The lobbyists working for Genentech must be feeling pretty good.
The New York Times says that lobbyists working for Genentech put words into the mouths of lawmakers who made speeches on the House floor on the pending health care reform bill. (The bill passed the House on Nov. 7)
"In the official record of the historic House debate on overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities. Often, that was no accident.Statements by more than a dozen lawmakers were ghostwritten, in whole or in part, by Washington lobbyists working for Genentech, one of the world's largest biotechnology companies."
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.
The investigation into a prominent lobbying firm's fake letters to Congress points up the dangers to K Street in so-called grassroots and grass-tops lobbying, both of which are increasingly popular -- and controversial. It also underscores the absence of disclosure, let alone regulation, in a booming segment of Washington's influence industry.
The probe has led to PR headaches and new internal rules at Bonner & Associates, which sent out the letters, as well as at a consulting shop and a coal industry coalition caught up in the scandal.
Bonner & Associates got a temporary reprieve last week after Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, abruptly canceled a scheduled hearing on the faked letters following a rules dispute. But the hearing has been rescheduled for Oct. 29.
Markey is investigating why three members of Congress received more than a dozen letters opposing climate change legislation that forged the identities of seniors advocates and civil rights leaders, and why the lawmakers weren't notified until weeks after lobbyists discovered the fraud. The Sierra Club has also asked the Justice Department to investigate.
Reform-minded lawmakers have sought twice to require disclosure of grassroots lobbying activities, without success.
In the witness chair will be Bonner & Associates founder and CEO Jack Bonner, who has blamed the deception on "a rogue temporary employee" who has since been fired, and Steve Miller, president and CEO of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. The ACCCE had retained its longtime consulting firm, the Hawthorn Group, to lobby against climate change legislation that the House went on to approve in June. The Hawthorn Group in turn subcontracted letter-writing work to Bonner & Associates.
Continue reading A Grassroots Cautionary Tale: Bonner & Assoc..
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.
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.
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.
Yesterday, just hours before former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay made his debut on Dancing with the Stars, dozens of lobbyists, politicos and consultants around town and on K Street received an urgent e-mail from his daughter, Dani DeLay Ferro, asking for their help: "vote early and vote often."
The missive opened "Dear Friends" reminding the recipients that DeLay was the "most effective whip in modern Congressional history." It also gave very specific tips on how to maximize the vote for Tom, noting that unlike in elections, the rules of the show allow people to vote many times, including: "eight times from your home phone, eight times from your cell phone, eight times on the website and you can also text eight times."
To those who were scratching their heads about why this former House wunderkind might go on such a high-profile pop show at all, his daughter bluntly wrote: "For those who know what a goofball he really is, it's a perfect fit."
See letter here.
Delay letter.pdfWe wanted to alert our readers to our ongoing coverage of the trial of Kevin Ring, a former lobbyist who used to work for the now imprisoned former lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
National Journal.com reporter Beth Sussman is providing our readers interesting stories about the way Abramoff and his team lobbied Capitol Hill staff and how those staff responded. You can now find all of our coverage in one spot on our site.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has tapped Purple Strategies and Powell Tate to develop ads for its "campaign for free enterprise." The commercials are slated to begin in mid October with a splash on television, radio and in print outlets.
The push is fueled in part by mounting concerns of too much government regulation and interference in the private sector by the new administration and Congress as they grapple with the nation's economic woes.
The consulting team for the multi-year advertising and grassroots campaign to promote the merits of the free enterprise system includes Alex Castellanos and Steve McMahon of Purple Strategies and Lance Morgan and Howard Opinsky of Powell Tate.
A watchdog group's repeated lawsuits have prompted the administration to release the names of all White House visitors, an unprecedented step. The White House announced this morning that lists of visitors would be posted online every month, covering the previous 90 to 120 days.
"We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history not only by opening the doors of the White House to more Americans, but by shining a light on the business conducted inside it," President Obama said in a statement. "Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process."
During the Bush administration, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a transparency watchdog group, sued for access to records concerning visits by lobbyist Stephen Payne and conservative Christian leaders. Since Obama took office, the group has continued filing suits for access to records detailing visits by health care and coal executives.
The group said the information should be made available under the Freedom of Information Act, but the White House originally maintained that the visitor logs were presidential records, not public information.
In July, the White House released a list of health care executives who had visited the White House, but CREW continued pushing for full disclose of the visitor lists. The group has now dropped its lawsuits and is pleased with the White House's new policy.
"The Obama administration has proven its pledge to usher in a new era of government transparency was more than just a campaign promise," CREW Executive Director Melanie Sloan said in a statement. "The Bush administration fought tooth and nail to keep secret the identities of those who visited the White House."
The new policy will apply to records kept after Sept. 15, and the first online list is expected to be posted in December. The White House also released the information requested by CREW in the suits from both the Bush and Obama administrations.
Duke Energy has left the American Coalition for Clear Coal Electricity due to policy differences over global warming legislation. These alliances have grown shaky lately. Here's a clip from Amy Harder's story at NationalJournal.com:
As the Senate prepares to return to Washington and resume its debate over climate change legislation, energy companies are walking a fine line. Many have dual membership in groups on opposing sides of the issue, and their attempts to play both sides are becoming increasingly apparent -- and potentially damaging to the companies and the coalitions alike.
