• "Abortion-rights advocates are calling in the cavalry to help fight off an anti-abortion provision House Democratic leaders swallowed in order to win passage of their health care reform bill," Politico reports. "On Tuesday, Planned Parenthood summoned 80 progressive groups to plot strategy for keeping the anti-abortion amendment -- named for sponsors Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) and Joseph Pitts (R-Pa.) -- out of a final health care bill."
• "The 60 Plus Association, a conservative seniors' group, has pledged to spend $1.5 million targeting 15 House Democrats who voted for health care reform," Politico reports. "The group is launching robocalls against the 15 lawmakers and will run TV ads in eight of those districts."
• "Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), facing the prospect of a tough re-election bid next year, is under pressure from a liberal activist group to support a motion to proceed on health care reform legislation that is poised to hit the Senate floor next week," Roll Call (subscription) reports. "The Blue America political action committee is hitting statewide Arkansas cable television with a 30-second spot demanding that Lincoln 'allow an up-or-down vote on the public option.'"
• "After trying to carefully balance their interests in health-care reform and immigration, the nation's Hispanic lawmakers and largest advocacy groups are scrambling to develop a strategy to counter what they see as efforts to shortchange immigrants in health bills on Capitol Hill," the Washington Post reports.
• "Lobbyists and corporate executives are targeting the newest members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in the high-stakes fight over regulating the Internet," The Hill reports. "Meredith Attwell Baker, the newest Republican commissioner, or her aides have held at least seven meetings with officials representing both sides of the debate since the FCC voted three weeks ago to move forward with a rulemaking effort on network neutrality, according to a review of close to 100 records at the FCC."
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has been exercising its clout in Congress and played a key role in influencing the outcome of the House's vote on health care reform that included an anti-abortion provision, the Associated Press reported.
The AP notes that the Catholic bishops "don't spend a dime on what is legally defined as lobbying" but clearly they are lobbying the Hill.
... in recent days, the conference staff got elbow-deep in the legislative machinations on the health measure, even having bishops intervene with Republicans - who were loath to help Democrats pass their bill - to make sure they supported the abortion provisions.
On Friday, the American Future Fund plans to run a week's worth of ads on CNN, Fox and the four Sunday talk shows to try and derail the House health care reform bill.
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.
Reform group Change Congress launched a campaign yesterday to shame Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., for voting against legislation that would help ensure victims of rape have the right to bring their case to court. The government reform group hit cyberspace with an email asking people to sign a 'national expression of outrage.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
This coalition of 57 national and international labor unions represents more than 11 million workers.
What They Want
The AFL-CIO has long wanted a single-payer health care system, said Gerald Shea, the AFL-CIO's assistant to the president for governmental affairs. But in the context of the current health care debate -- with single-payer long off the table -- the union federation's top priority is to ensure a "stabilized employer-based system by controlling cost," Shea said.
The best way to achieve that goal is through a public option, which will "inject competition into the private insurance market," Shea argued.
The AFL-CIO supports mandates that would require individuals to get coverage and employers to either provide coverage or pay into a government-run fund.
Deal Breakers
The AFL-CIO does not support "any form of taxation of existing health benefits," Shea said. Though changing or eliminating the tax exclusion on employer-based health benefits was discussed earlier in the summer, it is not currently in proposed legislation. But a tax on insurance companies for the most expensive health plans, which is included in the bill proposed by Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., would have the same effect because that tax would be passed on to the plan holders, Shea said.
"These aren't the Goldman Sachs executives who are going to get hit by this," Shea contended. Rather, workers "that have good, comprehensive benefits who might have other factors that drive up costs" will bear the burden of the tax, he said.
General Pharmaceutical Association
This association represents the manufacturers and distributors of generic drugs.
What They Want
GPhA's main priority for health care reform is to increase the use of generic pharmaceuticals as a way to drive down overall health care costs, president and CEO Kathleen Jaeger said.
Already, 72 percent of prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. are generics, and Jaeger estimates that by increasing that percentage even a couple of points, an additional $1 billion could be saved annually.
Deal Breakers
One type of pharmaceuticals has stirred more debate during the health care overhaul than any other: biologics. And GPhA isn't happy with how proposed measures related to biologics have panned out.
Biologics are complex drugs made from living organisms used to treat particularly serious or complex conditions, like cancer and HIV/AIDS, and manufacturers argue they need an extended exclusivity period to recoup their investment in development.
College of American Pathologists
This medical society represents 17,000 pathologists, who study and diagnose diseases.
What They Want
Not surprisingly, the group is concerned with the "emerging role for pathologists in this system that's going to be reformed," said John Scott, vice president of advocacy.
They support the coordinated care model, which encourages communication between health care providers instead of the current fragmentary system, and hope to develop a pilot program to test the impact of bringing pathologists more proactively into health care decisions.
"When you get more and more people covered, there will naturally be an increase in the volume of testing," Scott said. "In addition to that, the science behind the testing has become more and more complex." Pathologists, he went on, are vital to ensuring "patients get the right tests at the right time."
The group also wants to eliminate the loopholes in self-referral policies that allow physicians to refer a patient to imaging services such as an MRI in which they have a financial interest. And they want to ensure that the physician payment system moves away from the sustainable growth rate system, which ties Medicare payments to doctors to the growth of the economy rather than health care costs.
As physicians receive federal incentives to go into primary care, the pathologists don't want to see the government "just taking money out of the overall physician pie" to pay for the bonuses, Scott said.
UPDATE @ 12:06 pm on Sept. 18:
In a follow-up to yesterday's post, Laborers spokesman Jacob Hay said: "We have no immediate plans to leave Change to Win or rejoin the AFL-CIO. We do continue believe a united labor movement is the best way to fight for working people and discussions towards that end are ongoing."
UNITE HERE, one of the unions that broke off from the AFL-CIO in 2005 and joined the coalition of dissident unions that made up the Change to Win coalition, formally rejoined the AFL-CIO today as the federation's quadrennial convention comes to a close in Pittsburgh.
While newly elected AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka trumpeted the move, no one who follows the labor movement closely should be surprised--the UNITE HERE board voted to re-affiliate with the AFL-CIO earlier this year. Moreover, the move suggests that the return of the dissident unions to the federation is likely to be incremental, not in unison as some labor leaders had hoped last spring when the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, and the independent National Education Association began talks on uniting labor all under one roof.
In an interview just prior to the convention, outgoing AFL-CIO president John Sweeney acknowledged that "they probably won't come back as a group, at first; that it will be individual unions that may come back."
Who's the next Change to Win union that may be rejoin the AFL-CIO? That could be LIUNA, the Laborers' International Union of North America. In an interview before the convention, American Federation of State County and Local Employees Gerald McEntee said, "My own judgment is that the Laborers are coming back."
Meanwhile, not all of UNITE HERE is rejoining the AFL-CIO. The union, which was a merger of apparel workers and hotel and restaurant employees in 2004, has undergone its own bitter divorce. A faction of more than 100,000 members loyal to Bruce Raynor, who formerly headed UNITE, decided to merge with the Service Employees International Union, one the leaders of Change to Win, earlier this year.
The AFL-CIO gets the remaining 265,000 UNITE HERE members lead by John Wilhelm. While Change to Win leaders predicted four years ago that their group would become an organizing powerhouse, the coalition has not lived up that boast.
Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy
This association represents 5,700 pharmacists and other health care professionals who design and administer drug benefit programs for health insurance plans and employers.
