building.

The Internet Innovation Alliance Tuesday named David Sutphen co-chairman. He succeeds Larry Irving, who stepped down to become vice president of global government affairs at Hewlett Packard.

Sutphen will work with co-chair and co-founder Bruce Mehlman to promote broadband availability and adoption across the U.S. Mehlman is a co-founder of lobbying firm Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti.

"Today, [broadband] delivers critical health care, education and employment opportunities as well as the compelling news and entertainment content we all demand," said Sutphen in a statement. "Our challenge is to ensure that all people, regardless of race, income or geography, are benefiting from this revolution."

Sutphen is a partner at public affairs firm Brunswick Group. He was formerly with Viacom and the Recording Industry Association of America. Earlier in his career, Sutphen was a staffer for Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass.

Sutphen is also the brother of Monica Sutphen, deputy White House chief of staff. In addition, he recently was part of a board that created of a new business trade group called Business Forward. See Tech Daily Dose's coverage of the group here.

Angela Martinez, spokeswoman for the Motion Picture Association of America, is heading to the Commerce department, CongressDaily's Andrew Noyes reports.

Martinez will be joining the Commerce Department's Economic Development Administration where she will work for senior adviser John Fernandez, assistant secretary of commerce for economic development. In her new role, Martinez will be overseeing legislative and public affairs.

See Noyes's post here.

As lawmakers try to work out the final form a public option will take in health care reform legislation, interest groups are avoiding wading into the debates over the various versions of the public option until the dust has settled, staying more broadly on message as for or against a government-sponsored insurance plan.

"Our major objective is we would like to see the most robust public option we can achieve," said Chuck Loveless, legislative director at the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "As far as making compromises, we just have to wait and see as we get through the legislative process."

On the other side, Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's Senior Vice President for Policy and Representation Alissa Fox said her group is continuing its campaign against a public option generally because "any form" of a government-run insurance plan is "clearly going to lead to a single-payer system."

"We've made [the public option] a priority all year long," she said. "We have been to as many offices as we could physically go to multiple times."

Continue reading Groups Dodge Details As Public Option Forms

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Lobbyists for farm and small-business groups are pushing for a broader exemption to the estate tax bill that would benefit most of their members," The Hill reports. "The American Farm Bureau Federation and the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), two powerful trade associations, were both quick to endorse legislation introduced by Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) on Thursday that would increase the exemption under the estate tax as well as lower the tax rate."

• "Advertising and marketing industry lobbyists are urging the House Energy and Commerce Committee to slow fast-moving legislation that would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency out of concern that the measure would create confusion among regulators and harm business interests," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "The nation's preeminent seniors group, AARP, has put the weight of its 40 million members behind health-care reform, saying many of the proposals will lower costs and increase the quality of care for older Americans," the Washington Post reports. "But not advertised in this lobbying campaign have been the group's substantial earnings from insurance royalties and the potential benefits that could come its way from many of the reform proposals."

While many lawmakers found themselves facing rambunctious crowds at their townhall meetings this August, members may be relieved to learn there is an alternative that their constituents may like just as much -- an online town hall meeting.

According to a report released today by the Congressional Management Foundation, constituents love online townhall meetings and the lawmakers like them too.

"Conducting online meetings with constituents offer members of Congress a flexible tool for communication in addition to the traditional in-person meetings, tele-townhalls and newsletters," said Beverly Bell, executive director of the Congressional Management Foundation in a statement. "Our research shows that people like hearing from - and feeling heard by - their representatives in all formats, including online."

The foundation conducted 21 online townhall meetings between 2006 and 2008 as part of a project to determine how to use the Internet to facilitate better communications between the Hill and the public. The project was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation and involved 12 House members and one senator.

After each townhall session, the foundation found that constituents had a more favorable opinion of their representative or senator and both the lawmaker and constituents had a better understanding of the subject areas discussed during the online discussion.

Lawmakers "experienced an average net approval rating jump of 18 points," the report found. The constituents involved in the meetings said they were also more likely to vote and vote for the lawmaker and 96 percent said they would like to participate in an online townhall meeting again.

"This report helps fill in the void on how the Internet can transform the relationship between members of Congress and their constituents," said David Lazar, associate professor of political science at Northeastern University.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "In preparation for his sentencing in an Alaska bribery scheme, former oil executive Bill Allen released a tantalizing tidbit about the long-running legal allegations swirling around Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska): Allen told the Justice Department in 2007 that he had provided Young with more than $100,000 worth of gifts that the Congressman never reported," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "It was the first official mention of Young in connection with the Alaska corruption probe that has led to indictments against several public officials, including former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska)."

• "Not content with shaping education directly through schools, the biggest player in the school reform movement has an eye on moving education policy," AP reports. "The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent around $200 million a year on grants to elementary and secondary education."

• "U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue says a campaign by the White House and its allies to undermine his $200-million-a-year association has largely failed -- and actually has helped raise even more money for its pro-business efforts," Politico reports. "In a 75-minute interview with POLITICO, Donohue dismissed recent defections by Apple and at least four other companies, which quit over the Chamber's opposition to Democratic climate change legislation -- as essentially meaningless."

• "It takes a while for most start-up companies to gain the confidence of a U.S. congressman and the promise of federal funds. But last year, a small Illinois company accomplished its goal in 16 days with the help of Rep. Peter J. Visclosky, a little-known Indiana Democrat who sits on the House committee that funds the Pentagon," the Washington Post reports. "The congressman sponsored or supported at least $44 million in earmarks in fiscal years 2008 and 2009 for more than 15 technology firms that had hired K&L Gates as lobbyists."

My colleague and fellow National Journal blogger Andrew Noyes is heading to Facebook where he will be manager of public policy communications.

Andrew has been the editor and author of TechDailyDose and a fabulous reporter on technology issues for National Journal's CongressDaily since 2006. It's a loss for us and a gain for Facebook.

Facebook says Noyes will start his job in mid-November.

Top advocacy and lobbying stories from this week's National Journal: (subscription)

• "Health Insurers Find Themselves Under Fire": From insider player to whipping boy, America's Health Insurance Plans has been facing lots of heat in Washington since issuing a report critical of aspects of health care reform legislation.
• "Gas Group Is Late But Loaded With Cash": A new association of natural-gas producers, called America's Natural Gas Alliance, is playing catch up as it lobbies Congress on climate change legislation.
• "Corporate America's Enlightened Disclosure": With prodding by Bruce Freed, head of the Center for Political Accountability, top companies are lining up to show how much money they are spending in Washington and on whom.
• From Inside Washington: Few governors have as many friends on K Street as Mississippi's Haley Barbour. In recent months several of the former lobbyist's old buddies have been meeting occasionally with the smooth-talking Southerner when he comes to town to chat about a possible run for the White House in 2012. "Haley is being approached by many people inquiring about his intentions and encouraging him to run," says one lobbyist who attended an informal dinner with Barbour over the summer. Another old friend on K Street adds that Barbour "hasn't closed the door, but it's not very wide open.
• From Congressional Insider's poll: Republicans think their leaders are doing more to police congressional enforcement than do Democrats, our congressional insiders said this week: 81 percent of GOP members think their leaders are doing a good job on ethics, while only 62 percent of Democrats think so.
• From On The Move: George Meyers, who has joined Cassidy & Associates as vice president in the federal marketing group. Meyers, 46, arrives at Cassidy from Lockheed Martin, where he was a business development director; Scott E. Stewart, 41, has joined Patton Boggs as a partner after spending eight years as a litigator in the Justice Department's Environment and Natural Resources Division.

Lobbying by energy and business groups ticked up in the third quarter as both houses of Congress took up sweeping climate change legislation. As reported earlier this week, the Chamber of Commerce spent a record $34.7 million in the third quarter amid high-profile defections over its position on climate change. The National Association of Manufacturers, which has faced similar criticism about it opposition to climate legislation, reported spending $5.75 million in the third quarter, a more than 400 percent increase from last quarter. (Both groups, of course, lobby on more than just energy.)

The Business Roundtable, though it has seen its star rise recently as the Obama adminsitration freezes out the Chamber, cut its lobbying spending drastically, from $6.1 million in the second quarter, to just $1.8 million this quarter.

The Association of American Railroads, which has a huge hand in transporting coal throughout the country, reported spending $2.2 million (down from $2.8 the last two quarters), and the American Petroleum Institute spent $2.2 million (up from $1.8 million and $1.9 million in the previous two). Utility trade group Edison Electric Institute, which has voiced concerns about certain parts of Waxman-Markey (especially pertaining to emissions credits) but has not opposed it, has kept a pretty steady flow of money -- roughly $2.6 million -- going into its lobbying efforts throughout the year. Both the United Services Automobile Association and the Alliance for Automobile Manufacturers both topped a $1 million this last quarter.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "In a move with potentially major implications for the 2010 and 2012 elections and the future of campaign finance rules, the Federal Election Commission on Thursday voted not to challenge an appeals court panel's ruling that could free outside groups to spend huge sums of cash unburdened by contribution limits," Politico reports. "The vote, a 3 - 3 partisan split that had the effect of rejecting a recommendation by commission staff to appeal the ruling to the full court of appeals, spotlighted the commission's increasing partisan divide, and also put pressure on President Barack Obama to override the commission's decision."

• "The White House's top ethics cop on Thursday defended the Obama administration's lobbying restrictions that have much of K Street up in arms," The Hill reports. "Norm Eisen, counsel to the president on ethics and government reform, told attendees of the American Bar Association's (ABA) fall conference that" Obama "was trying to fundamentally change how Washington works, which gives an outsized influence to lobbyists."

• "The White House and environmental groups are turning up the heat on the Chamber of Commerce, and some of its member companies are feeling the burn," Politico reports. "The Chamber is pushing back, sending top officials out to make its case on TV and in print interviews and blaming Democrats and liberal interest groups for trying to coerce it into changing its position."

Karen Ignani, chief of America's Health Insurance Plans, insists her industry hasn't walked away from the negotiating table. But a hired hand appears to be promoting a scorched-earth policy against Democrats.

The Huffington Post reports today that Steve Champlin, a lobbyist for the Duberstein Group who represents AHIP, declared that the road to a bipartisan health care reform bill is dead.

"There is absolutely no interest, no reason Republicans should ever vote for this thing. They have gone from a party that got killed 11 months ago to a party that is rising today," Champlin is quoted in remarks at an opening session of AHIP's annual State Issues Conference.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "A former U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) said a White House effort to remove lobbyists from influential advisory committees could hurt the United States in its trade negotiations," The Hill reports. "But a White House official defended the guidance on Wednesday, saying that lobbyists shouldn't be offered a government platform to try to influence public policy."