General Electric, Alstom Power and Caterpillar are members of both the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership. The former is a pro-coal group that opposed the recent House energy legislation, and the latter is an industry-environmentalist coalition whose recommendations provided much of the basis for the that bill, which passed the House by a vote of 219-212 in June. On a similar note, ConocoPhillips, Siemens and BP America are members of both the American Petroleum Institute (which opposed the bill) and USCAP.
These dual memberships shouldn't be surprising but could be problematic if they become more common, according to Burdett Loomis, a lobbying expert who teaches political science at the University of Kansas. "It seems to always be a mix of motivations," Loomis said. "And, as coalitions have become increasingly important on all sides of the issue, it's not surprising that there are some real or perceived conflicts."
You can read the full story here.
For all those outside the Beltway who want to unleash their inner policy wonk and talk with others about the nitty gritty of legislative policy, we have the site for you.
OpenCongress.org, a project by the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation, revamped its site last week, adding a new set of social networking and other tools to make it easier to track a bill, find others who share views on legislation, and contact lawmakers about an issue.
"You never hear somebody at a bar talking about clause 56 in H.R. 3200," said project manager David Moore. So OpenCongress "enables peer-to-peer communication about the best information on bills in Congress."
The site now has an e-mail form, so you can send an email to contact lawmakers about legislation, a tracking tool so you can compare how you would vote on a piece of legislation with how your representative has voted and a personalized list of legislation you may support or oppose.
"There was a real opportunity to bring together this confusing government data with helpful data and what people were saying about it," said Moore. The site aims to "make all the information about Congress more accessible to people who aren't necessarily Congress-buffs."
Continue reading How To Find A Fellow Policy Lover (Or Hater).
Want to know the what and where on the latest fundraiser for your lawmaker? Well, Under the Influence has added a new feature to help you keep track. We have added a box linking to the Sunlight Foundation's Party Time blog (www.politicalpartytime.org), which has a rolling list of fundraisers. You can find that box by scrolling down the right-hand side of the blog. You can see updates throughout the day.
The fundraiser list is put together by a team of people managed by Nancy Watzman (her photo is to the right), who works from Denver for Washington, DC-based Sunlight, a nonpartisan nonprofit foundation devoted to increasing transparency in the political process. Sunlight's funding comes from a variety of sources. (The major funder is the Omidyar Network, the philanthropy of Ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and his wife, Pamela.You can see all of Sunlight Foundation's funders here: http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/funding/)
Watzman, who has been at the foundation for just over a year, has a background in following money and politics, having worked at such groups as Public Campaign, the Center for Responsive Politics, and the Center for Public Integrity. She has also written for numerous publications, including Harper's,The New Republic, and The Washington Monthly. She is the co-author of "Is That a Politician in Your Pocket?: Washington on $2 Million a Day" (Wiley Books, 2004).
Under The Influence's Bara Vaida interviewed Watzman to introduce her and Party Time to our readers.
Under the Influence: How did you come up with the idea for Political Party Time?
Watzman: My colleague Bill Allison kept a stash of fundraising invitations that a lobbyist source had been giving him for years. They were in a pile in his office. Anybody who covers money and politics in Washington, DC knows that these invitations are ubiquitous. They come in by the hundreds over e-mail and fax machines to lobbyists around town all the time. They are an essential piece of how Washington works, but are largely unknown outside the Beltway. With the technical whizzes at the Sunlight Foundation, we saw a way to create something that to our knowledge had never been done before: gather all these invitations on a website and create a searchable database based on the information they contain.
How much time does it take to create your database?
It's a pretty labor intensive affair. We collect our invitations from a number of anonymous sources. We process them so we can provide electronic images of the invitations on the website. Interns then spend many hours doing the data entry. It's a lot of work to keep up with the flood of invitations.
Where does your information on the fundraisers come from?
Over the years we've developed lobbyist sources who are willing to give us the invitations. Many lobbyists are sick of getting so many of them and are happy to provide them to us, as long as their names are not attached. We also ask the public to send us any they come across through our website: http://politicalpartytime.org/upload/. Anybody who is reading this, please send us your invitations! We know we only get a portion of the events that are happening, which is frustrating. However, in just the year we've been in operation, we've collected more than 5,500. Still, we'd love to get more.
In reading about all these fundraisers, is there anything that has struck you?
The relentless nature of the fundraising that goes on. Lawmakers are constantly at it. And as you look at many of these over time, you see the same names showing up again and again as hosts for various events. It's a very inside game.
Over 300 animal welfare activists met with lawmakers and aides on Capitol Hill on July 27 as part of the Humane Society of the United States' annual "Taking Action for Animals" conference.
HSUS, one of the nation's most powerful voices on animal protection, staged a vegan banquet on Saturday night, drawing Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., who met with attendees from the animal welfare sector and dined on faux meat.
"Everyone raved about the food, even the hardcore carnivores," boasted HSUS president and CEO Wayne Pacelle.