What They Want
AMCP's role in the health care debate has focused on medication therapy management and comparative effectiveness. Both measures are included in proposed legislation.
AMCP wants to ensure that the pharmaceutical benefits that are part of any mandated insurance policies include not only medication, but also the "therapy and counseling that goes along with those," said Judith Cahill, executive director of AMCP.
Encouraging those therapies through incentives like grant programs would "utilize the pharmacists for greater services beyond delivery of the product," said William Hermelin, AMCP's director of government relations.
The group supports comparative effectiveness because it wants to maximize the benefits of treatments. Comparative effectiveness measures seek to encourage and disseminate research into the cost-effectiveness of treatment options.
Continue reading Include Counseling In Drug Benefits, AMCP Says.
National Association of Children's Hospitals
This organization, the public policy arm of the National Association of Children's Hospitals and Related Institutions, speaks for 141 hospitals, medical centers and health systems that treat children.
What They Want
NACH's main priority in the health care discussion is to ensure that children also feel the benefits of reform and have consistent access to quality care, but that task has been difficult because the challenges in children's health care are different from the overall system, said Jim Kaufman, the group's vice president of public policy.
"The one thing [Congress has] really missed and has been missing in the discussion overall is children's access to care," he said. In President Obama's speech to Congress last week, Kaufman said, "kids were mentioned as an afterthought."
For example, he said, the pediatric health care field is lacking in specialists, while the adult side of the system needs more primary care physicians. So measures in proposed health care legislation that provide incentives for doctors to go into primary care ignore the needs of children.
Because 1 in 4 children receives health care coverage through Medicaid, NACH has focused on reforming Medicaid's payment system to make it equal to that of Medicare. But Medicaid "has pretty much been left out of the discussion," Kaufman said.
Updated at 5:00 p.m. on Sept. 11.
American Association of Orthopaedic Surgeons
This association represents 36,000 musculoskeletal specialists.
What They Want
AAOS supports many of the basic measures most groups want out of reform -- affordable access to quality health care -- but with a couple slants from the perspective of specialist surgeons. "There should be freedom to choose doctors and directly access specialty doctors, like orthopaedic surgeons," said Peter Mandell, chair of AAOS' council on advocacy and a surgeon in California.
AAOS supports widely discussed insurance reforms like eliminating denials based on pre-existing conditions. But the surgeons group also emphasizes the need to focus on "streamlining the insurance claims process to reduce the extra paperwork and time," Mandell said.
The association would like to see medical malpractice reform addressed in health care legislation and was encouraged by President Obama's mention of the issue in his address to Congress this week, though it is currently not part of proposed legislation.
AAOS says that if a public option is included in health care reform, it should comply with free-market principles and not be mandatory for doctors or hospitals. A public option "should be part of the overall menu of insurances that some people are talking about through the exchange, but it should be on a level playing field," Mandell said.
Continue reading Don't Forget About The Specialists, AAOS Says.
Lobbying stories from this week's National Journal (subscription):
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees
This union speaks for 1.6 million local and state government employees including nurses, corrections offers and sanitation workers.
What They Want
AFSCME's priorities for health care reform are also some of the most fragile parts of proposed legislation: a public option, an employer mandate and federal funding for an expansion of Medicaid.
The public option "is a critical way to make the insurance companies honest and to help bring costs down," said Chuck Loveless, AFSCME's legislative director.
Congressional leadership and President Obama have come under pressure from some Republicans, moderate Democrats and interest groups to forgo a public option in favor of a co-op system or similar alternative. But Loveless said the public option and the employer mandate are necessary to achieve near universal coverage.
The union wants to see an expansion of Medicaid, but it worries that the cost will be pushed onto state governments. To avoid this problem, AFSCME wants reform legislation to provide for federal funding of a Medicaid expansion.
The states are under "severe fiscal distress at the moment," Loveless said. "This can not be laid on the backs of the states."
Continue reading AFSCME Fights For Public Option, Employer Mandate.
We are getting a dizzying number of e-mails this week from interest groups on the left and the right and what they are doing to promote their viewpoint on health care reform, so we thought we'd attempt to do a roundup of the highlights of the e-mails we received to put it in some kind of perspective:
Straddling that line between advocacy and education, libertarian think tank Cato Institute is planning to run radio ads on Washington's major news/talk radio stations for 10 days, starting today, to "educate" Americans about the problems with current congressional plans for health care reform.
MoveOn.org, meanwhile, has posted a new video with photos of people showing how they or friends and family members are suffering from lack of insurance, accompanied by a specially made soundtrack by rockers R.E.M.
The conservative National Center for Policy Analysis and the Salem Radio Network have plans to use an ambulance, gurney and six conservative radio talk show hosts to deliver a petition opposed to current health reform legislation to Congress tomorrow.
The labor-backed Campaign for America's Future, meanwhile, is collecting signatures to petition Obama not to drop the public health insurance option, which the group promises to deliver to him before his speech tomorrow night.
With all these competing interest group voices on the air waves, is anyone getting through?
Robert Weissman has been named the new president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, stepping into the shoes that were long worn by Joan Claybrook, who announced her departure in December 2008.
Weissman, 43, has been the long-time director of corporate accountability for the citizens' action group Essential Action, editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine the covers corporate actors worldwide, and an attorney for the Center for Study of Responsive Law.
Weissman's top priorities are climate change, health care reform, financial regulation and campaign finance reform.
"Public Citizen will do everything it has done so well for nearly 40 years - and more," Weissman said in a statement. "We will invest more in organizing people, both virtually and through traditional, on-the-ground means. I am proud to follow in the footsteps of Public Citizen's first president and founder Ralph Nader and Joan Claybrook."
(Photo of Weissman provided by Public Citizen)
Updated at 2:50 p.m. on Sept. 8.
American College of Emergency Physicians
This society of 25,000 members focuses on issues related to emergency health care.
What They Want
Since 2005, ACEP has pushed in vain for passage of the Access to Emergency Medical Services Act, and now it wants to see the measures from that bill included in health care legislation.
The group's priority is to reduce overcrowding in emergency departments, a problem it says is mostly caused by "boarding", the practice of keeping patients who have already been admitted to a hospital in the emergency department for prolonged periods of time. Those patients often wait 24 to 72 hours to move from the ER to the hospital, ACEP reports.
"That slows down life-saving medicine for everybody," said Angela Gardner, president-elect of ACEP and a medical professor at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
Though it is commonly thought that overcrowding in ERs is caused by people who go in with non-emergency conditions, those individuals only account for 12 percent of patients, while "boarded" patients account for 30 percent, Gardner said, citing reports by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
To reduce crowding, ACEP wants a federal commission to investigate emergency department practices and develop nationwide policies. ACEP would also like to see the establishment of a working group under the Department of Health and Human Services made up of emergency medicine experts to address the same issues of crowding and boarding.
The group also wants a 10 percent increase in Medicare funding for subspecialists, like orthopedic surgeons and cardiologists, who are required to provide emergency care regardless of the patient's ability to pay.
Service Employees International Union
This union represents 2.1 million workers in the health care, public services and property services industries.
What They Want
The SEIU has five priorities for health care reform legislation: affordability, inclusion of a public option, employer responsibility, investment in health care workforce training and investment in long-term patient care.
The union's demand for a public option puts it at odds with other influential groups involved in health care discussions, like the Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business and America's Health Insurance Plans, that are vehemently opposed to it.
A public option "is the only way we're going to have true competition," SEIU spokeswoman Lori Lodes said. "It's the only way we can drive down costs."