• "Facing a major regulatory issue that could be worth a fortune in future business, AT&T has unleashed the kind of lobbying blitz that makes it one of the grand corporate players of the great Washington game," the Washington Post reports. "And yet, for all the money AT&T and other old-line telecom and cable companies have spent pushing their cause, they are poised to lose a key vote to a bunch of younger technology companies that never had anything to do with Washington until recently."

• "Restaurants, retailers and other businesses with high rates of employee turnover are pushing lawmakers to revisit how 'full-time' workers are defined in a healthcare overhaul measure to avoid being slapped with hefty fees for failing to insure their temporary or short-term workforces," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "K Street looks like a winner if healthcare reform reaches President Barack Obama's desk," The Hill reports. "If healthcare reform passes, lobbyists for healthcare industries will be plenty busy trying to influence the implementation of the bill, both in Congress and in the Obama administration. Sectors targeted for cuts in the bill will immediately begin trying to claw back the money they stand to lose. And lobbyists representing smaller interests will try to band together to get their perennial issues handled."

Over the summer, Under the Influence profiled the 25 top-spending health care players by total lobbying expenditures for the first half of the year. On the chart below, see how much those groups dished out from July through September. Lobbying numbers reflect total lobbying activities for a given organization, and several organizations are also involved in non-health care related issues.

Several groups significantly increased lobbying spending in the third quarter over the second quarter: the Chamber of Commerce, America's Health Insurance Plans, American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, American Academy of Family Physicians and the Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care.

Lobbying spending often fluctuates from quarter to quarter, but this year's third quarter still topped previous years. The Chamber of Commerce, for example, spent $34.7 million in the third quarter of 2009, compared with $20.6 million in the third quarter of 2008.

Not all groups upped the ante, however: Business Roundtable, for example, spent $1.9 million in the third quarter of 2009, compared with $6.1 million in the second quarter of 2009 and $2.1 million in the third quarter of 2008.

Patton Boggs has managed to stay well ahead of the rest of K Street in 2009. The firm's more than 100 lobbyists posted fee income of $29.2 million for the first nine months of the year, which is about $6 million more than its closest competitor, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which posted lobbying fee income of $23.6 million.

A few notables on the list: the fastest-growing firms included Democratic lobbyist Tony Podesta's firm, the Podesta Group (up 61%); former Democratic Louisiana Sen. John Breaux's firm, the Breaux Lott Leadership Group (+42%); Holland & Knight (+42%); and Brownstein Hyatt & Farber (+41%).

Law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird, where former Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., is an adviser, made it to the top 25 list of lobbying firms for the first time.

Here's a look at the list of top firms based on National Journal's analysis of the lobbying disclosure forms reported to Congress on Oct. 20.

Firm First 3Q Fees 2009 Vs. 2008 Percent Change From 2008
1. Patton Boggs $29.2 million vs $29.7 million -2%
2. Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld $23.6 million vs $26.9 million -12%
3. Van Scoyoc Associates $19.96 million vs $19.5 million +2%
4. Podesta Group $18.7 million vs $11.6 million +61%
5. Holland & Knight $15.8 million vs $11.1 million +42%
6. Cassidy & Associates $15.7 million vs $17.6 million -11%
7. Brownstein Hyatt & Farber $15.4 million vs $10.9 million +41%
8. Dutko Worldwide $14.8 million vs $15.3 million -3%
9. K & L Gates $14.0 million vs $11.6 million +21%
9. Ogilvy Government Relations $14.0 million vs $13.4 million +4%
11. Hogan & Hartson $13.4 million vs $14.6 million -8%
12. Williams & Jensen $12.4 million vs $12.2 million +2%
13. BGR Group $11.9 million vs $13.99 million -15%
14. Quinn Gillespie & Associates $10.6 million vs $11.2 million -5%
15. Washington Council Ernst & Young $10.5 million vs $8.55 +23%
16. Cornerstone Government Affairs $9.3 million vs 8.36 million +11%
17. Ferguson Group $9.27 million vs 7.46 million +24.2%
18. Capitol Tax Partners $8.63 million vs $8.31 million +4%
19. Venable $8.18 million vs 6.44 million +27%
20. McBee Strategic Consulting $8.16 million vs 6.96 million +17%
21. Alcalde & Fay $8.13 million vs $8.01 million +1%
22. The Breaux Lott Leadership Group $8.04 million vs. 5.67 million +42%
23. Alston & Bird $8.01 million vs $5.86 +37

The political performance artists known as the Yes Men infiltrated the U.S. Chamber of Commerce building in Washington, D.C., Tuesday and made it to the fourth floor before being ejected.

"We tried to get in and have a talk with their people," said Yes Men agitator Mike Bonanno. "They didn't want to let us in, but they did, accidentally. There were five of us."

Several members of the group managed to slip by guards as others were challenged at the front door. They then went inside and changed into inflatable "SurvivaBall" suits and began wandering the halls.

"They didn't have much of a sense of humor about it," said Bonanno. "They described it as a building invasion."

Chamber officials called the police, but the Yes Men took their cue and left. "We didn't wait around for the cops," Bonanno said.

The prank comes one day after the Yes Men fooled much of official Washington, and, um, a few media outlets, including, yes, National Journal, with a bogus news release and press conference at the National Press Club. There they announced the chamber had renounced its opposition to the cap-and-trade energy bill working its way through Congress.

To portray a government-run health insurance option as an attractive alternative to private insurance companies, MoveOn.org has cast an attractive actress in a new ad as part of the liberal group's push for inclusion of the public option in health care legislation.

A new television ad features actress Heather Graham as the public option racing against "lazy" and "bloated" health insurance companies. The ad encourages viewers to call the Capitol switchboard to demand a public option.

View the ad here.

MoveOn.org has used other celebrities in health care ads calling for reform. Last month, the group ran an ad featuring a number of actors, including Will Ferrell and Jon Hamm.

Doug Pinkham, president of the Public Affairs Council has an interesting post on his blog about the heat the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been taking in Washington.

"Every political drama needs a villain. As the White House and Congress face a series of major public policy debates, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce - fairly or unfairly - has become this week's bad guy," Pinkham says.

Click here to read more of Pinkham's post.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Fresh off their congressional retirements, former Reps. Bud Cramer and Jim McCrery are prohibited from lobbying for a year -- a ban reinforced by a sweeping crackdown under the Democratic Congress," Politico reports. "But you wouldn't know it from their day jobs and their political donations, which give them a heavy hand in the Washington influence game, advising clients with interests before Congress while donating tens of thousands of dollars from their old campaign war chests to candidates."

• "Facing an Oct. 30 deadline for relinquishing their lobbyist stripes under a new White House decree, the heads of all industry trade advisory boards have written to President Obama and top administration and congressional officials imploring them to reconsider," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "The letter from the 16 ITAC chiefs, dated Monday, requests a meeting with the president and his top aides to discuss the matter."

• "The August recess did little to slow the Washington lobbying frenzy over health-care reform, as insurers, drugmakers and hospitals continued to spend millions to attempt to sway the emerging legislation, according to new disclosure reports filed with Congress," the Washington Post reports. The top spender so far is "the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drugmakers' main trade group," which "shattered records again by spending nearly $7 million on lobbying from July through September, the quarterly disclosure records show."

• "Locked in a bitter legislative battle, package delivery giants FedEx and United Parcel Service" boosted their lobbying in the third quarter, Roll Call (subscription) reports. "From July through September, UPS shelled out $4.4 million to influence federal lawmakers, a whopping $3 million increase from the previous three-month period. FedEx, meanwhile, doled out $5.6 million on lobbying during the same period, up almost $2 million from the prior quarter."

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce... reported spending a record amount on federal lobbying in the third quarter of this year," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The group's lobbying disclosure report... showed the chamber shelled out a record $34.7 million on lobbying. The business group sought to influence a wide gamut of issues from climate change, financial regulation and health care reform to more obscure legislation involving pythons."

• "Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) pressed the federal government at the height of the financial crisis for bailout money for a bank with which he has a long political and personal relationship," The Hill reports. "Left unmentioned was the Illinois Democrat's long affiliation with the bank and its U.S. operations in particular. Bank executives had contributed tens of thousands of dollars until 2004 to Gutierrez's political campaigns. The congressman's wife, Soraida, was a senior vice president at the firm from 2005 to 2007, before being fired."

• "Embattled House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) was the top recipient of bundled campaign contributions from lobbyists during the third fundraising quarter of this year, new reports show," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "According to Federal Election Commission reports filed after Thursday's deadline, Rangel received roughly $125,000 in combined campaign contributions from the McPherson Group's John Kelly, New York-based Constantinople & Vallone Consulting and trade group Employee-Owned S Corporations of America."

A district court judge decided on Monday that former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring will go back to the courtroom for the retrial of his lobbying corruption case in June 2010. The next jury, however, may see more witnesses, redefined charges and different evidence, all elements that will make the next trial look significantly different from the one that resulted in a hung jury last week.

The most certain change will be the defense's ability to call a handful of witnesses who invoked their Fifth Amendment rights during the first trial. The statute of limitations on the conspiracy charges against others in the Abramoff scandal expires this month, five years after the last alleged criminal actions occurred in October 2004. That means anyone not yet indicted for conspiracy in the scandal by the end of October is unlikely to be indicted, and Fifth Amendment rights no longer apply.

But for some, the legal issues may bleed over into the end of the tax year in April, because someone who received gifts from Ring should have reported that income on tax forms. That's why Judge Ellen Huvelle has delayed the retrial until June, and she could further delay it if all the legal issues aren't worked out by the summer.

The case will not go to retrial "before I can clear everybody I think are fair witnesses," Huvelle said during Monday's hearing.

She said that the court's conference with the jury after the mistrial was declared last week showed that the jury's deliberations were tripped up by the fact that witnesses were missing.

"There are holes, and the holes are being created by these people pleading the Fifth," Huvelle said.

Continue reading Ring Retrial Delayed Until June

The Chamber of Commerce announced today that it spent $34.7 million on lobbying activities during the third quarter -- double the amount that the group spent in the first and second quarters combined.

The business group is vocally lobbying on two of the biggest issues on Capitol Hill: health care reform and climate change legislation. On health care, the Chamber opposes a public option or employer mandate, and on climate change the group opposes legislation passed by the House but supports an international agreement to reduce carbon emissions.

The Chamber already occupied the top spot in Under the Influence's list of "Top Health Care Players" for lobbying expenditures in the first half of the year, after spending about $10 million in the first quarter and about $7.4 million in the second quarter.

The Chamber spent $20.6 million on all lobbying activities during 2008's third quarter.

Lobbying disclosure forms for the third quarter are due Tuesday. Third-quarter information for other top-spending groups is not yet available.

A U.S. Chamber of Commerce spokesman said on Monday that a statement put out earlier by another group that the Chamber no longer opposed climate change legislation was a "hoax."

My colleague Marc Ambinder at the Atlantic writes this post.