The conference weekend and lobbying day served to bolster the citizen advocacy component of HSUS's aggressive lobbying efforts. Annually, the group and its affiliates allocate about $8 million on advocacy efforts, which includes grassroots, federal and state lobbying and work on ballot measures, according to chief operating officer Michael Markarian. In 2008, the group spent about $200,000 on direct federal lobbying, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
"We're in the process of building a powerful social movement," Pacelle said, pointing to HSUS's citizen advocacy efforts at every level of government and its undercover investigation this year that unearthed violations in animal welfare law at primate research labs--an effort quickly followed by USDA action.
(Photo of Humane Society's Markarian, actress and animal rights activist Ginnifer Goodwin and Moran following the group's lobbying meetings on Capitol Hill courtesy of HSUS)
So how did HSUS's lobbying conference work?
We've been getting some pretty telling inside looks recently, at the way Washington groups supposedly founded on principle or scholarship are actually willing to put either at the disposal of interest groups for cash.
The latest was tucked away in the Sunday Washington Post profile of Matt Crawford, the inconoclastic "philosopher and gearhead" who authored the new book called Shop Class as Soulcraft - bemoaning the nation's devaluation of technical skill. As it turns out, Crawford, in a previous professional incarnation, had a brief, and unhappy turn seven years ago as executive director of the Marshall Institute, a Washington energy-policy think tank, and had this to say about the place (which he doesn't name in the book):
"The trappings of scholarship were used to put a scientific cover on positions arrived at otherwise. . . . [P]art of my job consisted of making arguments about global warming that just happened to coincide with the positions taken by the oil companies that funded the think tank," Crawford wrote. Marshall Institute president Jeff Kueter told the Post that Crawford's assertion was "completely incorrect."
Here is a study that is interesting to me given the recent history in Washington of the "K Street Project," where GOP leaders, when they were in charge of Congress, pushed trade associations and major lobbying firms and corporations to hire individuals of a particular political strip. The legacy of placing that emphasis on how the business of Washington gets done continues on K Street, as this study shows.
Federally registered lobbyists in Washington tend to be loyal to the political party they personally favor, in terms of campaign contributions, rather than pragmatic operatives giving to both sides of the aisle, according to a new study published by the American Political Science Association.
Political scientists Gregory Koger, from the University of Miami, and Jennifer Nicoll Victor, from the University of Pittsburgh, looked at the campaign donations of 1,200 lobbyists from the 2006 election cycle and found the behavior of lobbyists "quite partisan," with 29% giving almost nothing to Democrats while another 28% giving almost nothing to Republicans. Only 6.3% of lobbyists gave at least 40% of their donations to both parties.
"Lobbyists are often depicted as the ultimate insiders of the Washington 'game' [but]...we have found a pattern of stark polarization in lobbyists' donations," said Koger and Victor in their study. "The broader implication is that lobbyists do not shed their partisan loyalties [and therefore] it is easy to see why politicians take a great interest in who is hired to talk to them, since they clearly see lobbyists as resources for one party or another."
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va. invited some National Journal and CongressDaily reporters to come have an on-the-record breakfast with him at his Capitol Hill office this morning.
Among the topics Cantor raised: the economy, his optimism that President Obama's popularity is waning, and his belief that House Republicans have done a good job offering policy alternatives to House Democrats' on key issues like health care.
On health care reform, Cantor said Republicans plan to capitalize on what he sees as "growing" public concern about the shape of congressional Democrats health care reform plans. In two weeks, House Republicans, via their House GOP Health Care Solutions Group, plan to hold a forum on the quality of health care and experiences of physicians, patients, and providers in other places like Canada and the United Kingdom.
"We are trying to take the discussion to the people," said Cantor, who lived in the U.K. for a year and personally experienced the country's health care system.
"Do we really think that the American people understand when we say, 'You don't want a system like the U.K. and Canada?,'" Cantor said.
The conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity has been raising just those questions over the past month with a series of million dollar ad buys, via its "Patients First" campaign. See my item yesterday.
Cantor was also critical of a decision by Wal-Mart last week to embrace an employer mandate in health care reform. "I understand that it was a business decision, but I think it was just wrong," he said.
Wal-Mart broke with business groups in Washington last week by joining with the Service Employees International Union to support a legal requirement that employers provide health benefits to their workers.
Continue reading Cantor: GOP Sees Opportunity On Health Care.
A few dozen banks, consumer finance companies, mortgage companies and other large lenders have been meeting under the auspices of the American Financial Services Association to discuss forming a coalition to fight an Obama administration proposal for creating a new consumer financial protection agency with a large regulatory mandate.
"I think everybody around the table understands the urgency of the challenge we face," said Bill Himpler, the top lobbyist for the AFSA which has about 350 members including a number of consumer finance companies that provide 50 percent of the nation's non-mortgage loans.
Himpler added that the groups stand "shoulder to shoulder in terms of wanting consumer protections, but this is not it." Some of the groups fear that the new agency's purview would be too sweeping and would also take away some regulatory powers that now reside with the Federal Reserve, the Comptroller of the Currency and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
The groups met again today at the offices of Toyota, which has a large finance arm, to try to develop a strategy that's likely going to include hiring outside consultants to craft their message and possibly run some advertising. Yesterday, the White House unveiled a 150- page proposal to create a new regulatory agency whose powers could include limiting or barring risky loans, enforcing new laws to protect credit card consumers and setting standards for mortgage lending. The new proposal has drawn considerable support from consumer organizations and liberal groups.