As the representative for workers, the SEIU is also on the other side of the table from business groups on the employer mandate. The union says employers should either have to provide coverage or pay into a fund, though small businesses should receive tax credits or be exempt.
American Academy of Family Physicians
This organization represents about 100,000 family physicians, family medicine residents and medical students.
What They Want
The AAFP has formally endorsed both the House bill and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee bill, the two pieces of legislation that have so far left committee. The group supports these pieces of legislation because of they include provisions that will expand coverage, primary care access and the primary care work force.
The group reports that 70 percent of doctors in the U.S. are specialized, while internationally the breakdown is split 50-50 between primary care and specialized physicians. The group sees a need for a more even health care field, which it believes can happen through reform legislation.
To expand the primary care work force, the AAFP wants to see incentives put in place to draw more physicians into the primary care field, such as increasing payments for primary care services as well as scholarships and loan assistance for medical students.
"It's a terrible problem that's developing and that's already developed in terms of a work force imbalance," said Ted Epperly, AAFP's president and a family physician in Boise, Idaho. "If we don't have the right type of doctors for [people] to go to, then we won't be able to improve their health."
The group also supports a focus on prevention and insurance reforms that will eliminate coverage denials based on health status and variable rates based on gender and age. The AAFP would also like to see tort reform included in the discussion, though such measures aren't currently included in proposed legislation.
National Federation of Independent Business
This association speaks for the interests of small and independent business owners. The group has 350,000 members.
What They Want
The NFIB has four top goals for health care reform legislation: lowering costs while increasing access, reforming the individual and small group insurance markets, providing greater choice for insurance options and making insurance plans portable.
The group's focus is different from other business groups like the Business Roundtable, because small business owners are characteristically different from large corporations in their insurance-buying habits. NFIB reports that small businesses pay 18 percent more in premiums than large companies for the same health insurance benefits and premiums for small businesses have risen by 113 percent since 1999.
"We feel [the individual and small group] marketplaces are currently broken," said Amanda Austin, NFIB's director of federal public policy, citing the need to eliminate denials of coverage based on pre-existing conditions.
To increase choice in those markets, the NFIB would like to open up the system so insurance consumers can shop across state lines.
"We would like employers to be able to choose the plan that fits them," Austin said. Small business owners "need to be in the driver's seat and not the back seat."
The NFIB also feels health care reform should provide a way for people to keep their insurance plan if they leave a job that provided coverage. Because of the way the employer-based insurance system works now, individuals are often reluctant to become self-employed or move to a small business because they'll lose coverage, Austin contended.
"People are staying in jobs versus becoming the next big idea because of reasons like health care," she said.
The group's overall stance -- that reform needs to happen promptly -- is far different from the last time health care reform was on the table. In the 1990s, the NFIB actively worked against Clinton's reform plan.
"It is necessary we have reform," Austin said of this year's reform debate. "Status quo is unacceptable in our eyes."
Federation of American Hospitals
This group represents the 1,100 investor-owned, or for-profit, hospitals that make up about 20 percent of the hospital industry.
What They Want
FAH's top priority for reform legislation is getting as close as possible to universal coverage -- about 95 percent coverage is the target, FAH President Charles Kahn said. "Our focus has been on assuring that all, or as many as possible, of Americans receive health care coverage," he said.
"We understand, at the same time, that... costs need to be held under control and contained," he said.
To help reach that coverage goal, three groups representing hospitals -- FAH plus the American Hospital Association and the Catholic Health Association of the United States -- agreed in July to take $155 billion in government reimbursement cuts over the next 10 years, assuming legislation with near universal coverage passes.
Kahn suggested other ways to fund the overhaul that would lead to coverage expansion, like pay for performance.
American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network
This organization, the advocacy wing of the American Cancer Society, works to find government solutions to issues affecting cancer patients and to reduce the disease's occurrence.
What They Want
ACS CAN has three priorities for reform legislation: guaranteed access to sufficient care, emphasis on preventative screenings and services, and improved quality of life for cancer patients. "We want to go from a sick care system to a true health care system," said President Dan Smith.
To help cancer patients gain access to affordable coverage, the group supports eliminating health insurance exclusions, ratings based on preexisting conditions and annual and lifetime caps. They'd also like to limit out-of-pocket costs for patients.
Ultimately, ACS CAN wants to drive down the incidence of cancer. The group says 60 percent of the country's 565,000 annual cancer deaths are preventable through measures like early screening, maintaining a healthy body weight and quitting smoking. So ACS CAN hopes to see provisions relating to those measures in health care legislation. "We're not properly incentivizing prevention in this country," Smith said. He added that such measures would lower overall costs while cutting down on cancer rates.
The top five heavy hitters in health care this year work in the White House or on Capitol Hill, followed by many of K Street's biggest influencers, according to Modern Healthcare's 2009 list of the 100 most powerful people in health care.
Last year, the magazine listed leaders in the technology sector as its top three, but this year reform efforts in Washington have dominated the attention of the industry.
President Obama is ranked No. 1, followed by his health care gurus, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Filling out the top five are Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and ranking member Charles Grassley, R-Iowa.
A little further down the list are CEOs, presidents and executives from a host of the top-spending interest and advocacy groups: Andy Stern of Service Employees International Union; James Guest of the Consumers Union; Billy Tauzin of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America; Richard Umbdenstock of the American Hospital Association; Karen Ignagni of America's Health Insurance Plans; Chip Kahn of the Federation of American Hospitals; Scott Serota of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association; James Rohack and Michael Maves of the American Medical Association; and John Rother of AARP.
Under the Influence has been profiling the top players in the health care reform discussion.
Read the rest of Modern Healthcare's list here (subscribers only).
American College of Radiology
This association boasts 32,000 members in radiology-related professions, including radiologists, medical physicists and radiation oncologists.
What They Want
ACR would like to see three issues addressed in health care reform legislation: medical malpractice reform, physician self-referral and the implementation of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) technology.
As health care providers, who are affected by medical malpractice insurance rates, radiologists would like to see limits on the amount of money that can be paid out in malpractice cases.
"We hope and continue to hope [medical malpractice reforms] will be part of the health care reform discussion," said Ariel Gonzalez, ACR's director of congressional relations. "However, it looks like that isn't going to be the case this time."
The group also wants better regulation of physician self-referral for imaging services because the "financial conflict of interest" can hurt patients, Gonzalez said. Laws were passed in 1993 regulating imaging device referrals, but the self-referral loophole popped up because most doctors didn't own the machines at the time.
Another patient safety issue the ACR is pushing deals with how imaging services are ordered. Currently, radiology benefit management companies determine what tests a doctor can order for a patient, and if they say no, their word is final, Gonzalez said. But using CPOE technology instead would standardize the process, ACR contends, ensuring "the right test or the right scan is being ordered at the right time for the right person."
Doctors would input symptoms, and CPOE would give the doctor a rating of 0 to 10 on the appropriateness of the test. The technology would also track how many of each type of test doctors order, and it could be integrated into health information technology systems to avoid duplicating test orders. As a result, test orders would decrease, Gonzalez predicted, which would cut overall health care costs and protect patients from overexposure to radiation.
ACR also supports changing the sustainable growth rate, which ties Medicare payments to doctors to the growth of the economy, rather than health care costs.
Biotechnology Industry Organization
This organization advocates for 1,200 biotech companies, academic institutions and biotech centers. Its members include companies that develop health care technologies, like Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Bayer and Merck.
What They Want
In the health care reform debate, BIO has concentrated on what it knows best: biologic drugs.