"U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing its weight behind strong climate legislation"

The headline, if true, would be a news story indeed: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, according to a press release e-mailed to journalists this morning, had decided to reverse its opposition to strong climate change legislation. But that's false. Some unknown group decided to punk the Chamber. And in the process, at least one news organization, Reuters, fell for it.

For full disclosure, I was one of the reporters that was duped and I immediately removed the post from our blog.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The 2008 collapse of the financial sector also spawned a contraction in the number of banking lobbyists on K Street, leaving the industry with a smaller bench as Congress begins rewriting the rules for Wall Street," Politico reports. "In 2007, the last boom year, 3,002 lobbyists were registered to represent the finance, insurance and real estate sector, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Today, 2,370 financial services lobbyists are registered -- a loss of more than 600 jobs or contracts."

• "Lobbyists and political action committees delivered more than $330,000 worth of bundled campaign contributions to House Members during the third fundraising quarter this year, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures filed last week," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) was the quarter's big winner, raking in nearly $120,000 combined from J.C. Watts Cos. lobbyist Tripp Baird, Phillip Holt of the National Installment Lenders, and Geoffrey Gradler of Roberts, Raheb & Gradler. House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) also made out handsomely this summer, bringing in nearly $70,000 from the Managed Funds Association and John Pappas of the Poker Players Alliance."

• "The healthcare negotiator for one of nation's most powerful unions made clear that it opposes a tax on high-cost-insurance plans, despite abstaining from an multi-union campaign objecting to the plan," The Hill reports. "The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was not among the 27 unions to sign on to an ad criticizing a proposed tax on 'Cadillac' insurance plans that was included in the Senate Finance Committee healthcare bill."

"I'm trying to be a modern deputy here," said Kathleen Merrigan, deputy secretary of Agriculture, during the department's first monthly Facebook live chat earlier this month.

She's not the only ag player trying to take the plunge into social media. In the last year, many farm lobbying groups have established a presence on Facebook and Twitter in an effort to reach out to farmers.

Americans farmers are old and getting older, with an average age of 57.1 in 2007, up from 55.3 in 2002. Social media, like most technology trends, is still thought of as the domain of young people, but the two fastest-growing age demographics on Facebook are 35- to 54-year-olds and those 55 and above, according to a Jan. 2009 analysis by iStrategyLabs, an online marketing company.

"Every single advocacy group is thinking about how they can [use] social technology and social media to engage people who are passionate about their causes," said Peter Corbett, CEO of iStrategyLabs. "We don't have an excuse to think, 'We don't need to focus our marketing campaign there because our audience isn't there.' Because it is."

Continue reading Ag Groups Find Voice In Social Media

It's not often that a plum ambassadorship goes to someone who isn't a career foreign service officer or a big bucks campaign contributor, but President Obama has nominated Anne Slaughter Andrew to be the ambassador to the Republic of Costa Rica.

Hmmm.

The prospective diplomat is an Indiana University trained attorney who currently is Principal of New Energy Nexus, LLC, and, according to the White House release on her nomination, "advises companies and entrepreneurs on investments and strategies to capitalize on the New Energy Economy."

But Andrew is also wife of Joe Andrew, former Indiana Democratic Party chairman who was tapped by Bill Clinton to be Democratic National Committee chairman from 1999 to 2001 who also was a big backer of then Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton in her 2008 presidential bid--until five days before the must-win Indiana Democratic Presidential primary last year, when Andrew with great fan-fare threw Clinton under the bus, endorsed Obama, urged all his fellow Hoosiers to vote for Obama and called up party leaders and fellow superdelegates (Andrew had that status to the Democratic convention because he was a former DNC chairman) to basically shut the nominating contest down after the Indiana primary and get behind Obama.

In a public letter that at times was melodramatic and angst-ridden, Andrew wrote: "Why call for superdelegates to come together now to constructively pick a president? The simple answer is that while the timing is hard for me personally, it is best for America. We simply cannot wait any longer, nor can we let this race fall any lower and still hope to win in November. June or July may be too late."

Well, the contest did run until June and Obama still somehow made it to the White House. But for Joe, this was a selfless act: "My endorsement of Senator Obama will not be welcome news to my friends and family at the Clinton campaign," he wrote. "If the campaign's surrogates called Governor Bill Richardson, a respected former member of President Clinton's cabinet, a 'Judas' for endorsing Senator Obama, we can all imagine how they will treat somebody like me."

Geee, somehow he managed to survive and somehow the current Secretary of State must have an amazing amount of equanimity and grace not to have choked on this administration nomination.

Continue reading Paybacks In Obama World Can Be Sweet

Former White House aide David Safavian was sentenced to a year in prison today after he was found guilty in two separate trials on four counts of obstruction of justice and false statements related to the Jack Abramoff investigation.

Judge Paul Friedman said he decided on the sentencing for Safavian, who served as General Services Administration chief of staff in George W. Bush's administration, after weighing the need for "deterrence" and "respect of law" with the "suffering" that Safavian's family has endured during four years of trial proceedings. Federal prosecutors had suggested 15 to 21 months in prison.

"Nobody expects you to ever commit another crime," Friedman said. But "sometime in those two or three years" when Safavian was being investigated for his connections to Abramoff, "a light bulb should have gone off."

Safavian was first found guilty on four counts and acquitted on one count in 2006, and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. In 2008, the conviction was overturned, and in a retrial in December 2008, Safavian was again found guilty on the four counts.

Safavian maintained at the sentencing that while he made mistakes in his relationship with Abramoff -- giving the lobbyist information that would benefit his clients and taking a golf trip to Scotland that was paid for largely by Abramoff, according to trial testimony -- he did not knowingly lie about the relationship during the government's investigations.

"I acknowledge severe lapses in judgment in regard to my relationship with Jack Abramoff," he told the judge. But "I can't stand here and say I intentionally" lied to investigators, he added.

Continue reading Safavian Sentenced To Year In Prison

Greg Farmer is expected to head the D.C. office of Qualcomm, according to a K Street sources.

Farmer currently works in government affairs with Nortel Networks. Earlier in his career, Farmer was chief of staff to then-Rep. Buddy MacKay, D-Fla.

Farmer also worked as an undersecretary of Commerce in the Clinton Administration, and he was also secretary of Commerce for the state of Florida, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Qualcomm is a wireless technology company based in San Diego, Calif. According to CRP, Qualcomm ranks fourth in political donations for the 2010 election cycle among all telecom service and equipment companies. During the 2008 election cycle, Qualcomm gave 76 percent of its money to Democrats. In the 2010 cycle so far, the company has contributed 87 percent of its donations to Democrats, and 13 percent of donations to Republicans.

From TechDailyDose:

Think tankers at the Progress and Freedom Foundation will play musical chairs on Friday as the group's president, Ken Ferree, steps down to become a senior fellow and longtime senior fellow and director of PFF's Center for Digital Media Freedom Adam Thierer assumes the top job. Ferree, a former chief of the FCC Media Burea, became president of PFF in November 2007 after an executive-level exodus. Thierer formally joined PFF in 2005 but has been involved with group since its creation 16 years ago. He is an expert on content regulation and child safety, Internet governance, and intellectual property.

Read more here.

This week's advocacy and lobbying stories from National Journal: (subscription)

• Is The White House Fighting Back?: Will Englund takes a look at how conservative activists are using new media to attack President Obama's administration, and in some cases, causing resignations. He also looks at how the White House is battling back with a counter-narrative.
• A Tale Of Two Power Brokers: Few know the difficulties of parlaying business success into political stature better than two New York City multimillionaires from opposite ends of the political spectrum who have attempted it: free-marketer and investment banker Mallory Factor and liberal populist and former cable-industry mogul Leo Hindery.
• Dueling Ethics Panels: The House Standards of Official Conduct Committee is in a dustup with the newly created and quasi-independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
• On The Move: After resigning in August from her post as the White House's top cyber-security official, Melissa Hathaway established Hathaway Global Strategies. She will divide her consulting time between her firm and Harvard University, where she serves as a senior adviser to a cyber-security project; Microsoft's director of government affairs, Scott Corley, is moving to the Monument Policy Group to become senior vice president of government affairs; Marcia Hale is a longtime Washington hand has a new job as president of Building America's Future, a coalition that is pushing to improve the nation's infrastructure; Erik Huey is a new senior vice president for government relations at the Entertainment Software Association, which represents companies that make video and computer games.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-Ind.), caught up in the scandal surrounding a now defunct lobbying firm, shelled out $100,000 this summer for 'legal representation,' according to his latest campaign-disclosure report," Politico reports. "Visclosky's campaign report for the July 1-Sept. 30 period, released on Thursday, showed two $50,000 payments to the firm Steptoe & Johnson, made in July and August, with no checks cut to the firm in September."

• "At a meeting last April with corporate lobbyists, aides to President Barack Obama and Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) helped set in motion a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign, primarily financed by industry groups, that has played a key role in bolstering public support for health care reform," Politico also reports. "The role Baucus's chief of staff, Jon Selib, and deputy White House chief of staff Jim Messina played in launching the groups was part of a successful effort by Democrats to enlist traditional enemies of health care reform to their side."

• "Lobbyists have met with officials at the Office of Management and Budget to discuss and in some cases moderate regulations regarding a greenhouse gas registry, the so-called Buy American purchasing requirement and an ethanol production mandate. OMB has final say on how proposed federal rules are ultimately written," The Hill reports. "Representatives for the oil-and-gas industry flocked to a half-dozen meetings held by OMB starting in August this year to discuss a controversial rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions."

• "The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street firms have the big bucks and the hired-gun lobbyists, but they've got nothing on local banks and credit unions in the raging battle over financial reform," Politico reports. "Thanks to an effective, parochial lobbying campaign, credit unions and community banks have won a major exemption in their effort to escape scrutiny by Democrats' proposed consumer financial protection agency."

A district court judge declared a mistrial on all eight counts in the trial of former Jack Abramoff lobbying associate Kevin Ring today after jurors said in a note to the judge that they were "totally blocked" and could not come to a verdict on any charge.

Judge Ellen Huvelle asked the jury foreman if any amount of time would change the jury's deadlock. "No, your honor," he responded.

Huvelle said earlier today that she would be declaring a mistrial on seven of the eight charges after jurors said in a note that they were deadlocked on those charges. But the judge asked the jury to return to deliberations on the final charge after jurors said they were no longer unanimous on a verdict for that count, though they had claimed to have reached unanimity on it earlier in the week.

After about two hours of additional deliberation, the jury remained deadlocked on the eighth charge, a count of honest services wire fraud that involved the wife of former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who had been employed by Abramoff's lobbying team.

The court will now begin hearings to determine if and when the case will be retried. Immediately after Huvelle declared a mistrial, attorneys for the prosecution and defense met with the jury to learn some details of their deliberations. Based on that information, the prosecution may decide not to retry Ring if the jury was near acquittal, or Ring may decide to take a plea deal with the government if the jury was near conviction.