Continue reading Opposition Builds to Consumer Finance Agency.
National Public Radio today launched a new investigative series on lobbying, money and politics in Washington called "Dollar Politics." (Click here to see report)
The series begins with a look at health care lobbyists. NPR's reporters Peter Overby and Andrea Seabrook attended a Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing this month and took pictures of those lobbyists. The organization has posted photos on its website from the hearing and has asked the public to try to identify who the lobbyists are in the photos.
NPR also interviews Bill Vaughan, a health care lobbyist for Consumers Union, the nonprofit that publishes Consumer Reports magazine, who talks about why he was at the hearing.
"[They] have friendships with various members of Congress or staff and hope to be seen. It's a reminder that their interests are at play," Vaughan told NPR of the lobbyists at the hearing.
Many lobbyists in Washington have been feeling like a targets lately, so I wonder how some will feel about having their photo on NPR's website. In the 2008 campaign, the presidential candidates made lobbyists their favorite whipping posts and the Obama administration has since severely restricted lobbyists' ability to get jobs in his administration. On the other hand, lobbyists have told me that the scrutiny of their profession doesn't bother them because, as Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said, "Sunshine is the best disinfectant."
Readers let me know what you think. Is this good for the public? Bad for the public? Does it matter? Email me here.
Less than a fifth of House members disclosed their earmark requests for the upcoming transportation reauthorization bill, according to the Sunlight Foundation.
Unlike the House Appropriations Committee, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee doesn't require members to post their earmark requests online before they submit them to the committee for consideration. Sunlight's 'real time investigation' staff did the yeoman's work of scrolling through member's websites searching for transportation earmark requests through yesterday's deadline.
"[Congress has] got to come up with a better way for the public to find this information," said Bill Allison, senior fellow at the Sunlight Foundation. According to Allison, lawmakers submit earmark requests through a web-based form, which would make it easy to create a central database.
Sunlight is rallying support for a new resolution sponsored by Reps. Bill Cassidy, R-La., and Jackie Speier, D-Calif. The resolution would require a more robust online disclosure of earmarks. Read more about the legislation here.
Rational PR, a small DC-based public affairs firm, yesterday sent out an unusual pitch for drumming up business on K Street. The firm is offering to share a percentage of its revenues with lobbying firms who hire them.
In an email titled "Rational PR Strives To Increase Lobbying Partnerships with 10 Percent Fee Sharing" sent to 1,500 lobbyists, the firm said it was "pleased to announce" that Rational PR will offer the "10 percent revenue-sharing agreement to lobbying firms and independent lobbyists who select RPR as a partner in their clients' campaigns."
Patrick Dorton, one of the cofounders of Rational PR, called the pitch a way to "formalize" a method for lobbyists and lobbying firms to team up. "What generally happens is PR firms phone bank [cold call] lobbyists in town asking them for business," he said. "It doesn't make sense and it's kind of haphazard."
Most sophisticated lobbying campaigns today are accompanied by a public relations campaign and while some on K Street who had received the email told National Journal that they hadn't seen a pitch like this, others said it's a common business tactic.
Mark Irion, CEO of Dutko Worldwide, which has used Rational PR for campaigns in the past, said the company's pitch is "a clever strategy and its not that unusual. We've offered commissions to people who find business for 25 years."
It's a tough time to be beating on K Street's door for business. According to first quarter lobbying disclosure documents, most of the top ten lobbying firms in town reported their fee income had declined from the same period a year ago.
"There is no question that firms in Washington are looking at their revenue side and to the extent that adding PR capabilities or partnerships can both contribute to revenue as well as contribute to the clients' success, we think this fee-sharing is a good thing," he said.
-- Bara Vaida
The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, a collection of 48 mining, rail, manufacturing, and power-generating companies is a year old and it has an annual budget of more than $45 million, making it almost three times bigger than the coal industry's previous lobbying and public relations efforts, according to a new report published by the Center for Public Integrity.
There are shifts underway in the lobbying ranks of several financial service giants including Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, two of the apparently healthier ones. JP Morgan Chase recently recruited two new lobbyists, Democrat Kate Childress and Republican Nate Gatten, both of whom had previously done outside advocacy work for the bank. In recent months JP Morgan has also dropped a few outside lobbying shops, including BKSH & Associates, Equale & Associates and the OB-C Group, and retained some new ones such as McBee Strategic Consulting and Lawrence Romans & Associates.
Meanwhile, Goldman, which has seen a couple of senior lobbyists depart this year, is about to lose Ann Costello, a veteran Republican who's moving to Bank of New York Mellon to lead their D.C. lobbying efforts, according to several sources. Earlier this year, Marti Thomas, a Democrat at Goldman, jumped ship to join the Duberstein Group, and Mark Patterson decamped to Treasury where he is chief of staff to Secretary Tim Geithner.