Biologics are drugs made from living organisms instead of chemical compounds. They are used to treat particularly serious or complex conditions like cancer, diabetes and HIV/AIDS.
Thus far, these drugs have not seen generic competition because the technology that creates them is cutting-edge. And true generic versions are unlikely because of the biologics' complexity. But Congress and the Food and Drug Administration are exploring how biosimilars -- drugs that would have small differences from the original -- can be manufactured and sold at a lower price. According to a June report from the Federal Trade Commission, treatment of breast cancer with a biologic drug can cost up to $48,000 per year. The report estimated that Americans spend a total of $40.3 billion per year on biologic drugs.
Legislation dealing with biosimilars was originally considered on its own, but it has since become part of health care reform legislation. BIO is supporting rules on biosimilars as a way to regulate the drugs to promote safety and further development.
"We took the position that we were going to be proactively in favor of biosimilars legislation," said Jim Greenwood, president and CEO of BIO.
Because the drugs are so complex, biosimilars need to be tested thoroughly to make sure they are as effective as biologics, BIO argues. And the group says the companies developing the biologics need to maintain exclusive rights for 12 years to get back their financial investment, since biologics take more time and resources to research and develop.
Health care reform bills passed by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and the House Energy and Commerce Committee included amendments mandating the 12-year exclusivity period. The amendments passed in both committees with bipartisan support, in the Senate HELP Committee by a vote of 16-7 and in the House Energy and Commerce Committee by a vote of 47-11.
The White House, AARP and others have called for a seven-year exclusivity period that would get the cheaper drugs to patients faster.
"Those legislative battles have been fairly ferocious with AARP and the administration," Greenwood said.
He added that with the Senate HELP and House Energy and Commerce amendments passed, BIO will still have to work to protect biologics language in conference committee and in floor debate, but "so far, so good."
BIO also supports comparative effectiveness initiatives.
"We think it's important [to have] good, well-designed studies that can compare one drug to another drug or a drug to a surgical procedure or one surgical procedure to another surgical procedure," Greenwood said.
America's Health Insurance Plans
This association includes 1,300 health insurance companies that provide coverage for over 200 million Americans, according to company information. Members include America's largest insurers: Aetna, the Blue Cross Blue Shield chapters, Humana, UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint and others.
What They Want
As the representative of the health insurance industry, AHIP's focus is on one key aspect of the health care discussion: insurance reforms.
The group is on board with reforms that would eliminate the industry's practice of denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions and rating insurance based on health status or gender, AHIP spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said. But he added that those reforms can only happen if coverage is mandated.
"The only way it works is if everybody participates," Zirkelbach said. Without the personal requirement, individuals would wait to get insurance until health problems arose and overall premiums would increase, he said, citing data from states where insurance reforms have been implemented already.
To reach universal coverage, AHIP also proposes an expansion of Medicaid and tax credits for lower-income families.
Continue reading AHIP: All For Reforms, But Not Government Competition.
American Hospital Association
About 5,000 hospitals and health care networks are members of the AHA, including a large majority of the 5,708 registered hospitals in the U.S.
What They Want
The AHA promotes a five-pronged approach to health care reform: coverage, prevention, quality, cost control and information.
"We'd like to see health reform be comprehensive, not just focus on a couple of small dimensions," said Robert Umbdenstock, president and CEO. "We don't think any one of them will solve the problem."
Because hospital emergency rooms are legally obligated to provide health service for everyone, whether or not they're insured or can pay out of pocket, hospitals have an interest in universal coverage. The AHA has taken to promoting "coverage for all, paid for by all," saying all stakeholders -- individuals, businesses, insurers and the government -- must help with the inevitable costs of expanding coverage.
To do its part, the AHA, along with two other hospital associations, announced in July an agreement to take $155 billion in cuts in Medicare reimbursements and other payments over the next 10 years. The relinquished funds will instead be used for the health care overhaul.
To control overall health costs, the AHA proposes a focus on preventive measures, a reduction in administrative costs and improvement in chronic disease management; to improve quality of care, the group wants to see payment incentives and care coordination.
Finally, the AHA is calling for greater access to information, both on the provider side and on the patient side.
"We do want to see greater movement and sharing of information across the health system," Umbdenstock said, citing health information technology and "informed decision-making by patients and providing them with alternatives."
Blue Cross Blue Shield Association
This federation represents the interests of the 39 "independent, community-based and locally operated" Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance companies, which collectively cover more than 100 million Americans.
What They Want
The Blue Cross Blue Shield Association's basic requirements for health reform are in line with most everyone talking reform. The group wants to "expand coverage to everyone and rein in costs while improving quality," Senior Vice President for Policy and Representation Alissa Fox said.
To expand coverage, BCBSA wants to get rid of the current blockages such as ratings based on age or gender and denials based on pre-existing coverage. As a representative for insurance companies, BCBSA's support of those reforms is significant, but the group says its push for those changes is nothing new.
"We've been supporting insurance reforms for years. Blue Cross Blue Shield plans had the exact same position in 1993 and 1994," Fox said. "No other industry is coming to the table offering reforms of their own industry in such a significant way."
To control costs while improving outcomes, the group supports comparative effectiveness research and more preventative care, according to the group's reform plan, "The Pathway to Covering America."
"We agree with the vast majority of what's in the bills that we've seen," Fox said.
Continue reading BCBSA Likes The 'Vast Majority' Of What It Sees.
American Medical Association
This 162-year-old national organization advocates for physicians and medical students.
What They Want
The AMA endorsed the House bill for its inclusion of near-universal coverage, a health insurance exchange, Medicare reform, and prevention and wellness initiatives.
In a July letter to House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., the AMA also praised the bill for funding chronic disease management and care coordination, stopping denials of insurance based on preexisting conditions, mandating insurance coverage, improving the Physician Quality Reporting Initiative and addressing "growing physician workforce concerns."
Under the House bill, those workforce concerns will be addressed through an increase in funding for the National Health Service Corps -- a program within the Department of Health and Human Services that assists doctors in underserved communities -- and greater promotion of primary care services and community health centers.
The House bill, however, does not include any provisions relating to tort reform or defensive medical practices, issues the AMA has advocated for in the past. For years, the AMA has said that tort reform, which would cap pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice cases, could lower insurers' payouts and limit the rising costs of insurance.
The sheer amount of activity in the health care debate, in terms of interest group lobbying for and against various aspects of reform, makes it almost impossible for a reader to put things in perspective. It seems like almost every other day this summer National Journal and its sister publications have reported on some new multi-million dollar advertising or lobbying campaign.
Fortunately Trudy Lieberman, a writer for Columbia Journalism Review, has been producing a series of in-depth and thought-provoking stories over the past year, called "Who Is At the Table," on the many interest groups who have the most influence on shaping the outcome of health care reform. She is also sharp in her criticism about how media outlets have been covering these interest groups, which has been useful to me as I've been thinking about various stories.
Most recently, she wrote a piece about United Healthcare and its top lobbyist Cory Alexander, a former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md. United Healthcare also owns the Lewin Group, a health care management consulting firm that is repeatedly quoted by lawmakers as if it is a neutral source on health care policy issues. See Business Week's recent story declaring the health insurance industry will get what it wants in new health care legislation.
If you are interested in getting some perspective as the rhetoric at these town halls continues to heat up, click here to take a look at Trudy's stories.
Business Roundtable
This association includes about 160 chief executive officers of the country's top companies.