Huvelle said that a retrial will likely not begin until at least January. The defense argued that the court should further delay a retrial because of pending Supreme Court cases that could affect the honest services wire fraud statute, among other concerns.

"I think it would be a mistake" to rush to an immediate retrial, Ring's attorney, Andrew Wise said.

A district court judge said today that she would be declaring a mistrial on seven of the eight counts against former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, after the jury declared in a note to the judge for the third time that it could not reach a unanimous decision on the charges.

"We are declaring a mistrial," Judge Ellen Huvelle told the prosecution and defense attorneys, though she did not inform the jury of her decision.

The jury's note also said that jurors were no longer unanimous on the eighth count, a charge of honest services wire fraud involving the wife of former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., who was given a job with Abramoff's lobbying team. On Tuesday, jurors said they had reached unanimity on that count, but they did not reveal the verdict. The jury will reconvene this afternoon to determine whether or not they can return to unanimity on that count.

Judge Huvelle also said that the prosecution and defense attorneys will meet with the jury, perhaps this afternoon, to learn some details of their deliberations.

"I want you to have the opportunity to mull over what you've learned" from the jury ahead of a possible retrial, Judge Huvelle told the attorneys.

Ring's attorney, Andrew Wise, objected to an expedited retrial because the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear three cases in the coming months regarding the honest services wire fraud statute, which accounted for six of the eight charges against Ring. Because the Supreme Court may change the interpretation of the statute by addressing the "fundamental underlying problems with the vagueness of the statute," an immediate retrial would be "silly," he said.

The government may decide not to retry the case if it learns that the jury was close to acquitting Ring. Prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds said that the government will try to "come to resolution on this" with Ring before moving to a retrial.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "A prominent coal industry association spent nearly $10 million over the past 18 months on lobbying efforts supervised by a public affairs firm currently under congressional investigation for its involvement in sending forged letters opposing the climate bill," Politico reports.

• "Kicking off the latest chapter of this year's Full Employment Act for K Street Lobbyists, representatives from a surfeit of industries descended on an influential Congressional committee on Wednesday as it began writing a law overhauling the nation's regulatory system," the New York Times reports.

• "As the U.S. Chamber of Commerce rolled out its multimillion-dollar Campaign for Free Enterprise on Wednesday with all the pomp and circumstance of a political campaign rally, the business group was still dogged by questions surrounding its position on climate change legislation," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Chamber President Tom Donohue defended his group's position and said companies are being pressured by environmental activists to withdraw from the chamber."

The Chamber of Commerce's new free enterprise PR campaign kicked off Wednesday with soft-focus TV ads. The next steps include outreach to legislators in states eager for job growth and to schools graduating young professionals who expect government -- not business -- to generate new jobs, chamber officials said.

Officials downplayed the potential for the multi-year, anti-regulation campaign with the motto "American Free Enterprise. Dream Big" to generate conflict between the chamber and the regulation-friendly Obama White House.

The new campaign was rolled out at a well-attended event in the chamber's D.C. headquarters. The TV advertising features female entrepreneurs, small businesses, and a call for policies that would help business create 20 million new jobs over the next decade. The TV advertising is aimed at a national audience, and will be placed alongside evening-news programs in many states, a chamber official said. "We'll spend what have to do... it won't be a problem to get a reasonable amount of money," said chamber CEO Tom Donohue.

Sources reported to us earlier that the association of businesses is trying to raise $100 million for the effort.

The health insurance advertising battle has begun, ABC News reports. The insurance industry is now on the air in multiple states attacking Democratic health reform proposals as bad for seniors, according to an independent ad tracker.

The industry has largely refrained from attacking health care legislation until now, and the fact that it has begun to spend money on negative ads is important because the industry helped to bring down health care legislation 15 years ago with its television advertising campaign - known as the iconic Harry and Louise ads.

The industry said on Monday that based on a PriceWaterhouseCoopers analysis of the Senate Finance Committee bill, health care insurance premiums will go up sharply instead of down. The White House and Senate Finance Committee have attacked the report as being flawed.

This week's insurance industry's ads don't focus on the premiums but rather target a politically potent voting block - seniors. Over the years, AHIP has built a network of senior citizen activists called the Coalition for Medicare Choices. AHIP sources say that coalition has a list of 1 million seniors that it can ask to call on Congress not to cut their Medicare benefits.

Patton Boggs is bringing on Scott E. Stewart as a partner. He was previously a litigator on the Justice Department's environmental team. At Justice, he spent eight years in the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

At Patton Boggs, Stewart will join the litigation department, focused on environmental issues. He will work to boost the firm's services to the clean technology sector.

Stewart earned his bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1990 and his law degree from American University in 1995.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce launched an ad campaign today to promote free enterprise and the idea that business, not government, is the key to economic recovery, CongressDaily reported. (subscription)

Chamber President Tom Donohue declined to put a price tag on the campaign, which involves television commercials and grassroots efforts calling for less government regulation and lower taxes. But he told U.S. News and World Report last month the organization plans to spend $25 million a year on the program for several years.

Donohue said the Chamber plans to contact lawmakers to try to make them consider the "free enterprise" consequences of every vote they take.

Horace Cooper, who served as a staffer for former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, R-Texas, and as chief of staff for two executive branch agencies, indicated today that he will go to trial to fight charges that he accepted tickets and meals from imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff in exchange for official actions that would benefit Abramoff's clients.

Cooper was indicted in August on five charges of conspiracy to commit honest services fraud and bribery, fraudulent concealment, false statements and obstruction of an official proceeding. The alleged crimes took place between 1998 and 2005, when Cooper served on Armey's staff and then as chief of staff at Voice of America and the Labor Department's Employment Standards Administration.

"We're here to fight the felony charges. We vehemently dispute them," Cooper's attorney, Solomon Wisenberg, said. "We look forward to our day in court."

Wisenberg would not respond to questions about whether Cooper had been offered a plea deal by the government.

Continue reading Former Aide To Fight Abramoff-Related Charges

The prosecution and defense in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring called for a mistrial today after the jury indicated for the second time that it was unable to reach a verdict on seven of the eight charges. The judge declined to call a mistrial and instructed the jury to continue deliberating.

"We do not see how we can reach a verdict," the jury's note to Judge Ellen Huvelle read. The jury sent a similar note Tuesday afternoon indicating it had reached a consensus only on one count of honest services wire fraud, but it did not reveal the verdict on that count.

After reviewing the note, attorneys for Ring and the Department of Justice agreed that it was time to release the jurors. In the case of a hung jury, a mistrial is declared and the case can be reheard.

"Let them go. ... Declare a mistrial," Andrew Wise, Ring's attorney, said. "This jury has been at it for an extended period."

"Take the verdict [on the one count], declare a mistrial... and get another trial moving as quickly as possible," prosecutor Nathaniel Edmonds suggested.

Huvelle, however, is not ready to dismiss the jury after more than three weeks of trial and more than a week of jury deliberations. Today is the jury's seventh day of deliberations, but that is not an extraordinary amount of time "given the length of the trial, the amount of evidence and the complications of the case," Huvelle said.

"I am going to ask you to continue to deliberate," she told the jury.

The Supreme Court said Tuesday it will hear a case involving honest services wire fraud, one of the charges for which Kevin Ring, a former associate of Jack Abramoff, is on trial.

The court will hear an appeal in the case of former Enron CEO Jeff Skilling, who was convicted in 2006 on 19 counts and says his conviction is not proper because he did not personally benefit from his actions, AP reports.

The appeal, expected to be heard in February, "will focus on the 'honest services law,' a federal statute that has become a formidable weapon of prosecutors but which defense lawyers say is so vague as to make unwitting criminals out of many people," the New York Times reports.

The jury in the Ring trial reached a decision on one of the honest services charges against him on Tuesday, but remains undecided on the other counts.

Two other cases related to the honest services fraud statute -- USA v. Black and USA v. Weyhrauch -- are expected to be heard by the Supreme Court soon, and the presiding judge in Ring's trial, Ellen Huvelle, has expressed concern that the eventual decision in that case could be overturned if the Supreme Court redefines the honest services statute in its decisions.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "The generic drug industry, outmanned and outspent on the lobbying front compared to its name-brand counterparts, has been struggling to be heard on Capitol Hill throughout the health care debate," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The generic industry will be zeroing in on provisions adapted by key committees in both chambers that would shut it out of the biologic drug market for at least 12 years."

• "Former Bush administration official and lobbyist Tommy Thompson is the latest Republican to lash out at the Democratic National Committee for apparently misusing his stance on health care reform. The DNC over the weekend reportedly pulled a television advertisement featuring Thompson, former Sen. Bob Dole (Kan.) and other Republicans who apparently supported a White House-led charge to fix the nation's insurance woes," Roll Call (subscription) reports.

• "Even after Tuesday's Senate Finance Committee vote brought sighs of relief and dismay up and down K Street, lobbyists for many narrowly focused interest groups are still holding their breaths, waiting to see if their proposals will become part of any final healthcare bill," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports.

Cross posted from TechDailyDose:

Public Strategies and Live Nation have parted ways as the Justice Department continues probing the music giant's pending $2.5 billion all-stock merger with Ticketmaster. Live Nation, which spun off from media conglomerate Clear Channel Communications in 2005, hired Public Strategies and Brunswick Group to manage its image during the merger process and has worked with attorneys at Latham & Watkins, CongressDaily reported earlier this year (subscription required).

Public Strategies spent $270,000 advocating for Live Nation in the first quarter of 2009 and $30,000 in the second quarter, according to lobbyists' filings. The firm also registered to represent Ticketmaster in April and racked up $30,000 in the second quarter. Additionally, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher spent $60,000 in the second quarter lobbying for Ticketmaster. In March, Akin Gump registered to represent Live Nation. The firm spent $80,000 in the first quarter and $30,000 in the second quarter on that work.

Continue reading Public Strategies and Live Nation Part Ways

Grass-tops lobbying, the practice of tapping local civic, business and labor leaders to push lawmakers to support or oppose federal legislation, is a huge business in Washington, but just how big isn't known because it isn't required to be reported under current lobbying rules.

We might learn more about the practice this Thursday as the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming is holding an investigative hearing into fake letters sent to members of Congress urging them to vote against the Waxman-Markey clean energy and climate legislation.

The letters were sent as part of a grass-tops campaign run by consulting firm, Bonner & Associates, on behalf of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. Bonner has blamed the incident on a now fired temporary employee.

Click for the committee statement about the hearing.

Jurors in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring have reached a verdict on one count of honest services wire fraud and appear to be deadlocked on the other seven charges, AP reports.

