• "Seven major American and foreign banks have hired a prominent financial lawyer to lobby on legislation that would restrict how banks do business in the multitrillion-dollar derivatives market," The Hill Reports. "Edward Rosen, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb, registered as a lobbyist for the banks at the end of October and received at least $200,000 in the third quarter, according to congressional lobbying records.... Rosen has been a central player on derivatives legislation throughout the financial regulatory overhaul debate this year. "

• "The American Petroleum Institute plans to announce Thursday that Martin J. Durbin has been named its new Executive Vice President of Government Affairs," Politico reports."Durbin will join API in December from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), He replaces Jim Ford, who has worked at API for the past 10 years."

• "The House ethics committee declared in a letter issued late Wednesday that Rep. Heath Shuler (D-N.C.) did not violate the chamber's rules through his involvement in a Tennessee land-swap deal in 2007," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The ethics committee's review focused on the Cove at Blackberry Ridge LLC, a real estate development company in Loudon, Tenn., in which Shuler is an investor."

Ring was on trial on eight counts of conspiracy, illegal gratuities and honest services wire fraud, and the judge declared a mistrial after jurors announced they were deadlocked for three consecutive days. The jury originally arrived at a verdict on one of the honest services wire fraud charges, but later lost unanimity on that charge. Jurors had found Ring not guilty on that charge, but after further deliberations they split -- five to convict, six to acquit and one undecided, the juror revealed.

One sticking point for the juror, who voted to acquit, was that the government based a large part of its case on e-mails between Ring, Abramoff, other lobbyists and public officials.

Ring "could have had a lot of intentions, and those emails weren't enough to spell them out," the juror said. "If the prosecution could have discriminated between lobbying and corrupt lobbying better, then they would have made their case."

But another juror, Joy Stevenson, who voted to convict, said "the e-mail traffic" convinced her Ring was guilty. She said the e-mails showed her that Ring and the other lobbyists were "very shrewd... very careful... very strategic."

The case is set to be retried in June 2010, allowing time for the statute of limitations on potential charges against possible witnesses to expire and for the Supreme Court to hear three cases involving honest services wire fraud charges. Stevenson had some advice for the Department of Justice's next attempt at a conviction: "I think the government, I think those guys were great. I was very impressed with all of them.... But I was looking for them to pull it all together at the end. You know, bam! There was no clincher."

Nick Ryan, a spokesman for the little-known Iowa-based non-profit says that the initial cable buy will be $450,000 and that the ads might run longer depending on whether the vote is pushed back. The fund spent more than $200,000 over the last two weeks on a round of print and radio ads that have run inside the Beltway which are also aimed at killing the House bill. AFF does not disclose its funding sources.

The ads are the handiwork of GOP message man Larry McCarthy, who sparked controversy more than two decades ago as producer of the racially tinged "Willie Horton" commercials that damaged Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis. The AFF messages employ a newsy peg line: "If the government can't run a flu program, can we trust it to run America's entire health care system?"

Meanwhile, other conservative groups inside the Beltway have been running ads to influence key swing votes in the Senate. Americans for Tax Reform launched a TV blitz in Nebraska two weeks ago targeting moderate Democratic Senator Ben Nelson. The commercials are expected to run another two weeks says an ATR official. The group, he adds, is also "looking to educate voters on the tax issues" in the Senate bill in several other states where moderate Democrats worry about health care reforms in part because the final the measure is expected to include a version of the public insurance option.

At a press conference this afternoon, President Obama expressed the significance of the endorsements and thanked the groups for their support ahead of the House's scheduled Saturday vote on the bill.

"We are closer to passing this reform than ever before," Obama said, according to the AP. "Now that the doctors and medical professionals of America are standing with us, now that the organizations charged with looking out for the interests of seniors are standing with us, we are even closer."

The AARP officially endorsed the House's health care reform bill at a press conference this morning, after months of supporting the process but holding out on an endorsement.

But a new ad thanking Jack Bonner, CEO of grassroots lobbying firm Bonner & Associates, has gotten the university and center Director James Thurber into some hot water. The full-page print ad, for which American University paid Roll Call $1,523, ran on November 4 and said "Thank you Jack Bonner for over 15 years of teaching excellence." It then went on to note many of Bonner's guest lecturers, which included reporters, public relations specialists and D.C. lobbyists from associations, firms and unions.

The problem? Bonner admitted last summer that a former employee sent multiple fake grassroots letters to three House lawmakers regarding climate change legislation, which has made his firm a target for ethics questions. On Oct. 29, members of the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming grilled Bonner about his ethics. Bonner testified that he had hired AU's Thurber as an independent ethics adviser to make sure his firm never produces fake letters again.

The timing of American University's ad, one week after the hearing, makes it appear the school ran the ad to prop up Bonner's reputation. That has raised eyebrows and questions around town about why a university would come to an aide of a lobbying firm under an ethics cloud.