What They Want
As the providers of employer-sponsored coverage for about 35 million employees and dependents, the CEOs that make up the Business Roundtable are primarily concerned with controlling health care costs. "The CEOs have said their companies will continue to provide coverage, but what they want out of this is a better system," said Maria Ghazal, the policy director heading the Business Roundtable's Consumer Health and Retirement Initiative.
To those ends, the group would like to see more competition in the health insurance marketplace, perhaps through a regional system of insurance markets, and an increase in insurance options so individuals can keep coverage no matter their employment status.
But until a system overhaul becomes reality, the business leaders want to make sure their coverage of employees continues without interruption. "We need to make sure that we don't do anything that dismantles" the current coverage system, Ghazal said.
Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America
This trade group speaks for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that provide and develop drugs.
What They Want
Drugmakers don't sell their products in a vacuum, so when the health care discussion began, PhRMA made sure it was part of the conversation early on. "When the president called on leaders in the health care industry to work on health care reform, we were one of the first ones to do it," said Ken Johnson, senior vice president at PhRMA.
According to its "Platform for a Healthy America," PhRMA wants reform to emphasize patient care by focusing on disease prevention, management of chronic disease and expansion of insurance coverage. The group also wants to increase use of health information technology, coordination of care and comparative effectiveness research.
"The problem is that we have a sick care system and not a health care system," Johnson said. "We've got it backwards."
Continue reading PhRMA: Involved In Health Care 'Since Day One'.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a nonprofit business federation, represents 3 million businesses nationwide.
What They Want
The Chamber has three main demands from health care reform: controlling costs, making it harder for insurance companies to deny coverage and streamlining a competitive insurance market.
The group wants to target costs because of the role businesses play in providing health insurance for Americans. About 160 million Americans receive health benefits from their employers, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, and the Chamber reports that employers spend $500 billion annually on health benefits.
"We can't insure the uninsured unless we make it affordable to do so," said James Gelfand, senior manager of health policy. To achieve that goal, the Chamber supports many of the wide range of options that have been suggested for cost control, such as reforming and improving primary care services and tying physician pay to performance.
To reform the insurance system, they want legislation to stop insurance companies from denying coverage based on medical conditions and rating individuals based on factors like health and gender.
This nonprofit organization of 40 million members represents Americans aged 50 and over, a segment of the population that's particularly tuned in to the health care debate.
What They Want
AARP's No. 1 goal from reform legislation is to make health care affordable, said John Rother, executive vice president of policy and strategy at AARP. The group suggests reaching that goal by limiting insurance companies' ability to rate costumers based on age or preexisting conditions.
Additionally, AARP wants to improve Medicare, specifically by closing the "doughnut hole." Currently, Medicare Part D -- the prescription drug program -- covers 75 percent of prescription drug costs up to a certain level, then covers no part of prescription costs in a coverage gap, then covers 95 percent at the highest levels of prescription costs. The cost limits change annually; for 2009 the coverage gap where seniors must pay 100 percent of their prescription costs is between $2,700 and $6,154.
In 2007, 26 percent of seniors who were enrolled in Medicare Part D and did not receive low-income subsidies reached the level where they had to pay 100 percent of their prescription costs out of pocket, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation report. Of that 26 percent, 15 percent eventually reached the level of catastrophic costs.
Leaders of religious communities across the country are no longer content leaving health care reform to politicians.
Through a call-in event with President Obama, television advertisements, prayer rallies, meetings with members of Congress and sermons, a coalition of faith-based organizations hopes to show that health care reform is a "profoundly moral issue," said Katie Paris, spokeswoman for the group.
As protestors have expressed their opposition at health care town hall meetings, the faith community wants to redirect the debate to focus on the need to provide affordable care for all Americans.
"Every so often there is an issue that is so clear and compelling that it really does galvanize the faith community," said Rev. Jim Wallis, president of Christian organization Sojourners. "There are people in the country who want to stop an honest, fair, moral discussion about health care. We can't let that happen."
Historically, members of local communities who cannot afford basic necessities - like food, housing or health care - have relied on faith-based organizations for help. And now, those organizations want to see the government do more to provide health care for all.
"A lot of people are sick, and our institutions are often taking care of sick people," Wallis said. "We clean up the mess. I see exclusion. I see people being left out."
Representatives of the coalition say that Americans should see health care as an ethical matter, rather than a political one.
"We come to this precisely because it is a human rights issue that supersedes any politically ideology and any partisan ideology," said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism. "There's a powerful religious voice that needs to be heard.
The coalition will hold a call-in event with Obama next week, which will be broadcast through their Web site.
The coalition is organized by PICO National Network, Faith in Public Life, Faithful America, Sojourners and Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good.
CongressDailyPM reports on this event as well.
UPDATED @ 11:53 AM to add AARP spokesman Drew Nannis's comment.
Don't put the brakes on health care reform. AARP, the nation's most powerful seniors' association, launched a multimillion-dollar campaign this morning to debunk so-called myths surrounding the health care debate. Founded in 1958, AARP has 40 million members in offices in all 50 states.
Leaving no media format untapped, AARP's 'myths versus fact' advertising will run on national and local television and radio, in print publications and online. In an attack against largely conservative ideas, AARP is attempting to dismantle the notions that health care reform is not affordable to fix right now, equals the end of Medicare, and will lead to a government takeover as well as rationed care.
Click here to see all of the ad materials.
In a big grassroots push, AARP activists will take action in every state to make sure all lawmakers know that the 50-plus community wants action on healthcare reform now. For the first half of 2009, AARP spent upwards of $9 million on federal lobbying.
"It's critical that people have the information about the proposals currently being debated in Congress," said Drew Nannis, spokesperson for AARP. "There is a lot of misinformation out there, and people need to make decisions based on accurate information, not myths, lies, and scare tactics."
More than 200 interest groups have submitted testimony in support of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor -- eclipsing the next-most-praised nominees 10 times over. Robert Bork and Justice Clarence Thomas had previously shared the record, with 21 interest groups in support of each judge during their nomination, according to a database compiled by Northwestern law professor Lee Epstein and her colleagues.
Just eight groups submitted testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in opposition to Sotomayor, compared with 66 filing against Justice Samuel Alito in 2005. The last nominees chosen by a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, didn't trigger nearly as much interest group attention: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg motivated 10 groups to submit testimony and Justice Stephen Breyer only six.
The chance to put the first Latina on the high court has no doubt contributed to the unusual level of interest, as did Obama's popularity on the left and the Democrats' first chance at a Supreme Court appointment since 1994. But the heightened involvement from interest groups is also a product of convenience: More than they have in the past, groups added their names to joint letters of support, some of which were signed by dozens of organizations. "It's easy to attach themselves to a letter," said Jeffrey Segal, a political science professor at Stony Brook University who compiled the data included in this graph. "There's no cost for them to do that."
The increased politicization of the Supreme Court confirmation process also contributes to the numbers. "It's an easy way for groups to rev up their base and to send out letters asking for support," Segal said. "It becomes a way for these groups to raise their visibility."
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?
Ire over cap-and-trade is helping conservative groups grow their Rolodex of supporter e-mail addresses this summer as their online advocacy efforts enjoy unprecedented participation levels.
One is Freedom Works, which generated over 40,000 e-mails to Congress during a July 4 call to action to defeat the climate change bill, according to the conservative group's press secretary Adam Brandon. It was a "tremendous spike in activity," he said.
The Campaign for Working Families and the John Birch Society, both conservative groups, also staged e-mail campaigns to defeat the climate change bill, but would not release participation numbers, saying only that they have fielded increased online support thanks to dissatisfaction with the legislation.