According to the AP, "on the still-undecided counts" -- related to conspiracy, illegal gratuities and honest services wire fraud -- "jurors sent a note to the judge saying their deliberations had been contentious and that arguments had shown no sign of movement toward a verdict."

The jury has decided on the one count of honest services wire fraud that related to a $5,000 check deposited by the wife of former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif. The government alleged during the trial that Ring helped Julia Doolittle obtain a job with Abramoff's lobbying team that paid her $5,000 a month, for a total of $96,000 over about a year and a half, for little work.

The jury is not revealing its verdict on that charge and will continue deliberations on the other charges Wednesday morning.

Matthew Chiller has been brought in to work in the Washington office of CH2M Hill, an engineering, construction, and procurement firm headquartered in Colorado.

Chiller, who will serve as senior director of federal affairs, has most recently been deputy chief of staff and legislative director to Rep. Laura Richardson, D-Calif. Chiller has also been a legislative director to two other California Democrats, Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif. and the late Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Calif., and he served in the same role with former Rep. Peter Deutsch, D-Fla. He also served on the recount committee of the contested 2000 presidential election for former vice president Al Gore and his running made Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn.

Chiller has worked on transportation and infrastructure issues relevant to CH2M Hill.

The jury in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring asked for clarification today about the existence of rules that would have stopped lobbyists from giving expensive gifts to public officials under old lobbying regulations.

The jury gave a note to the judge this morning asking whether a "monetary limit" was imposed on lobbyists for gifts to public officials between 2000 and 2004. Ring is on trial for allegedly giving tickets and meals to public officials in exchange for official acts benefiting his lobbying clients during that period.

"The answer is: no monetary limits," Judge Ellen Huvelle told the jury in response.

Huvelle met with prosecution and defense lawyers today before giving her response to the jury. Both sides agreed that during the contested time period, lobbyists were not expressly prohibited from giving gifts above a certain value.

Nathaniel Edmonds, an attorney for the Department of Justice, did ask Huvelle to further instruct that "giving of a thing of value with a corrupt intent, regardless of the monetary amount, may be a violation of criminal law."

Ring's defense attorney, Andrew Wise, countered that the jury simply wanted to know if the monetary limits existed and the government's requested instruction would be "suggestive to the jury in a way that is not appropriate."

Huvelle denied Edmonds' request for the extended instruction.

Prior to 2007, when Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, lawmakers and staffers were not allowed to accept gifts from lobbyists above a value of $50 per gift, or more than $100 in gifts from a single source in a calendar year. The rules did not apply to lobbyists giving gifts, but under the new law, lobbyists are expressly prohibited from giving gifts they know lawmakers or staffers are not allowed to accept.

The jury continued its sixth day of deliberations after receiving Huvelle's instructions.

Sudan's pariah government may soon have a voice in Washington for the first time in almost four years as a lobbyist tries to secure a contract with the government, the Washington Post reports.

The lobbyist, Robert B. Crowe, who co-chairs the campaign and political action commitees of Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., has met with U.S. special envoy J. Scott Gration and several Democratic lawmakers recently about the lobbying contract, the article reports.

Some lawmakers and human rights groups are wary of allowing the government to have representation, but Crowe insists "the proposed agreement would require Sudan to take tangible steps for the relationship to continue, including allowing the return of humanitarian organizations to Darfur; allowing free and fair elections; and increasing cooperation with the United States on terrorism and other issues," according to the Post.

The Sudanese government was last represented by Robert J. Cabelly of C/R International, but that lobbying contract ended in early 2006 after receiving heavy congressional criticism.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "A series of court decisions expected this fall could put the nation on track to return to turn-of-the-century campaign finance laws," Politico reports. Among the several cases that have been taken up, "This week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear arguments in a case that opponents say could pave the way for political parties to raise unlimited amounts of money from corporations, individuals, unions and anything else with a bank account."

• "Powerful health industry groups that have held back in their criticisms of specific reform proposals will soon have to choose whether to endorse, or formally oppose, President Barack Obama's top domestic priority," The Hill reports. "The result could be a flurry of associations embracing Democratic efforts to reform the nation's healthcare system, which would likely push the legislation to Obama's desk. Or it could mirror the battle of the 1990s, when an array of healthcare groups crushed President Bill Clinton's plan, subsequently leading to the GOP takeover of Congress in 1994."

• "After months of research and groundwork, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce will launch its Campaign for Free Enterprise on Wednesday, with the goal of spurring the creation of 20 million jobs in the next decade," Politico reports. "Organizers say the multimillion-dollar program will include grass-roots advertising, national advertising, public education, outreach to opinion leaders and extensive involvement by young people."

Updated at 9:42 a.m. on Oct. 13.

Armed with a verdict form, 68 pages of jury instructions, notes taken during the trial and several binders full of evidence, the jury in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring spent the better part of last week deliberating on eight separate criminal counts.

How the trial will turn out, no one can know, but it is possible Ring will be found guilty on some counts but not others. In Judge Ellen Huvelle's instructions, the jury is specifically warned not to let the verdict on one count impact another.

"The fact that you may find the defendant guilty or not guilty on any one count of the indictment should not control or influence your verdict with respect to the other counts of the indictment," she said.

Split verdicts are sometimes the result of "jury compromise," said Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia University with expertise in federal criminal law.

"Jurors from time to time believe that one way out of difficult deliberations is by rendering a unanimous split verdict," Richman said. But a jury finding a defendant guilty on some counts and not guilty on other counts is not the most common circumstance, because "by and large juries understand cases in broad brush strokes," he added.

Here is a guide to the charges that the jury is deliberating on:

Continue reading Ring Trial: Defining The Charges

We are honoring Christopher Columbus today and will return tomorrow.

Hours after short remarks accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama sent a special email to his supporters via Organizing for America, the grassroots arm of the Democratic National Committee.

Saying the Nobel award was "a call to action," Obama wrote that the prize "belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a better place ... I'm grateful that you'd stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come."

Text of his email below:

This morning, Michelle and I awoke to some surprising and humbling news. At 6 a.m., we received word that I'd been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009.

To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.

But I also know that throughout history the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes.

That is why I've said that I will accept this award as a call to action, a call for all nations and all peoples to confront the common challenges of the 21st century. These challenges won't all be met during my presidency, or even my lifetime. But I know these challenges can be met so long as it's recognized that they will not be met by one person or one nation alone.

This award -- and the call to action that comes with it -- does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.

So today we humbly recommit to the important work that we've begun together. I'm grateful that you've stood with me thus far, and I'm honored to continue our vital work in the years to come.

Thank you,

President Barack Obama

It's President Obama versus the lobbyists again.

Obama on Friday afternoon criticized the U.S.Chamber of Commerce for running advertisements opposing his administration's plan to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency for investors. He called the ads "false."

"Predictably, a lot of the banks and big financial firms don't like the idea of a consumer agency very much," Obama said in remarks in the White House to talk about the new agency. "In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending millions on an ad campaign to kill it. You might have seen some of these ads -- the ones that claim that local butchers and other small businesses somehow will be harmed by this agency. This is, of course, completely false -- and we've made clear that only businesses that offer financial services would be affected by this agency."

He then went on blast lobbyists in the financial services sector in general.

"All this hasn't stopped the big financial firms and their lobbyists from mobilizing against change. They're doing what they always do -- descending on Congress, using every bit of influence they have to maintain the status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers, despite the fact that recently a whole bunch of those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made. And since they're worried they may not be able to kill this agency, they're trying their hardest to weaken it -- by asking for exemptions from this agency's rules and enforcement; by fighting to keep every gap and loophole they can find."

Earlier this year, some lobbyists who do alot of fundraising had told me it was harder to round up campaign donations from fellow lobbyists because many were worried about how the recession might impact their jobs. Others said they had "campaign fatigue" from the presidential election and weren't going to give money for awhile.

Whatever the reason, donations have fallen from the lobbying community this year. Numbers published in a report by the Center for Responsive Politics,showed that donations have dropped by 27 percent between the first quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2009, according to its analysis of lobbying reports. During that same time period, the number of unique donors to members of Congress from across all industries rose by 1 percent.

Click here to see the report.

A federal grand jury in Washington that is probing possible criminal conflicts of interest involving former Interior Secretary Gale Norton's official and private dealings in 2006 with Royal Dutch Shell has recently issued subpoenas to both Norton and Shell, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

The grand jury subpoenas are part of a criminal investigation launched earlier this year by the Public Integrity Section at Justice into whether Norton may have broken a federal law in 2006 when the Interior Department granted three lucrative oil shale leases on federal lands in Colorado to Shell which later in the year hired her as general counsel for its unconventional fuels unit in the United States. The Colorado based unit focuses on exploration and production, including shale projects.

The Justice probe is focused primarily on whether Norton broke a law that bars government officials from negotiating future jobs with a company that stands to benefit from official actions.

Asked to comment on the grand jury subpoenas, a Shell spokesman said that the company is "aware of an investigation by the Department of Justice and we will cooperate with any lawful processes. We are unable to provide further comment on the investigation."

Norton did not return calls seeking comment. Herbert Fenster, an attorney with McKenna Long & Aldridge who has represented Norton in the past, also declined to comment.

Continue reading Grand Jury Probing Former Secretary Norton

Dow has tapped Kevin Kolevar, the former managing director at ClearView Energy Partners, to lead its public policy and issues management efforts. He will work with the government affairs team to help the company leverage business opportunities that arise from public policy developments. He will not register to lobby.

Kolevar was previously Assistant Secretary of Energy for Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, working on Department of Energy electric grid efforts. Before that, he served as chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of Energy. He has also served as a staffer to former Sens. Connie Mack, R-Fla., and Spencer Abraham, R-Mich.

For his new post, he will leave Washington D.C. for Midland, Michigan.

Advocacy and lobbying stories from this week's National Journal: (subscription)

• Bank Of America Lawyers Up: A swarm of federal and state probes into disputes about Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch last year has put the mega-bank in the media spotlight. It has also fueled a bonanza for Washington and New York City law firms that have strong white-collar criminal practices.
• New Helmsman, Heavy Seas At NAB:During his 12 years in the Senate, Oregon Republican Gordon Smith earned a reputation as a bridge-builder, team player, and nice guy. Now he hopes to bring that spirit of camaraderie to the National Association of Broadcasters, one of Washington's most powerful and fractious trade groups.
• From On The Move:The Environmental Working Group has lured Heather White back to serve as chief of staff and general counsel. White, 36, comes over from the National Wildlife Federation, but she first joined the working group after a stint on Al Gore's 2000 presidential campaign. Another new hire at the Environmental Working Group is Nils Bruzelius, 62, who will be the group's executive editor. Formerly a deputy national editor for science at The Washington Post, he joined the newspaper in 2002 and recently took a buyout.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Several of the biggest departments in the federal government plan to adhere to the White House prohibition on lobbyists serving on their advisory boards and committees," The Hill reports. "The Hill contacted all 20 Cabinet-level agencies to see if they intend to follow the guidance issued two weeks ago by the White House. Twelve agencies returned messages before press time and all said they would adhere to the guidelines."