• "In a coup for House Democrats, AARP will endorse sweeping health care overhaul legislation headed for a history-making floor vote, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday," the AP reports. "An endorsement from the seniors' lobby was critical when then-President George W. Bush pushed the Medicare prescription drug benefit through a closely divided Congress in 2003...An announcement from the 40-million member group is expected Thursday, said officials with knowledge of the group's decision."

• "The House ethics committee is likely to exonerate five members of the Congressional Black Caucus who were accused of taking an improper trip to the Caribbean, according to sources familiar with the case," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The committee may also renew its complaint that the Office of Congressional Ethics is mishandling investigations."

• "With a White House decision on the direction of the war in Afghanistan still up in the air, and President Barack Obama considering whether to send as many as 40,000 additional U.S. troops, veterans groups on opposite sides of the debate are storming Capitol Hill this week to sway congressional opinion," Politico reports.

• "Business groups and unions are battling over a decision by a federal board that eases the rules for employees at airlines and railways to form unions," The Hill reports. "Though many airline and railroad employees covered by the Railway Labor Act are already unionized, the change could have a big impact on companies like Delta, JetBlue and Federal Express that have non-union workers."

The chamber has been under pressure from some of its members to relax its adamant opposition to climate change legislation. But outsiders' reactions to the letter ranged from cautious to hostile. On the Natural Resources Defense Counsel blog Switchboard, the group's Climate Campaign Director,  Pete Altman, said the group "welcome[d] the US Chamber's desire to sound more constructive," but that "reading in between the lines - and reading the lines themselves - raises big questions about how much the Chamber's objectives have really changed - setting aside their obvious need to strike a more conciliatory tone."

And the free-market oriented Competitive Enterprise Institute put out a press release headlined "U.S. Chamber Caves to Special Interests on Energy-Rationing Legislation" which called on "small businesses to drop their Chamber membership and join CEI in fighting this catastrophic legislation."

In an interview this week with KTVQ in Billings, Burns (who is now a registered federal lobbyist at Gage LLC) said the Department of Justice's handling of investigations allowed his name to be tarnished during the campaign, when contributions he received from Abramoff and his office's relationship with the now imprisoned lobbyist were called into question.

"If you call [the Department of Justice] up today and say, 'Well, is Conrad Burns under investigation?', they'll say, 'Well we can't confirm it, we can't deny it,'" Burns said. "Well, that allows your opponents or the press, if they've formed a perception already, to just to run wild with it."

Burns also said he was never interviewed by Justice or the House Ethics Committee, and that the government "didn't interview anybody in the office with the exception of one person." He described implications that he was involved with the Abramoff scandal as "a hoax."

Two of Burns' former staffers were mentioned during the recent trial of former Abramoff lobbying associate Kevin Ring. A former associate of Ring and Abramoff testified about an all-expenses-paid 2001 Super Bowl trip that the lobbying team planned for lawmakers and staffers. No lawmakers attended, and only two Senate staffers, Ryan Thomas and Will Brooke, both of Burns' office, made the trip. Thomas was also listed as a co-conspirator in Ring's trial for evidentiary reasons.

(Thomas is also listed as a registered lobbyist for Gage, Senate lobbying documents show)

Times are tough at the free-enterprise-oriented non-profit Competitive Enterprise Institute.

CEI, which just celebrated its 25th anniversary, is still run by its bearded, Schumpeter-quoting founder, Fred Smith, and remains popular with conservative foundations and corporations. Its combination of free-market analysis with pro-industry advocacy on a broad range of environmental and consumer issues infuriates opponents, and has been a magnet for contributions in years past. The group's fudning rose nearly 70 per cent between 2004 and 2007, peaking at $5.2 million (the group's fiscal year ended September 30th 2008.)

But this year, amidst economic turmoil, contributions are down 15 per cent and the group is running a deficit of roughly 10 per cent, Smith told National Journal's Under The Influence. That comes to about $450,000 worth of red-ink--though some sources suggest the hole may be deeper. Smith says the group's reserves have cushioned the loss and that he has seen an uptick in fundraising recently.

But the Institute's financial woes may have precipitated another loss: its Center for Risk, Regulation and Markets has decided to leave the institute and affiliate with another conservative think tank, taking most of its five person staff and likely much of its roughly $500,000 budget with it.

The Center, run by Eli Lehrer, has been especially active in fighting state-sponsored natural disaster insurance pools that compete with private reinsurers, and had opened an office in Florida to wage a steady war of words with the state government on the issue; it is poised to open a second office in Texas.

Smith and Lehrer insist the split was amicable, and mutually agreed upon. Smith said he was uncomfortable with the Center's opening of branch offices, arguing that such arrangements haven't worked well for other think tanks; Lehrer said the split was because "our project had grown a good deal, where as the rest of CEI had not."

Lehrer said he plans to decide soon between a couple competing offers to house the Center, while the Institute says it plans to continue doing work on insurance issues as well.