--Peter H. Stone
It's interesting to me to see how Congress continues to try to exercise control over companies receiving bailout money, particularly when it comes to lobbying because it provides a window into the practice of influence peddling. Here's an interesting story on that topic:
Rep. Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, is looking into whether American International Group used any of its $182.5 billion in federal bailout money to fund a negative media campaign against its former CEO and chief critic, Hank Greenberg.
According to a letter obtained by Talking Points Memo, Towns asked AIG's current CEO Edward Liddy to provide him with records from its public relations firms Burson-Marstellar and Hill & Knowlton to determine if taxpayer money was used to fund the campaign.
"The Committee was surprised to hear allegations that AIG was contacting the news media and others to attack Mr. Greenberg's credibility," Towns wrote. "I'd be extremely disappointed to learn that any of the billions of taxpayer dollars invested to support AIG may have been diverted to finance a public relations against critics of the AIG bailout."
--Bara Vaida
The National Association of Broadcasters has given lobbyist Douglas Wiley the boot. Wiley was hired by NAB in 2006 to lead the government relations team as executive vice president of government relations but his position was latter shifted to executive vice president in charge of the administration and agencies. A source familiar with NAB's team said Wiley's position was eliminated last month.
Prior to joining NAB, Wiley served as a senior vice president of government relations for the Electronic Industries Alliance, director of government relations for Alcatel, a vice president at the Telecommunications Industry Association, and director of legislative affairs for the Competitive Telecommunications Association. He also spent time on Capitol Hill as a senior legislative assistant to the former chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Thomas Bliley, R-Va. He holds a master's degree in business administration from George Washington University.
NAB spokesman Dennis Wharton said the group "does not comment on personnel issues." NAB's lobbying team is currently being headed by Laurie Knight, a Democrat who formerly worked as the legislative director for Rep. Jim Turner, D-Texas. Prior to joining NAB, she spent more than five years with the National Beer Wholesalers Association.
--Winter Casey
National Journal.com's Amy Harder wrote an interesting profile of Joe Rospars who created the new media operation for President Obama's presidential campaign.
For all those on K Street looking for insight on how Obama created his grassroots network, the piece is worth reading.
Rospars meanwhile has returned to his old job at Blue State Digital, a firm he helped co-found before joining the Obama campaign.
Norman Eisen, President Obama's special counsel for ethics and government reform, was paid $1.3 million by the law firm Zuckerman Spaeder in 2008, where he was a partner until he resigned in January to join the White House.
Eisen's salary was disclosed by the White House in a public financial report on April 3, along with financial data on other top advisers. The report also shows Eisen owns shares in three American Funds that were each valued at between $100,001 and $250,000. He also owns a stake in an Ohio manufacturing company called Vernay Laboratories, which he valued at between $250,001 and $500,000. Eisen's wife is a professor at Georgetown University. Her salary was not disclosed.
Eisen also reported two checking accounts valued at $15,000 to $50,000, and another valued at $100,001 and $250,000. He reported two savings accounts, each of which were valued at $100,001 and $250,000.
The report says that Eisen will receive payment of undistributed 2008 Zuckerman Spaeder earnings and a capital account, in eight quarterly payments, over the next two years.
See the report here:
--Bara Vaida
As Eliza Newlin Carney reported in our State of Lobbying issue this week, the advocacy industry is increasingly using social networking tools to promote their issue of the day.
The Sunlight Foundation is using Twitter to directly lobby senators to co-sponsor the Senate Campaign Disclosure Parity Act that we blogged about yesterday. Sunlight courted bill supporters to lobby senators' blackberrys directly via a 'Tweet Lobby'.
"[We] believe this will be the first organized direct lobbying of members of Congress over Twitter," Sunlight Communication's Director Gabriela Schneider told National Journal. Two senators, Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., tweeted about their support of the bill. Both of these lawmakers supported the bill in previous sessions of Congress so their position is not necessarily a reflection of the Twitter lobby.
It will be interesting and telling if the Twitter lobby generates a response from a greater portion of the 17 senators on Twitter, especially those who haven't voiced support of the bill in the past. We'll be paying attention.
--Eliza Krigman
The wild exodus of lobbyists from embattled defense lobbying shop PMA Group is growing, with more spinoff firms starting and tensions apparently building over where longtime PMA clients will move their business.
Further, National Journal has learned that PMA founder Paul Magliocchetti has hired William E. Lawler III, a prominent criminal lawyer with Vinson & Elkins, to represent him in the ongoing federal investigation of PMA. Lawler confirmed that he is representing both Magliocchetti and PMA. The firm, which was raided by the FBI last November, is under scrutiny in a federal probe into possibly illegal campaign donations, including potential reimbursements to so-called "straw donors."
In recent weeks, veteran lobbyists have fled PMA to open their own shops. One is Federal Business Group, which boasts five former PMA lobbyists, including Brian Morgan, and is currently working out of the PMA suites in Arlington, Virginia. Two sources say that some clients have received communications from Magliocchetti suggesting he prefers existing clients go with Federal Business Group.
The other major new shop is Flagship Government Relations, which opened its doors earlier this month with eight former PMA lobbyists. It says it is making headway in trying to sign up PMA clients. "We're very pleased and encouraged about clients joining us," said Kaylene Green, president of Flagship, adding that Flagship expects to start registering new clients soon.