• "A coalition of business groups is worried that Senate Democratic leaders will not hold a confirmation hearing on President Barack Obama's nominee for a key post at the Labor Department," The Hill reports. "Concerned that the nomination of David Michaels to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) will go straight to the floor, industry groups are lobbying for a committee hearing. The business associations want senators to grill Michaels on how he would address 'ergonomic' workplace injuries, including carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive-motion ailments."

• "In almost any other congressional debate," Thursday "would have been when powerful special interests open fire on a bill that violates the handshake deals they'd reached with lawmakers," Politico reports. "But as Democrats in both chambers advanced proposals... that conflict with agreements struck with the pharmaceutical and hospital industries, the business groups are calmly riding the wave of reform."

• "Nearly a year after former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was arrested and accused of running state government as a criminal enterprise, legislators have reached a stalemate with a powerful reform-advocacy group regarding limits on political-campaign contributions," the Wall Street Journal (subscription) reports.

A coalition of state and student loan professionals announced a campaign this week to protect choice and services in federal student loans. The initiative is a reaction to a bill passed by the House last month to convert the federally subsidized private student-lending industry into a direct loan program run by the Education Department.

According the campaign, up to 35,000 jobs will be lost if the House bill becomes law. The supporters of the initiative are also concerned about loss of choice, competition and value-added services such as financial literacy education.

As an alternative to the House bill, which would save up to $87 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office, ProtectStudentChoice.org supports the Community Proposal. Developed by the student loan industry, the Community Proposal would preserve private banks' ability to originate federally-guaranteed loans and generate similar savings, albeit less than the House version.

Continue reading Student Loan Industry Advocates For Choice

Cross posted from TechDailyDose:

Google's Washington office is growing (again).

Frannie Wellings, (at right) a top aide to Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., has announced she will join the Internet giant in three to six weeks as a federal policy outreach manager. It's a new role for Google that will utilize Wellings's background in consumer protection and technology issues. She will lead the company's work with trade groups, think tanks, and advocacy groups, serving as a liaison to the community and soliciting input and advice on Google's public policy positions.

Before joining Dorgan's office in 2007, Wellings was associate policy director for media watchdog Free Press. She has a master's degree in communications from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree in psychology from Arizona State University.

Google also welcomed Mistique Cano as manager of global communications and public affairs. Cano previously served as vice president of communications for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights and Pennsylvania press secretary for the presidential campaign of Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. She has a degree from the George Washington University.

Cross posted from our energy topics page:

Seeking to turn the tables in the controversy over high-profile defections from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Tom Donohue told reporters today that members are facing orchestrated pressure from environmental groups to quit the chamber and that his organization fully supports taking action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

In an hour-long sit-down with about a dozen reporters this morning at the chamber's headquarters, Donohue repeatedly said that he's "not particularly worried" about the recent defections, which have included Apple and the major utilities Exelon, PNM Resources and Pacific Gas & Electric.

"I'm worried about making sure people understand what we believe, what we're trying to achieve and who we're trying to do this for," he said. He didn't, however, say which environmental groups were pressuring the chamber's members.

Continue reading Chamber Fires Back At Attacks

The defense in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring called for a mistrial today after the jury foreman informed the judge that a barred piece of evidence had been included in the jurors' packets, Main Justice is reporting.

Judge Ellen Huvelle did not call a mistrial, but gave the jury instructions to disregard the piece of evidence -- the plea deal for Robert Coughlin, a former liaison in the Department of Justice's Office of Legislative Affairs.

Huvelle "explained that Coughlin's plea deal was in no way evidence of Ring's guilt and that he did not plead guilty to any of the charges Ring is facing," according to Main Justice.

In one charge, the government alleges that Ring gave Coughlin meals and sports and entertainment tickets in exchange for assistance in obtaining a $16.3 million jail-building grant from the Department of Justice for a client, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, and other matters. In another charge, the government alleges Ring gave Coughlin eight Washington Wizards basketball tickets in exchange for assistance in gaining an expedited admittance from the Immigration and Naturalization Service for students wanting to attend a school founded by Abramoff.

Coughlin's plea deal was introduced as evidence by the government, and though it had been struck as evidence, it remained in the jury's binders. The jury foreman told the judge today he had given the plea deal a "cursory" review before realizing it was mistakenly included in the binders, Main Justice reports. Coughlin was not called to testify in the trial.

Jury deliberations began on Monday afternoon, and after this morning's interruption, are now continuing.

Law and lobbying firm Hogan & Hartson is in talks with United Kingdom based Lovells to create a firm with 2,500 attorneys, the blog of Legal Times reported.

Hogan & Hartson has long been one of the top lobbying firms in Washington, though it like other D.C. law firms with lobbying arms, has suffered from the downturn in the economy. For the first half of 2009, the firm posted lobbying revenue of $8.92 million, down 13 percent from a year ago, we reported.

The National Law Journal's story on the merger's potential implications for Hogan can be found here. (subscription.)

Does money buy access in the health care debate? Check out this story from the Associated Press today.

The National Republican Congressional Committee has raised $1.3 million since June by targeting doctors and asking them to join in fighting "any proposal that creates a government-run health care system in America," the AP said.

In exchange for a $5,000 check, the doctors get face time with "key decisionmakers" in Washington, and "media training" on how they can enlist others to join the campaign, according to a brochure obtained by the AP. Contributors were promised "special closed door briefings" or recognition on a Web site.

The Center for Reproductive Rights has announced that Laura MacCleery will be opening up its Washington office and working as director of government relations and communications.

MacCleery, who is moving from New York for the job, grew up in Alexandria, Va. "My father was a Reagan-era political appointee, so I've been talking about public policy over the dinner table since I was 7 years old," MacCleery said.

Her father, Douglas MacCleery, was a deputy assistant secretary in the Agriculture Department. Laura MacCleery spent eight years with the watchdog group Public Citizen, and she finished up as director of the group's Congress Watch. In New York, she was deputy director of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School. MacCleery went to the University of Virginia and to law school at Stanford University.

"I've always cared about women's issues," she said. "This is an issue that we've lost a lot of ground on. I think we need a new movement to make a full range of reproductive health choices available."

(Photo provided by MacCleery)

At a recent training session on social media attended by grassroots conservative activists, Austin James of American Majority encouraged conservatives to give low ratings to books about President Obama on Amazon.com and to write reviews that aim to dissuade users from buying the books -- or buying into Obama's ideas.

James spoke Friday about engaging in "guerrilla warfare" against liberals online at Americans for Prosperity's "Defending the American Dream Summit," where conservatives cheered when Chicago lost its Olympic bid. Americans for Prosperity has been a key force in trying to channel the anti-Obama vitriol into a viable political movement through efforts such as tea parties.

"What if I went to every Obama book I could find and I went 'one star, one star, one star?'" James asked the crowd. "I mean, 80 percent of the books that I view and put stars on online, I never read, people. That's just how it works."

Continue reading Conservative Promotes Online 'Guerrilla Warfare'

• "The Federal Election Commission" today "is expected to vote on whether the agency will begin rewriting long-awaited rules involving provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "A spokesman on Wednesday said the agency's six commissioners are tentatively scheduled to decide at today's 2 p.m. meeting whether to restart the rule-making process to comply with a court order in a case brought by former Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.)."

• "In the months since soldiers ousted the Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, the de facto government and its supporters have resisted demands from the United States that he be restored to power. Arguing that the left-leaning Mr. Zelaya posed a threat to their country's fragile democracy by trying to extend his time in office illegally, they have made their case in Washington in the customary way: by starting a high-profile lobbying campaign," the New York Times reports.

• "As the lobbying battle over net neutrality is reaching a fever pitch, opponents are crying foul after a top staffer to Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) announced her departure for Google," Roll Call (subscription) also reports. "The Internet search giant has been aggressively supporting enactment of net neutrality rules, which would prevent phone and cable companies from discriminating against some types of online content."

With the big rollout for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's much touted project to build a national grassroots movement to back "free enterprise" in areas ranging from trade to regulation to taxation set for Oct. 14, the group's feisty leader Tom Donohue earlier this month penned a memo to his board to inform them fundraising efforts "focused on individuals who have done exceedingly well in a free enterprise system, are right on target."

To sustain the multi-year effort, which will feature lots of expensive ads on television and other media, the Chamber is trying to raise some $100 million--without poaching too much on its traditional corporate base of financing lest it "rob Peter to pay Paul," says one source.

Dubbed "American Free Enterprise--Dream Big," the Chamber has spent long hours previewing the campaign for its executive committee and this week is hosting a session in California where more details are being provided at the group's semi annual meeting of its "committee of 100." It's official launch is Oct. 14, the group announced today.

Donohue's seven page memo to the Chamber board also includes some interesting tidbits about other top issues on its agenda such as health care and free trade plus a somewhat combative discussion of the recent defections of a few big Chamber members including PG&E and Apple over the business lobby's stance on climate change issues.

In Donohue's view, the departures and the media coverage of them are "an outgrowth of an orchestrated campaign by some environmental groups to pressure companies and the Chamber into supporting specific approaches to climate change that we believe just wouldn't work--such as the House passed Waxman-Markey bill or EPA's go-it- alone effort to impose costly new greenhouse gas regulations across our society without legislation."

See memo here. Chamber memo.pdf

(Photo of Donohue by Liz Lynch)

Just a few years ago, lobbyist Jack Abramoff wielded an "endless expense account" and "nearly endless tickets" for entertaining public officials, a former "Team Abramoff" lobbyist said in testimony during the trial of Kevin Ring, another former member of the lobbying team. So much has changed since, though, that the decision in the case -- which went to the jury this week -- is unlikely to impact the lobbying industry.

"Congress has already legislatively dealt with the problems that are being illustrated in this trial," said Marc Elias, an attorney with Perkins Coie who specializes in ethics and white collar criminal matters.

In 2007, largely as a reaction to the Abramoff scandal and others like it, Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act, which increased lobbying disclosure requirements and further restricted gifts to lawmakers and staffers.

The trial has illustrated how different life was for lobbyists not long ago. The government alleges that between 2000 and 2004, Ring used sports and entertainment tickets, meals and drinks to influence public officials and reward them for acts that benefited his clients.

In presenting evidence, the government has valued some of those restaurant tabs and sought-after tickets -- including 2002 NCAA tournament games and floor seats to Wizards basketball games -- at hundreds of dollars. Abramoff's lobbying team spent more than $5.1 million on suites at D.C.-area sporting venues in the five-year time period, according to an estimate by the FBI presented during the trial. And Ann Copland, a former aide to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., received personal gifts valued at about $25,000 from members of Team Abramoff including Ring, according to a Department of Justice estimate that Copland cited during testimony.