The burst of emails during the July 4 recess led some members of Congress to perceive salient opposition to the bill, according to Doug Thornell, an aide to Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who voted in favor of the bill. But those on the left question whether there really is growing opposition. Thornell said some theorize that the e-mails really reflect a small contingent of opposition "brought together by Fox News, the right wing blogs, and conservative talk radio."
But that might not matter. The most significant impact of the e-mail campaigns may not be changing minds on Capitol Hill for these conservative groups but, rather the opportunity to gather e-mail addresses from voters in the heartland. Freedom Works has collected over 17,000 new supporter e-mail addresses since February from people interested in energy and cap-and-trade, according to Brandon.
Collecting a large database of supporter e-mail addresses is an essential step in online organizing. "Mass emails are about the least effective way to advocate. But when you use it to get someone to make a phone call, that, all of a sudden, is a very big deal," said Colin Delany, the founder of e.politics, a site about online organizing.
For Freedom Works, each new e-mail address represents an opportunity to rear a new small government advocate. "The real value added is when you keep moving these people up the food chain on any issue," Brandon said.
Conservative groups have generally lagged behind progressive groups in web organizing success, but Brandon believes online efforts will surge thanks to the newfound wealth of galvanizing issues the Obama administration and the Democrat Congress have proposed, like climate change legislation.
"It's clear now when one [policy] is for expanding the role of government, and one is not," Brandon said. "It's so easy" to get people motivated.
Members of Natural Resources Defense Council condemned the conservative group's strategy of using climate change to build membership. Pete Altman, an NRDC climate change director, characterized the Freedom Works strategy as latching onto climate change to further the "broader agenda of opposing progress." He added that: "Clean energy and climate are basically being used to try to propel [these conservative groups] forward."
Thornell echoed the sentiment. "The right wing is looking for any opportunity to mobilize their supporters, and they're trying to find a good fundraising boogeyman," he said.
Move over, Newt Gingrich. This year's prize for the biggest political comeback could go to a pair of small-screen actors, Harry and Louise.
When the duo agreed to appear this month in ads funded by Families USA and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America touting health care reform--after starring in ads against it in 1993--the new campaign seemed like a savvy marketing coup and an interesting cultural twist.
But now Harry Johnson and Louise Caire Clark--the actors playing the middle-aged couple--are broadening their role. They're stepping out beyond the script and touting their status as "cultural icons in the health care debate," as their shared Twitter bio describes them.
Speaking off-screen and on their own dollar--and not as spokespeople for PhRMA or Families USA--Clark and Johnson have either developed a passion for advocacy or are just relishing the extension of their 15 minutes.
The actors, who are not married in real life, maintain joint Facebook and Twitter pages unaffiliated with their ad sponsors. They write about two things: healthcare reform and their own publicity. So far, they have 31 Twitter followers. (Louise is married to Ben Goddard, the producer of the 1993 "Harry and Louise" ads)
Typical tweets mention their press: "Louise, here's our National Journal Article http://bit.ly/cESxt."
Or, "The Washington Examiner calls us iconic! http://tinyurl.com/kwts4o."
In an update of our post from this morning, CongressDailyPM reported:
"Harry and Louise" are back, but this time they're supporting health reform.
The duo, famous for ads opposing then-President Bill Clinton's health reform plan in 1994, will star in a new multimillion-dollar ad backed by Families USA and Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America that begins running this weekend.
The actors, Louise Clark and Harry Johnson, appeared on Capitol Hill today with Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee members today to cheerlead for the healthcare overhaul the panel approved this week. Also appearing at the event were former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D.; John Podesta, a former Clinton administration official and president of the Center for American Progress; AFL-CIO President John Sweeney; and Families USA President Ron Pollack, among others. All represent progressive groups that strongly back the HELP Committee's $611 billion overhaul, which would provide for a public plan option.
"This bill does not tinker around the edges," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. "This is a paradigm shift."
This is the second time in the past year that Harry and Louise have come out for health care reform. Back in August 2008, the two appeared in a series of television ads paid for by American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Hospital Association, the Catholic Health Association, Families USA, and the National Federation of Independent Business. The ads were timed to run during the Democratic and Republican national conventions last year.
House Democrats this afternoon unveiled a 1,018-page healthcare overhaul bill, with Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, D-NY, announcing that his committee will begin marking up its portion on Thursday morning, CongressDailyPM reports. (subscription)
Click here to see the actual bill.
As the bill was being unveiled, 31 business groups including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Federation of Independent Business, and the National Association of Manufacturers, wrote a joint letter to House members raising points of opposition to the legislation. Many of the groups who signed onto the letter have been publicly quiet, until now, on the healthcare reform debate. They include the International Dairy Foods Association and the National Association of Home Builders.
"We felt it was important to draw the line" with the letter, said James Gelfand, senior manager of health policy at the U.S. Chamber.
Two of the key points in the letter are opposition to a mandate requiring employers to provide health care coverage and opposition to the creation of a public plan option.
"We believe that some of the approaches under considering in the House legislation would not improve the system, but in fact would jeopardize the parts of the system that currently work," the letter says.
The question now is how aggressive will these groups be in expressing their opposition? Will they run "Harry and Louise" type ads, like those that were funded by the health insurance industry 15 years ago, that many believe turned public opinion against President Clinton's health care reform efforts?
Gelfand says no, for now. He expects business groups to keep their powder dry until they see what the Senate Finance Committee produces. That committee's chairman, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. has been working closely with ranking chair Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, to produce a bipartisan bill that would likely address many of the concerns business groups are raising. That legislation is expected to be unveiled later this week, though the deadline has shifted in prior weeks and could shift again.
The conservative think tank Americans for Prosperity announced it is plunging an additional $1.3 million into television advertising advocating less government involvement in health care policy.
The ads will be run through the think tank's Patients First campaign and targets senators in 12 states. The group has already spent about $2 million in commercials over the past month raising grim scenarios about the impact of the health-care reform legislation developing in Congress.
Here's the most recent Patients First ad, which will run this week.
Atlantic contributor Matthew Cooper writes that even with the support of newly sworn-in Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that has been heavily lobbied by unions, remains stuck in the Senate.
Says Cooper: "The problem that's plagued the bill for months still remains: 60 Democrats don't support it and the Republicans are determined to filibuster the measure."
That's probably music to the ears of the business community, which has united to oppose the legislation.
Lobbying stories in this week's National Journal: (subscription)
Liberal and conservative groups are ramping up the pressure on Senate Democrats and Republicans on health care reform.
The Progressive Change Campaign Committee, which supports the creation of a public plan option in health care reform, is running an ad juxtaposing polling numbers from a June 8th Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll--showing 76 percent support for a public health care plan option--with the seven-figure campaign contributions received by seven centrist Democrats reluctant to back such an option.
The group has been soliciting funds online and offering supporters a chance to have their names posted on the ad, to run on CNN, MSNBC and The Daily Show. In its first day, says spokesman Adam Green, the group's campaign has exceeded its original goal of raising $15,000--to allow 100 airings of the ad--by nearly $6,000, which Green said will allow a larger ad buy. Green says the group is now considering airing similar ads within the states of individual senators featured. See ad here.
Good government groups are using House Democrats' rush to pass climate change legislation to renew their call for more congressional deliberation and public input on major legislation.