Last year, PMA was the tenth largest lobbying firm in Washington in terms of revenues and boasted such big-name clients as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin. It also represented many smaller defense firms. PMA is slated to close its doors at the end of next month and has recently shut down its political action committee.
Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for PMA who is with the firm Rational PR, said, "It seems like clients are making their transition decisions based on their relationships with their individual staff lobbyists."
Meanwhile, retired Navy Captain Joe Littleton, a 14-year veteran of PMA, is about to bail out. In an e-mail dated February 14, Littleton informed old friends that he was going to be "moving on in the near future" to Defense Strategic Advantage, a small firm that he launched about a year ago.
The PMA Group's dwindling ranks have been partly spurred by federal probers' interest in PMA-linked donations to several members of Congress with whom the firm has long had close ties. The most prominent are House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa - for whom Magliocchetti used to work - and Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind.
Roll Call and The Washington Post recently reported that in 2006 PMA added two Florida-based friends and neighbors of Magliocchetti to the lobbying firm's board of directors. The two were not lobbyists, but quickly became big political donors.
According to the Center for Responsive Politics, PMA lobbyists and clients have donated almost $197,000 -- more than any other firm -- to Visclosky during his career. Visclosky has said he's giving to the Treasury Department $18,000 of the donations that came from the two newly added PMA board members.
Since its founding in 1989, PMA has donated $167,000 to Murtha's campaign coffers, according to the center. Murtha has not indicated whether he will return any PMA donations. At this stage, there is no evidence that these members or any others are targets of the probe.
-- Peter H. Stone
UPDATE -- Feb. 26, 12:35 p.m.
Matt Mazonkey, communications director for Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., wrote to us: "Mr. Magliocchetti never worked for Congressman Murtha. He was a staff analyst for the defense appropriations subcommittee, and reported to the chairman, who was Cong. Bill Chappell [D-Florida], at the time of his appointment and the full committee Chairman Jamie Whitten [D-Miss.]. He was never a staffer of Murtha's.
If the nation's governors find themselves tired after days of talking about the $789 billion stimulus package, they can stop by the Sphinx Club in downtown D.C. this evening where lobbying firms Dutko Worldwide and BGR Group are hosting a late-night party in honor of the National Governors Association. The NGA has been holding its winter meeting in D.C.
Other hosts of the party include Barrick North America, Corrections Corporation of America, Harley-Davidson Motor Co., Hook & Ladder Brewing Co., Maximus, and Vox Global, according to an invitation to the event. The party goes from 8:30- midnight with live music, dancing, and open bar. See invitation.
Separately, lobbying firm BGR was also the site of governor meetings today. The firm hosted a "meet and greet" for New Jersey Democrat Gov. Jon Corzine, according to David Di Martino, vice president of BGR Public Relations, an arm of the lobbying firm. Also stopping by for "meetings" at the firm were, Republican Govs. Haley Barbour of Mississippi (a co-founder of BGR) Rick Perry of Texas, Charlie Crist, of Florida, Donald Carcieri of Rhode Island and Sonny Perdue of Georgia, DiMartino said.
-- Bara Vaida
Five of PMA Group's defense lobbying team, including Kaylene Green, John Lynch and Daniel Cunningham, have left and formed their own partnership, Flagship Government Relations, Roll Call reported this afternoon. (Subscription required)
As we get updates on this story, we'll post them.
PMA Group, the defense lobbying shop with very close ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and which we reported last month was in "turmoil," was raided by FBI agents in November, apparently seeking information about its links to the congressman whose name has become famous for his advocacy of defense earmarks, ABC News reported.
Citing sources, ABC said that it's unclear if Murtha is a target of an investigation, but noted that the raid is the second in recent months on defense companies with links to Murtha, the chairman of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
ABC reported that a spokesperson for PMA, Patrick Dorton, confirmed the raid in a statement Monday afternoon. "Government representatives did come to the PMA offices. They requested a number of different kinds of information," Dorton said. "The firm is cooperating with their requests."
Last month, news organizations reported that the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems, two defense contractors in Pennsylvania that have received about $100 million in earmarks via Murtha, had been raided by FBI and other federal agents. PMA was founded and is run by former Murtha aide Paul Magliocchetti, who, we reported last month, was in talks with a number of the firm's lobbyists about a buyout deal.
--Peter Stone
Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, raised conflict of interest questions about an executive and former lobbyist who may have provided advice on the nation's digital television transition to John Podesta, who headed Barack Obama's presidential transition.
The executive, R. Gerard Salemme, works for wireless services company Clearwire, which "may gain a competitive advantage" from the digital transition delay, Issa charged in a press release.
Podesta wrote to Congress in early January, asking for a delay in the digital television transition, which is scheduled for Feb. 17. The House today passed a bill that will delay the transition to June 12.