Continue reading Trial Shows Much Has Changed Post-Abramoff

Lawmakers can expect to hear from quite a few union members about health care reform today. Local leaders from the AFL-CIO will be on Capitol Hill delivering 42,000 letters from union members.

The union has also proclaimed Wednesday is "National Call-In Day for Health Care Reform." The AFL-CIO has even taken the hard work out of contacting a lawmaker -- a tool on its Web site will dial the appropriate senator's office and provides talking points.

The AFL-CIO supports a public option and employer mandate and opposes any form of taxing health benefits, either directly or indirectly via a tax on insurance companies for higher-priced plans.

Read a full profile of the AFL-CIO's health care lobbying efforts here.

Scott Corley, the director of government affairs at Microsoft, is leaving to join Monument Policy Group where he will be senior vice president of government affairs.

At Microsoft, Corley was charged with lobbying Senate Republicans. He worked with Compete America, an immigration coalition, in favor of immigration reform. Republicans will remain his focus, he said, with his issues including immigration and technology. Corley's own Hill experience includes tenures on the staffs of former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., and former Rep. Jim Rogan, R-Calif.

Before joining Microsoft, he was director of government relations for the Information Technology Industry Council. He hails from Fort Worth, Tex.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Even as health care continues to dominate Capitol Hill, lobbyists are ramping up their efforts behind the scenes to add legislative sweeteners to a tax bill Congress is expected to take up before the end of the year," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Lobbyists say they believe Congress will be forced to act because the estate tax and a popular tax credit for companies doing research and development are set to expire at the end of the year."

• "Lobbyists are redoubling efforts to advance tax and spending provisions as President Barack Obama considers additional options to bolster the economy," The Hill reports. "The renewed focus on fiscal stimulus measures comes as unemployment numbers have worsened."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce's CEO Thomas Donohue sent the following letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in response to the company's decision to drop its membership in the business group over its stance on climate change legislation.

See the letter in full and after the jump:

Mr. Steven P. Jobs
Chief Executive Officer
Apple Inc.
One Infinite Loop
Cupertino, CA 95014

Dear Mr. Jobs:

I am sorry to learn of Apple's resignation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is unfortunate that your company didn't take the time to understand the Chamber's position on climate and forfeited the opportunity to advance a 21st century approach to climate change.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. Furthermore, we believe that Congress should set climate change policy through legislation, rather than having the EPA apply existing environmental statutes that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is also the stated position of the President and Congressional leaders.

Your letter states that "Apple is committed to the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world." So is the Chamber but we are also committed to preserving the competitiveness and prosperity of the communities and businesses in our nation.

While we do support legislation to address climate change, we oppose legislation such as the Waxman-Markey bill that numerous studies show will cause Americans to lose their jobs and shift greenhouse gas emissions overseas, negating potential climate benefits. An effective climate change response must include all major CO2 emitting economies, promote new technologies, emphasize efficiency, ensure affordable energy for families and businesses, and defend American jobs while returning our economy to prosperity.

Continue reading U.S. Chamber CEO Responds To Apple Departure

With Congress primed to tackle reform of the financial services sector, the beleaguered Mortgage Bankers Association finally has landed a Democratic lobbyist. Tom Koonce, who starts work as the MBA's new vice pesident of legislative afairs next month, is a one-time legislative affairs director for Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., a member of the House Committee on Financial Services. The hiring of Koonce, who comes to the job from the Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America, partially offsets the group's loss of two other Democratic lobbyists this summer: Francis Creighton, who left to join the staff of Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn, and Catherine Cruz Wojtasik who went to work for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. It's a rare bit of good news for a group that has struggled with budget woes, layoffs, and a split among members.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk on "Monday defended a new White House policy that would trim federally registered lobbyists from the ranks of agency advisory boards and commissions, a move that has drawn a rebuke from the trade community," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "The Obama administration policy, first announced Sept. 23 by Norm Eisen, special counsel for ethics and government reform, on the White House blog, is part of the administration's efforts to clamp down on lobbyists' influence in Washington."

• SEIU "is coming under fire from conservatives because of its long-standing financial and leadership ties to ACORN, a liberal organizing group recently embarrassed by videos filmed covertly," the Washington Post reports. "Some Republicans say federal agencies that recently cut ties with ACORN -- the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now -- should also consider severing their relationship with the Service Employees International Union. The SEIU and ACORN have long worked closely together, with the union paying the association more than $3.6 million in the past three years and sharing some office locations and leaders with the group."

• "A mining company owned by Goldman Sachs and two private equity funds is in line to get a $3 million earmark for work at a rare earth elements mine in Mountain Pass, Calif. -- raising questions as to why Congress would take on some of the risk for a bailed-out investment giant that's already making a profit," Politico reports. "Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) inserted the earmark for the mine into the House Defense appropriations bill, and backers say it's a legitimate national security concern. The military needs rare earth elements, and China -- which is rich in them -- has threatened to cut off exports. But some government watchdogs question whether taxpayers should be asked to prop up a project that is already funded by wealthy investors who expect to make a profit."

• "The political committees of Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and former Rep. Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) have been accused of scheming to conceal a contribution from Pickering to Vitter in violation of federal campaign finance laws," Politico reports. "The Louisiana Democratic Party plans to file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission today, charging that Barbour's PAC essentially filtered a $5,000 campaign donation from Pickering's PAC to Louisiana Vitter's 2010 reelection committee to make it look like the contribution didn't come directly from Pickering."

Since August, Under the Influence has profiled the 25 top-spending groups involved in the health care debate, based on the amount of money devoted to all lobbying activities in the first half of 2009.

To find out which groups want a public option, how much money they've spent on TV advertising, where key players are going to voice concerns and much more, read all of the profiles here.

The "Health Care Players" for the first half of 2009 are:

Alliance For Quality Nursing Home Care
This coalition represents 16 long-term care providers, including HCR Manor Care Corp., Kindred Healthcare, Genesis HealthCare Corporation, Sun Healthcare Group and Extendicare, which all made the top 10 of Provider Magazine's 2009 ranking of the top nursing facility chains by number of beds.

What They Want
Since nursing homes receive payments from Medicare for health care services, the Alliance wants to see the Medicare reimbursement system changed to reflect patient need and services provided. Currently, the payment system is partially based on what kind of facility provides the care.

"Medicare funding policies should therefore encourage movement of patients into the lowest cost setting capable of providing high quality care and services to meet both patients' specific needs and choice," the Alliance's president, Alan Rosenbloom, said in an e-mail from his staff. He would not participate in an interview.

Deal Breakers
The Alliance insists that health care legislation provide for Medicare funding that will adequately support the long-term health care sector.

The group believes that the bill proposed by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., addresses this issue more appropriately than legislation proposed in the House.

"Senator Baucus has moved the process forward in a positive manner, and demonstrates the necessary recognition that Medicare funding for our sector simply cannot be viewed in isolation from Medicaid," Rosenbloom said in a press release after Baucus released his proposed health care legislation last month.

Continue reading Alliance: Medicare Funding Affects Nursing Homes

In the trial of Kevin Ring, a former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, dozens of names of lobbyists and public officials have been thrown around, countless sporting events and concerts have been discussed and meal after meal has been questioned. But in its final words Monday before the jury was to begin deliberations, the prosecution reminded the 12 individuals who will reach a verdict exactly who was on trial.

"Today is about Kevin Ring," Michael Ferrara, an attorney for the Department of Justice, said during the prosecution's rebuttal of the defense's closing arguments. "It all comes down to Mr. Ring's intent -- no one else's. It is his words [in e-mails] that make his intent plain as day."

But while focusing on Ring, the prosecution also reminded the jury that he was allegedly part of a larger story. To date, 20 people have been convicted, pleaded guilty or are awaiting trial in relation to the Abramoff scandal, and the prosecution questioned how Ring could be the only one who was not guilty.

Ring "wants you to believe everyone got it wrong except him," Ferrara said. "It doesn't make sense, ladies and gentlemen. This was a team -- Team Abramoff."

Continue reading Ring Trial Heads To Jury Deliberations

Apple Computer is the latest company to quit the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the group's stance on climate change legislation, highlighting the ongoing internal dissension within the business lobbying group on its advocacy approach to legislation aimed at curbing greenhouse gases.

The story was broken by the New York Times. See here.

Apple joins Pacific Gas & Energy, Public Service Company of New Mexico, and Exelon in withdrawing from the group over the issue. Nike last week withdrew from the board of the chamber but remains a member.

In response to Apple's move, Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass. and chair of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming said:

"While the U.S. Chamber has been looking to shoot down clean energy legislation at every turn, the defection of more and more companies over these issues are turning them into an 'empty chamber.'"

"We need a constructive discussion of the issues, not scare-mongering and Scopes monkey trials. Clean energy represents the future of business, and American companies and workers are ready to lead the world in the race for new technologies."

The government relied on questionable witnesses and did not meet its burden of proof in the trial of former lobbyist Kevin Ring, the defense asserted in its closing arguments today.

"You've been treated to a case that's been long on slogans -- that's been long on guilt by association," Andrew Wise, Ring's attorney, told the jury. But the government's case "has been very short on evidence."

He recalled the testimonies of four cooperating witnesses who have already pleaded guilty for involvement in the Jack Abramoff scandal: Todd Boulanger and Neil Volz, former lobbying associates of Ring and Abramoff; John Albaugh, chief of staff to former Rep. Ernest Istook, R-Okla.; and Ann Copland, former legislative aide to Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss.

Wise referred to the four as witnesses "whose testimony you must have questions about," and he questioned whether Boulanger in particular "was taking this whole process seriously." The cooperating witnesses "had reasons to tell you things that would help them, even if they hurt Mr. Ring," he said.

The defense also contended that the government failed to provide necessary evidence and witnesses to prove Ring's guilt.

Noting that Ring's ties to former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., are "at the core of this case," Wise reminded the jury that "you heard not one word from a single member of that office."

Continue reading Ring Attorney: Prosecution Did Not Do Its Job

Representatives of more than 100 major American corporations are descending on the Capitol to urge Congress to act quickly on climate change legislation. Events and advertising buys from two business coalitions highlight this week's energy agenda, following last week's introduction of the Kerry-Boxer legislation.

The umbrella business group We Can Lead is hosting a two-day conference in Washington this week, where a reported 150 corporate leaders are slated to attend meetings with top White House and congressional leaders. The participating companies represent a wide range of business interests, including Exelon, Duke Energy, Starbucks and eBay. On Wednesday morning, the execs are scheduled to meet with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke at the White House, and Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is speaking at a dinner Tuesday evening.