"This Friday, Congress plans to vote on a bill that could fundamentally alter the American economy, dramatically affect the climate, and have huge implications for our national security. But, right now no one knows what's in the bill or how it came to be," said a release from the Sunlight Foundation, which leads a coalition called "ReadTheBill.org."
The coalition is supporting legislation introduced in mid-June by Reps. Brian Baird, D-Wash., and John Culberson, D-Texas that would require the House to post bills online 72 hours before they're debated.
The Sunlight Foundation notes that the American Clean Energy and Security Act--known as the "Cap and Trade Energy Bill" ballooned from a 946-page bill marked up by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, to a 1201 page bill when it emerged after it negotiations with Agriculture Committee Chairman Colin Peterson, D-Minn.in mid-June, with little explanation.
With just 4 days before House leaders are promising a vote on June 26th, the bill was made available online in an unofficial version on the House Rules Committee's website. While that might seem to meet the 72-hour requirement Sunlight favors, foundation spokesman Gabriela Schneider says it is not much of a step forward.
"Technically, what was posted is not the final legislation because it hasn't even been introduced yet," she said by e-mail. "Moreover, most people don't know to look at the Rules Committee site."
Health Care For America Now, a grassroots campaign that calls itself a coaltion of about 1,000 progressive organizations and labor unions, launched a $1.1 million television advertising campaign aimed at senators from 10 states, urging them to pass a health care bill that includes a public option.
The ad, titled "What If?", is running for 10 days in Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington. (See the ad on Health Care for America Now's website. Click here.)
The ads come as the Senate Finance Committee is considering drafting a bill that would include alternatives to a public plan, such as Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad's co-op alternative. The North Dakota Democrat has suggested creating non-profit co-ops, funded initially with public dollars, to compete with private health insurers.
Though he was forced to withdraw his nomination for Health and Human Services secretary earlier this year, former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., hasn't disappeared from the health care debate. He is still working to influence the shape of the legislative battle in Congress.
Daschle joined with former Senators Howard Baker, R-Tenn., and Robert Dole, R-Kan., on Wednesday to offer a bipartisan compromise for health care reform, just as the Democrats' efforts on the Hill seemed to be slowing. Click here to see report.
Daschle currently works as a special public policy adviser at Alston & Bird and isn't registered to lobby. His nomination was derailed earlier this year after he failed to pay some back taxes on use of a car.
The reform proposal, developed with the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center, calls for letting states develop public plan options, which Daschle said could be "similar to those [that] many already operate," CongressDailyPM reported (subscription). The federal government would provide funds to start the plans.
Earlier in the day, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., said mark-up of health care legislation may slip to July as the committee deals with finding a way to address the Congressional Budget Office's assessment that its reform measure would cost $1.6 trillion over 10 years. See CongressDaily's story on Finance Panel news (subscription).
(Photo courtesy of Creative Commons)
Amid discussion on Capitol Hill over health care reform legislation, Americans United for Change launched a new ad today in support of President Obama's plans to reform health care. Americans United for Change, a government reform group dedicated to amplifying the progressive message, has partnered with Health Care for America Now in this campaign. HCAN members include about 1,000 members such as MoveOn.org.
The ad, entitled "62%", promotes the fact that a majority of Americans support health care reform that gives people a choice between keeping their current plan or joining a public health insurance plan. The figure comes from Hotline/Diageo poll results released on June 10. As part of a five-figure media buy, the ad (see here), hits the DC cable market today and will air throughout the week.
"Republicans in Congress aren't listening," said Tom McMahon, acting executive director of Americans United for Change in a press release today. "They're standing in the way of progress, saying no to the 62% who back President Obama's overhaul efforts."
My National Journal.com colleague Theresa Poulson shot video of my interviews with Karen Ignagni, CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, Dan Danner, head of the National Federation of Independent Business and Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.
These short videos give viewers a little more of the personal side of Ignagni, Danner, and Pollack than I was able to provide in my story in this week's issue which looked at the battle lines that might be drawn on the coming health care debate in Congress.
In this week's National Journal: (subscription)
Ready to fight fire with fire, the SEIU countered the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's 'Campaign for Free Enterprise' (see earlier blog post today), with an ad attacking the business heavyweight for an anti-working families record. This is the latest exchange in the multi-million dollar battle over the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), labor legislation that would make it easier to form a union.
The message of the ad: the Chamber's opposition to EFCA is consistent with their anti-worker record. Entitled "Bad Company" (view here), the ad states the Chamber has lobbied to keep kids from getting health care, opposed increasing the minimum wage and fought against family leave. As part of a roughly six figure buy, the SEIU will run the ad online in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia and North Dakota.
"We are at a time of unprecedented income inequality," said Christy Setzer, SEIU spokesperson. "[The Chamber of Commerce] is an organization that's gone out of their way to support the interest of a narrow band of wealthy corporations."
In a press release, SEIU Secretary-Treasurer called the Chamber's efforts, "a deep-pocketed misinformation campaign."
From this week's National Journal: (subscription)
Advocates from the environmental, veteran and trade union communities have launched an advertising campaign criticizing lawmakers who opposed the American Clean Energy & Security Act last week in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. A strange bedfellows coalition, the League of Conservation Voters, VoteVets.org and America's Building Trades Unions, have joined forces to support the clean energy bill.
The coalition is behind TV ads targeting Reps. John Barrow, D-Ga., Roy Blunt, R-Mo., and Mike Ross, D-Ark., for voting against the green legislation. View one of the ads here.
"We are focusing a lot of resources around getting a [comprehensive clean energy] bill to the president's desk to be signed," said Navin Nayak, director of the global warming program at the League of Conservation Voters. "There is still a lot of opposition to this bill, but what's encouraging is a huge amount of support from a more diverse set of interests than ever before."
It's the calm before the Internet storm. Interest groups, influential bloggers and others are anxiously waiting to see who President Obama will pick as his first Supreme Court nominee after Justice David Souter announced his retirement May 1. Once the news is out, they will rally their online supporters and rake through the nominee's court decisions on controversial topics like gay marriage, abortion and affirmative action to speculate on how he or she will influence the high court for decades to come.
"Every chink in the armor, every flaw, gets magnified" on the Internet, said Tony Mauro, a reporter with the National Law Journal who has covered the Supreme Court for nearly 30 years. The Web makes what would otherwise be normal criticism or flaws seem "like deal breakers," he said.
In the last battle over a Supreme Court nominee, conservatives roundly criticized President Bush's choice of Harriet Miers and forced her to withdraw; liberals then attempted to filibuster Samuel Alito's nomination, charging that he was too far to the right. As legal and political blogs have grown in influence since 2005, Mauro said, the mainstream media, in turn, has acknowledged their higher profile. It only seems natural that the process will be much more intense this time around, he said.
You may think that most civil rights groups would want President Obama to nominate a Supreme Court justice in the mold of Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Stephen Breyer. But the American Association of People with Disabilities isn't one of them.
The Supreme Court has narrowed the scope of the landmark 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act in several decisions, and both Ginsburg and Breyer joined in unanimous rulings on United States v. Georgia in 2006 and Toyota Motor Manufacturing v. Williams in 2002.
In an interview last week, Andrew Imparato, president and CEO of AAPD, said he disagreed with Obama's campaign-trail characterization of Ginsburg and Breyer as model justices. "My hope is that they can stretch beyond Ginsburg and Breyer and really try to get somebody who is more like a [William] Brennan or Thurgood Marshall, who can be a strong voice for civil rights across the board. Even if it's a lone dissenting voice, I think it's a really important role, and I don't feel like we have that right now on the court."