Salemme "is believed to have been a key adviser to" Podesta, Issa said, and he asked White House Counsel Gregory Craig to look into the matter. He also had urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to hold off on today's DTV vote until questions were answered, Congress Daily reported on Tuesday. (subscription required)
-- Bara Vaida
"There's just so damn much money in it," Robert Strauss, former Democratic National Committee chairman and partner at law and lobbying powerhouse Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, tells Washington Post writer Robert Kaiser in a new book on K Street.
That line clearly served as the inspiration for the title of Kaiser's book, "So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government." The book stems from a series the reporter wrote for the Post several years ago on the top lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates. See the Post's review of the book here.
Kaiser also penned an editorial in the Post this weekend arguing that Washington is broken because lobbyists and special interests have turned the process of making public policy into a game that "only they can afford." He also charges that today's Washington takes for granted that people who have worked in public service can use it for private gain.
This was the argument candidate Barack Obama made on the campaign trail. As president, he is attempting to address the concern through an executive order reigning in the behavior of former lobbyists he hires for his staff and regulationg what they can do after they leave his administration. The rules say no one can work on contracts or policy issues on which they lobbied during the past two years and once they return to the private sector they can not lobby the executive branch during Obama's presidency. Watchdog groups have called the new rules the most extensive ever implemented.
But the administration has already had to issue at least one waiver to the rules for William Lynn, a former Raytheon lobbyist who is Obama's nominee for the No. 2 job at the Pentagon. The reason for the waiver is Lynn's "unique" experience, said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs .
The situation shows how hard it is to draw a clear line between lobbying and government policy work. Among the many reasons for the tight link between the two: the government relies on lobbyists for information and many of those lobbyists are experts in public policy.
We're interested in reading your reaction to Kaiser's assertions? Send me an email.
--Bara Vaida
What really jumped out at me in reading about former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle's tax problems in the Washington Post yesterday is that he made $2 million over a two-year period at law and lobbying firm Alston & Bird.
Here's the relevant section:
"For part of the $2 million he received from the law firm Alston & Bird over the past two years, Daschle also reported that he gave "policy advice" to United Health, a conglomerate that sells insurance, helps the government administer Medicaid, advises drug companies and physicians and dispenses prescriptions."
And he received another $3 million over the past two years from speaking fees, serving on boards, book proceeds and investments, the Post says. Daschle never registered as a lobbyist however. Only those who spend more than 20 percent of their time directly lobbying Capitol Hill and are paid more than $5,000 must register to lobby.
-- Bara Vaida
The Washington Times has a front page piece today reporting that Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., the ranking member of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has called for an investigation into the $2.25 billion allocated for national parks in the $819 billion stimulus bill passed by the House on Wednesday. The chief lobbyist for the National Parks Conservation Association (which, among other things, advocates for national park funding) is Craig Obey, son of House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis.
"It really does beg the question of, is this an earmark, is this a family connection and should it have been disclosed at least in the spirit of what the Democrats said they wanted, and the answer is it should have been disclosed," Issa told the Times.
According to the newspaper, a spokesman for the NPCA said Craig Obey "never lobbies his father," and a spokesman for Rep. Obey said the funding of the parks had nothing to do with the congressman's relationship with his son.
-- Eliza Krigman
The PMA Group, a well known K Street lobbying shop that specializes in defense appropriations work and boasts strong ties to Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., is in turmoil, with several of its veteran lobbyists trying to put together a buyout deal with Paul Magliocchetti, the firm's principal owner and a former staffer on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, which Murtha chairs.
Meanwhile, at least three of the PMA's lobbyists who specialize in health care issues have set up a separate health care practice that is housed at the PMA office in Arlington, Va., and which shares some clients with the firm. At least one other lobbyist recently left the firm to work in-house for a PMA client.
Sources say that a potential buyout deal involving a majority of the two-dozen or so professionals at the firm has been under discussion for a while, but its fate is still unclear. "There are ongoing discussions about the structure of the firm going forward," said Patrick Dorton, a principal at Rational PR and a spokesman for PMA. He declined to provide specifics.
It's not clear what has prompted the buyout offer at this time, although the firm and Murtha have both come under increasing scrutiny from the media and watchdog groups because of their ties. PMA has been a lucrative lobbying shop for many years; in 2008, it reported revenues of $13.8 million. Historically, the firm has represented dozens of both large and small defense clients -- among them such household names as General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin -- which have received millions of dollars in defense earmarks courtesy of Murtha who, in turn, has received hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions from many of these contractors.
The nonpartisan group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleges that Murtha helped funnel $100.5 million to PMA clients in the fiscal 2008 defense appropriations bill. CREW also noted that since the second quarter of 2007 PMA and 10 of its clients kicked in almost $191,000 to Murtha's campaign coffers, making them among the top 20 donors to the congressman.
The buyout discussions are taking place at a time when Murtha's links to defense contractors appear to be under increasing federal scrutiny. Earlier this month, agents from the FBI, the IRS and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service raided the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense Systems in Pennsylvania. According to press reports, the firms have in recent years received over $100 million in earmarks through Murtha and the companies and their employees have donated more than $65,000 to Murtha's leadership PAC and his campaigns. Kuchera is represented in Washington by Ervin Technical Services, which also has close links to Murtha and is chaired by former Rep. Joseph McDade, R-Pa.