(Photo of Fred Smith from CEI)

Citing $700,000 in campaign contributions from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the defense industry, Change Congress accused Burr of putting special interests before rape victims.

Introduced by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., the legislation would stop federal funding for defense contractors who used mandatory arbitration clauses to deny victims of assault the right to bring their case to court. A protective measure inspired by the story of Jamie Leigh Jones, an American woman who was gang raped by her co-workers while working for a defense contractor in Iraq. Jones couldn't sue because her contract contained a clause which required her to arbitrate any disputes against her employer.

According to a poll commissioned by Change Congress, 73 percent of North Carolina voters disapprove of Burr's vote. Led by campaign guru Joe Trippi and Stanford law professor Lawrence Lessig, the government reform group advocates for increased public money in campaign finance to keep big money out of politics.

• "Two years after Congress toughened ethics laws that prevent lobbyists and corporations from paying for members' trips, lawmakers are still seeing the world courtesy of other outside groups," Politico reports. "Although the trips are permissible because the money doesn't come directly from lobbyists or corporations, the walls can be very thin. Some of the nonprofit groups that sponsor member travel are themselves funded by corporate sponsors, and the conferences that members attend on the groups' dime often put them in direct contact with representatives of the corporate sponsors."

• "When a confidential document leaked into the public sphere last week, it revealed the Justice Department is seeking to trump a House ethics investigation of Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.)," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "While the request offered no new insight into the Mollohan inquiry, it did shine light on the often murky relationship between House ethics officials and federal prosecutors."

• "The banking lobby is splitting with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over a key battle to revamp the nation's financial regulatory structure, with the two sides differing over whether a council to monitor systemic risk throughout the financial markets should also oversee accounting rules," CongressDailyAM (subscription) reports.

• "As the House prepares to vote on massive health care legislation as early as Friday, outside groups on the left and right with deep pockets are going into overdrive to make sure their opinions are heard," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Some lawmakers, however, questioned the effectiveness of last-minute lobbying efforts, complaining they tie up office phones and are coming at a point when Members are already well-versed in the legislation and their constituents' views."

The Obama administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth regarding special interests, writes longtime D.C. lobbyist Joel Jankowsky in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece Tuesday.

He argues the White House has welcomed top campaign donors while ostracizing lobbyists as tainted:

"Campaign contributors, especially those who bundled large contributions from others, have been embraced by this administration. Because they aren't formally registered or regulated in the way lobbyists are, they enjoy the benefits and privileges of serving in the heart of the administration. These contributors serve in critical foreign and domestic policy positions, as well as department and agency boards and commissions. Dozens of Obama for America National Finance Committee members have joined the administration. Most of them raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for the campaign, according to the watchdog group the Center for Responsive Politics."

Jankowsky adds:

"This inconsistent treatment does a disservice to federal policy making. Talented women and men who registered themselves as lobbyists under the Lobbying Disclosure Act are being excluded from contributing their expertise at a critical time in our nation's history." 

Jeffrey Sachs, economist and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University took issue with Jankowsky's argument, calling it "preposterous" on the Huffington Post.

He says: "Lobbyists may indeed be talented people of expertise, but they are part of a dysfunctional system that has turned policy over to the highest corporate bidder and that puts our economy and society in jeopardy."

The coalition, Employers for a Healthy Economy which also includes such big groups as the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors and the National Retail Federation, intends to have the ads air through Sunday but might extend the buy if the vote on the House bill is delayed past this weekend.

National Journal is hearing that the initial ad buy will cost about $10 million but the exact numbers aren't public.

The ads argue that the House bill could lead to "millions of new lost jobs" and would mean tax increases and new mandates on business that would worsen the overall economy. The business community is especially worried about two parts of the House bill: its robust public option and a new "pay to play" mandate that would require companies to either provide insurance to employees or pay a penalty of 8 percent of their total payroll.

• "The disclosure that seven House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee members are being scrutinized for their ties to PMA Group, a now-defunct lobbying firm that raised money for lawmakers and won earmarks for clients, is not expected to have a chilling effect on negotiations to reach agreement on a final FY10 Defense spending bill," CongressDaily AM (subscription) reports. "According to analysts for watchdog groups that monitor the appropriations process, House-Senate discussions are probably too far along for negotiators to start weeding out earmarks."

• "As the House Financial Services Committee begins its final push today in drafting legislation that will overhaul the banking system, lobbyists are scrambling to get Members of Congress to address specific provisions that would harm their clients' bottom lines," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "Republicans have been pushing the committee's chairman, Barney Frank (D-Mass.), to delay the hearing, citing the need to take more time to review the draft bill that was released late last week."

• "A liberal advocacy group is launching a new Web site" today "that aims to document the financial and political ties of conservative groups, many of which have emerged as major political forces this year in fomenting opposition to President Obama's policies," the Washington Post reports. "The Conservative Transparency Web site... which will be run by the Media Matters Action Network, uses Internal Revenue Service filings to track the major financial backers and beneficiaries of conservative activist groups."