Several of the same companies involved in WCL's efforts, including Duke Energy, Austin Energy and Public Service Enterprise Group, are also involved in a seven-figure advertising push. The new print ad, running in national and inside-the-beltway publications, urges the Senate to "pass clean energy legislation with a cap on greenhouse gas emissions this year."

Continue reading Big Push By Energy Lobbyists

In closing arguments today in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, the prosecution focused on evidence from e-mails to use Ring's "own words" as proof of criminal intent behind the gifts he provided to public officials.

"The point this case is going to come down to is what was Mr. Ring's intent when he gave all those tickets and all those meals," said Michael Leotta, an attorney for the Department of Justice.

Leotta acknowledged that the e-mails used as evidence by the prosecution did not show Ring or other members of "Team Abramoff" plainly admitting to conspiracy, honest services fraud or illegal gratuities. "Nobody talks that way," Leotta said.

But the e-mails do explicitly show Ring's criminal intent without using the legal jargon, he said.

"We want anyone who will really, really help us with specific stuff," read one e-mail Leotta referenced that was sent from Abramoff to Ring about a proposed trip to the 2001 Super Bowl. "That was them discussing honest services fraud," Leotta contended.

Continue reading Prosecution: E-mails Show Ring's Criminal Intent

New York Times columnist Frank Rich aims his biting commentary at Democrats on K Street in this week's column -- particularly at lobbyists Tony and Heather Podesta.

Rich writes:

"...you have to wonder what some of the Obama era's most moneyed and White House-connected lobbyists were thinking as they preened before a Washington Post reporter recently for two lengthy articles. We're not even nine months into the new administration, yet these swaggering, utterly un-self-aware influence peddlers seem determined to prove that nothing except the party affiliations has changed in the Beltway's pay-for-play culture since Tom DeLay. If these lobbyists were stocks, I'd short them."

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "A tide of anger and dismay is rippling down K Street as the Obama administration implements a new policy limiting the roles of lobbyists on federal advisory committees," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The policy change, described by the White House as the next step in President Barack Obama's drive to limit influence-peddling in Washington, could affect hundreds of lobbyists who serve on the panels, which were created by Congress in the 1970s to provide private-sector advice to the government."

• "Charlie Black, one of the best-known names in Washington consulting and lobbying over the past 29 years, told POLITICO that his lobbying shop will announce a merger Monday with Timmons and Co., one of the city's first stand-alone lobbying firms," Politico reports. "Black's firm, BKSH & Associates Worldwide, has about 30 people, and Timmons and Co. has about 10. The combined firm, to be called Prime Policy Group, will have 24 senior lobbyists: 13 Democrats and 11 Republicans."

• "The Democratic takeover on Capitol Hill happened more than two years ago, but K Street lobby shops are still feeling the pressure to turn left," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "While the number of all-Republican lobby shops has dwindled, firms that have made the switch to become bipartisan are still working to bring up the numbers of Democrats on their books. Navigators Global is the most recent example of a shop switching course. Navigators shed four senior Republican employees in recent weeks as the firm has focused its efforts to become more bipartisan."

• "Lobbyists are bracing themselves for the impending political fallout surrounding Sen. John Ensign, following allegations that the once-powerful Nevada Republican may have violated ethics rules in helping a former aide-turned-lobbyist secure business," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Republicans on K Street quickly tried to tamp down any speculation that the recent accusations will lead Ensign to resign... Still, Ensign's near-pariah status on Capitol Hill has limited his usefulness to lobbyists, despite his positions on the powerful Finance Committee and Commerce, Science and Transportation panel. As Senate Republicans have largely benched Ensign, K Streeters have taken that as a cue to distance themselves from him, according to one veteran Republican lobbyist."

After the prosecution spent more than two weeks calling witnesses and presenting evidence in the criminal case against former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, the jury may have been surprised to find that the defense would not call any witnesses and Ring himself would not testify.

Though jurors are always instructed against drawing inferences from a defense decision not to call witnesses or a defendant's decision not to testify -- since it is the prosecution's legal responsibility to prove guilt -- the defense's apparent lack of a case can have an impact in the real world, legal experts say.

"The jury sees Mr. Ring sitting in the courtroom every day, and yet they don't hear from him," said Marc Elias, an attorney with Perkins Coie who specializes in ethics and white collar criminal matters. The jurors "are human beings. They listen to jury instruction, but you can never be sure."

Ring's attorneys, Andrew Wise and Timothy O'Toole, expressed frustration in court because witnesses they wanted to call, who had worked in the office of former Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., invoked their Fifth Amendment rights. They said those witnesses -- former Doolittle staffers Peter Evich and David Lopez -- would have given crucial details about Ring's relationship with Doolittle's office.

Before joining Abramoff's lobbying team, Ring was a staffer in Doolittle's office, and prosecution witnesses in the trial described Doolittle as Ring's main "champion" on Capitol Hill.

"None of the speakers are here, and we're trying to do what we can to get some context in front of the jury," O'Toole said during trial proceedings.

Continue reading Ring Defense Obscured As Witnesses Plead Fifth

After mulling for two days over jury instructions in the trial of former Jack Abramoff associate Kevin Ring, Judge Ellen Huvelle filed them last night.

The instructions, 68 pages long, provide step-by-step explanations of each count for which Ring is being tried.

The document also includes some specific instructions that highlight the complexity of the case, given that the Abramoff investigation dates back to 2004. For example, the instructions acknowledge that four of the witnesses and others who were mentioned during the trial "have pleaded guilty to crimes that arose out of the same events for which Kevin Ring is on trial here." But, the instructions warn, the jurors "must not consider those guilty pleas as any evidence of Mr. Ring's guilt."

Closing arguments are expected on Monday morning, and then the jury will begin deliberations.

Read the jury instructions here.

Advocacy and lobbying story from this week's National Journal: (subscription)

• In Who's Watching The Lobbyists?: Bara Vaida looks into the question of lobbying enforcement. She interviews Keith Morgan, the U.S. Attorney of District of Columbia official who oversees enforcement activity.
• Coal Industry Digs In: Robert Murray, head of the nation's largest privately owned coal-mining company, recently came to Washington to lobby against congressional efforts to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions from coal-fired power plants and other sources. Margaret Kriz Hobson interviews Murray.
• Finance Lobby Still Opposed To New Agency: House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., has scaled back legislation sought by the Obama administration to create a consumer financial-protection agency after months of intense lobbying by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business and banking groups, reports Peter Stone.
• In On The Move: Security maven Anthony Tether has joined the Livingston Group as a strategic adviser. He is the former director of the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a post he held from 2001 until earlier this year.

Action in the trial of Kevin Ring, former associate of imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has lagged this week as the court determined jury instructions.

But the proceedings will continue next week with closing arguments still expected on Monday morning. Check back with Under the Influence for updates from the courthouse during closing arguments and as the jury comes to a decision.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., arranged for Douglas Hampton, husband of his mistress, "to join a political consulting firm and lined up several donors as his lobbying clients, according to interviews, e-mail messages and other records. Mr. Ensign and his staff then repeatedly intervened on the companies' behalf with federal agencies, often after urging from Mr. Hampton," the New York Times reports. "Several experts say those activities may have violated an ethics law that bars senior aides from lobbying the Senate for a year after leaving their posts."

• "Organized labor is turning to House Democrats to oppose a tax on high-cost insurance plans that is under consideration to help pay for healthcare reform," The Hill reports. "Unions are blasting the idea in the Senate Finance Committee bill, as many union members would be affected because they either have expensive insurance to cover dangerous professions or negotiated for better benefits instead of higher wages."

• "Still jittery that lawmakers might revive a proposal to tax sugary beverages to help offset costs of a healthcare overhaul, a coalition of beverage and food makers vows to continue a multimillion-dollar anti-tax advertising campaign until the bitter end," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports. "None of the current House or Senate drafts of healthcare legislation contain language that would impose a surcharge on sodas or alcohol to pay for major healthcare initiatives, but an industry alliance, Americans Against Food Taxes, continues to devote resources to maintain public awareness of its opposition."

• "Leaders at smaller trade groups worry they could be particularly hurt by a new White House ban on lobbyists serving on advisory committees," The Hill reports. "They argue that their organizations do not have the staff or the money to hire more employees to get around the new rule. Executives at these associations often do double duty, managing the trade group and lobbying on their industry's behalf."

Brett Kappel, a specialist in campaign finance and ethics regulations, has left Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease and joined Arent Fox's government relations practice, where he will be of counsel.

On Vorys' website, Kappel's bio says he "has been representing clients in Federal Election Commission enforcement proceedings for nearly 20 years, during which he obtained the dismissal of charges against his clients without the payment of any fine in all but a handful of cases."

Kappel received his JD from the University of Virginia School of Law, where he was a Dillard Fellow and the Notes Editor for the Journal of Law & Politics. He received his BA summa cum laude from the State University of New York at Albany.

Health Care For America Now, a coalition of groups pushing for health care reform including a public option, announced a $1 million television ad buy attacking the insurance industry Thursday.

Before this buy, the coalition had already spent $7 million this year on advertising, according to the coalition's spokeswoman, Jacki Schechner.

The coalition consists of some of the top-spending groups involved in the health care debate, like the AFL-CIO, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the SEIU and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

The ad contrasts an image of UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley's home with an image of a foreclosed home. "If the insurance companies win, you lose," the ad concludes. "We need good health care we can afford with the choice of a public health insurance option."

The ad will air for two weeks nationally on MSNBC and on local channels in four targeted markets: Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Maine and Minneapolis.

View the ad, called "Mansion," here.

The free-market group Americans for Prosperity is launching a $1.7 million ad blitz on October 5 attacking health reform legislation in Congress. The spots will run for one week on national cable stations.

The ads, which are the handiwork of Patients First, one of AFP's two health care projects, feature a female doctor talking broadly about problems with the bills working their way through Congress, and stress that it would be better to "fix medicare first," given its financial state.

Stay tuned for more commercials this month from AFP, which sources say has raised upwards of $20 million this year for its health care ads and related efforts. The outfit has spent about $5 million so far on the campaign. "We're going to continue pushing hard as long as Congress is debating health care," says Amy Menefee, the group's communications director.

From this morning's Earlybird:

• "Activist shareholders are pressuring companies such as Nike to pull out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, arguing that the trade group's stance against climate change legislation is incompatible with the companies' own positions," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Green Century Funds, Newground Social Investment and others sent letters to Nike CEO Mark Parker, urging the company to go beyond its decision Wednesday to step down from the chamber's board of directors."

• "A key Senate negotiator trying to advance a contentious union-organizing bill said a modified version could pass the upper chamber this year, despite his reservations with the changes," The Hill reports. "Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) is one of a half-dozen senators trying to craft a compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), which if passed would make union organizing much easier. The labor movement considers the measure one of its top legislative priorities this Congress, but business associations have mounted an all-out lobbying offensive against the bill."