-- Peter H. Stone and Bara Vaida
Here's a round-up of interesting lobbying stories while we were away.
--Bara Vaida
Here are highlights of stories in this week's National Journal.
Kirk Victor, Will Englund and Ashley Johnson examine how Barack Obama may respond to the political agendas of various interest groups once he is in the White House. Alyssa Rosenberg writes a sidebar on the latest in the labor-versus-business battle over The Employee Free Choice Act.
Bara Vaida and CEO Update's Tavia Evans Gilchrist take a look at the DC recruiting scene and report that, for Democrats, landing a lobbying job isn't as easy as the hype suggests.
In our K Street Corridor section, Bara Vaida looks at trade association campaign giving and reports that the percentage given to each party in the 2008 cycle was almost even, while Peter Stone has the scoop on hard times at the Mortgage Bankers Association.
And Peter Cohn of Congress Daily reports on efforts to perusade Congress and President-elect Obama to respond to the fact that due to the dismal economy tax credits designed to spur alternative-energy and low-income housing projects are not worth much these days.
For all those voters who think their congress person is reading all constituent e-mails, think again. Many such messages never get opened. That's because Congress is drowning in e-mail from constituents and grassroots organizations. Things have gotten so bad that in September, when Congress was debating the $700 billion financial bailout package, the flood of electronic messages from citizens caused the House's e-mail servers to shut down for multiple days.
The scope of this problem and more is explained by the Congressional Management Foundation in a new report. "This [current] system isn't working for anyone," said Tim Hysom, director of communications and technology solutions at the foundation, a non-profit group that provides management advice to Congress.
The report lays out some common-sense solutions for the problem including bringing together both Hill staff and vendors to develop a more effective technology platform for receiving e-mail. "The time is right for this collaboration," said Hysom.
The Foundation is now planning a task-force in the first quarter of 2009 to start the actual work of easing the dialogue between Congress and its constituents. So if you are a group that sends lots of e-mail to the Hill, you probably want to pay attention to what the foundation is up to.
-- Bara Vaida
The National Association of Manufacturers has announced layoffs, but senior decision makers and the policy and government relations group will not be affected by the staff cutbacks, said Maureen Davenport, senior vice president of communications for the trade group.
Though NAM's government affairs people were not among the 17 positions eliminated earlier this month, the 2009 salaries for employees were frozen across the board, said Davenport. She emphasized that the layoffs were driven by the economic downturn and the anticipation that 2009 will be a hard year.
Bara Vaida reported on the December 2 NAM budget cuts here .
-- Winter Casey
Times may be tough for Republicans looking for work on K Street after the election, but one job seeker who is likely to land gainful employment is Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La. Sources say that McCrery, who is retiring from Congress at the end of this year, has been chatting with a few lobbying shops with hefty tax practices. One is Washington Council Ernst & Young, while another is Patton Boggs, which boasts famously strong Cajun connections via partner Tommy Boggs.
Meanwhile, other lobbyists are buzzing that Sen. John Sununu ,R-N.H., who was defeated for reelection, has been having job talks with Google about a post that would likely be outside of D.C. and might not involve lobbying.
-- Peter H. Stone
The buzz among white collar lawyers is that DeMaurice Smith, a partner at Patton Boggs, has a good shot at being named the next U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia. Smith served as counsel to Eric Holder when Holder was No. 2 at Justice in the Clinton administration.
Read Smith's bio here.
-- Peter H. Stone
UPDATE: Dec. 5 @ 3:10 p.m.
Quinn Gillespie spokeswoman Stacey Morton Bowlin sent National Journal a message wanting us to make clear that Ed Gillespie attended the party as a GUEST, not a host. She pointed out that Gillespie is no longer a member of the firm and had nothing to do with creating the guest list for the event.
QGA Vice Chairman Jeff Connaughton also sent this e-mail: "These people were NOT guests of Ed Gillespie. Jack and Ed did NOT jointly 'greet their many guests' and you need to correct your story as wrong."
-- Bara Vaida
Lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associations returned to hosting its popular annual holiday party Wednesday evening, after taking a year off in 2007. On hand to greet their many guests were the firm's two founding partners, Democrat Jack Quinn and Republican Ed Gillespie, though Gillespie left the outfit last year to join the White House.
Gillespie, who is now a special assistant to President Bush, looked a little grayer after his year of working for the administration. Not a surprise given the long hours toiling for a president who has among the lowest public approval ratings on record. When I asked him what he has planned for 2009, Gillespie answered: "Frankly I'm enjoying not knowing what I'll do next."
Gillespie severed his financial ties to the lobbying firm when he joined the White House. [He left considerable money on the table, see my story from Dec. 2007.] But the firm that still bears Gillespie's name has continued to bring in revenue and he could return to K Street. For the first three quarters of the year, QGA reported $11.2 million in lobbying fees.
For anyone wondering how lobbying shops can throw holiday parties without running afoul of ethics rules, a firm can host a party and feed guests "nominal-value refreshments" under the reception exemption. That means the firm could serve only finger food, unlike years past when it offered a big buffet of goodies. Champagne, Bailey's Irish Cream, martinis, and other assorted drinks also met the exemption.
-- Bara Vaida