Imparato says the next court pick is a top priority for his organization, and AAPD will be pushing hard for a Supreme Court nominee who strongly supports disability rights.
See this story and more on our newest National Journal blog about Obama and his pick for the Supreme Court. Click here: "The Ninth Justice."
I've seen the women's anti-war group CodePink disrupt many a hearing on Capitol Hill over the past several years in protest of the war in Iraq, but yesterday was the first time that I have seen protesters disrupt a Senate hearing on healthcare.
The protesters weren't anti-war activists, but rather doctors and other citizens, organized by Healthcare-Now! and Physicians for a National Health Program who want Congress to create a single-payer public-financed healthcare plan. Here's the press release and video they published on the event.
No one in Congress is discussing creating a single-payer system and President Obama didn't campaign on starting one either. Still, the protesters yesterday probably put some lawmakers on notice about the passions surrounding the issue.
Eight people got up, one after the other, to yell at Senate Finance Committee members and their panel of 18 stakeholders. Capitol Hill police took them away, one by one and arrested them for disorderly conduct. At one point, a person in the audience turned to me and said "Wow. Now this is democracy in action."
The Huffington Post has more on the story here.
In a rare sight on Capitol Hill for any industry, health insurers practically begged senators Tuesday to regulate their livelihood rather than subject them to the fierce, and potentially lethal, competition that would ensue if lawmakers unleash a government-run public insurance option on them.
"We accept the premise that the system is not working today and needs to be reformed and, in fact, we need very clear, specific government regulation," Karen Ignagni, president of America's Health Insurance Plans said.
AHIP also said insurers would stop discriminating based on gender, which typically leaves women paying more than men.
AHIP has suggested insurers are willing to drop conditions for insurance coverage and variations in premium costs depending on how sick a person is.
Ignagni spoke at a roundtable discussion with the Senate Finance Committee and other stakeholders. She elaborated after the event that she envisions the government setting a minimum health benefit package and enforcing the limits through penalties she said AHIP would help design. She admits the request is unusual.
"It's radical for an industry working in a market to say 'Renovate the rules. Here's the road map,'" Ignagni said.
The Wall Street Journal's Susan Davis has a story on judicial advocacy groups drawing battle lines for the coming fight over President Obama's Supreme Court nominee, now that Justice David Souter offically announced he is retiring.
Davis talked to the Judicial Confirmation Network, Americans United for Life and People for the American Way for her story.
Also, though the House will have no role in the confirmation of a new justice, Davis says the House Republican Conference has tapped six conservative members to serve as the "Supreme Court Rapid Response Team."
Four outside groups today sent a letter to House Ethics Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. and ranking member Jo Bonner, R-Ala., asking that they open an investigation into the defunct lobbying firm PMA Group and its relationship to House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha, D-Pa., and Reps. Peter Visclosky, D-Ind., and James Moran, D-Va., CongressDailyPM reported.
Democracy 21, Common Cause, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG cannot file a complaint with the committee, but they said in the letter that "there is currently no public information to indicate that any ethics investigation is taking place."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio at a news briefing, stopped short of calling for the panel to investigate, but said, "The Ethics Committee has a job to do and I hope they do it."
The Ethics Committee does not identify matters it is considering, and the groups noted that many of the issues it wants investigated occurred before the Office of Congressional Ethics was created. The groups said the committee should "determine whether these House members were influenced by campaign contributions and other financial benefits in providing earmarks for clients of the PMA Group."
What, if any, effect will Sen. Arlen Specter's party switch have on the contentious "card check" battle? At this point, interest groups on both sides of the debate are dismissing any substantial influence the shift could have on the legislation.
In March, Specter announced he wouldn't support the Employee Free Choice Act despite having supported it in the past, and in his statement Tuesday he emphasized that his position on the bill "will not change."
As National Journal's Kirk Victor recently wrote (subscription), labor activists believe that as the bill moves closer to a vote, the president will "use his political capital to bring around a handful of wavering senators to prevail." Could Specter, who has gotten the full endorsement of the White House since moving across the aisle, be one of those senators?
Vice President Joe Biden said (subscription) Wednesday that even though he hasn't talked to Specter recently about the legislation, he believes that the senator would have "an open mind" about voting for some version of the bill if a compromise emerges.
Glenn Spencer, who runs the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's anti-EFCA initiative, doesn't think that's likely to happen. "It's no secret that he has some ideas on labor law reforms," Spencer said. "But I don't know if Specter is willing to compromise on this bill."
Justin Wilson, managing director of two anti-EFCA organizations (Employee Freedom Action Committee and the Center for Union Facts) led by lobbyist Richard Berman, is confident that Specter will stick to his official statements.
"I don't think [the party switch] changes the overall downward trajectory of this bill," Wilson said. "Specter was pretty clear that he's not going to be an automatic 60th vote."
The pro-EFCA American Rights At Work does not plan to change its strategy in light of Specter's announcement. Group spokesman Josh Goldstein said he had been "greatly disappointed" when Specter turned against the bill, but that neither the senator's March announcement nor this week's party switch affected the group's strategy. "We will continue to work with him," Goldstein said, but the group does not have plans yet to ramp up efforts to influence him.
On the same day that Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter announced he was leaving the Republicans for the Democrats and thus demonstrating the depths of the GOP's weakness, respected GOP strategist and former counselor to then-President George W. Bush, Ed Gillespie, announced he is co-founding a new non-profit, Resurgent Republic, to try to reinvigorate debate within the Republican party.
Gillespie, who was also the co-founder of the law and lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates, is a founding board member of the new group that "will promote market-oriented policies, lower taxes and economic growth and strong national security policies." The other founding board member is Whit Ayres, a long-time Republican pollster. (Gillespie severed his ties to Quinn Gillespie when he joined the Bush administration and he is no longer a registered lobbyist. Yesterday Gillespie said he is launching his own communications and strategy firm, but won't lobby.)
In a statement, the group said it will conduct survey research and focus groups to gauge public opinion about policy and make the results publicly available. They will also sponsor panel discussions on issues featuring members of its advisory boards. The release didn't say who its funders were and a spokesman couldn't be reached.
Other Republican advisory board members include Haley Barbour, Governor of Mississippi, George Allen, former Virginia Senator, former Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y., who is now a lobbyist at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, former Rep. Vin Weber, R-Minn., now a lobbyist with Clark & Weinstock, and Republican politico Mary Matalin.
From this week's National Journal: (subscription)
As the National Organization for Marriage has likely come to realize, message control on the Internet is close to impossible. The group's recent video against gay marriage has spawned many spoofs mocking the original spot (and criticism from more mainstream sources), one more example of what awaits a political video when it's released into the fray.
Jonah Sachs, co-founder and creative director of Free Range Studios, is well aware of the minefields in the Web media landscape. His production company creates Web ads for numerous advocacy groups, including MoveOn.org. Together they created the "Bush in 30 Seconds" contest in 2004, an early example of successfully incorporating user-generated video into a campaign.
NationalJournal.com caught up with Sachs earlier this month to get his take on issue-based Web video campaigns.
NJ: What trends in advocacy ads have you observed?
Sachs: I think one of the big trends, definitely, is that in the old days I think it had to be fully story-based and fully kind of entertainment-based, and now, since "Inconvenient Truth," people are a little more softened up to the educational, instructional kind of videos as ways of breaking down complex issues and inspiring action around them. It's been kind of interesting that people have been primed for longer-format, more complex ideas.
Continue reading Effective Web Video: Don't Forget To Entertain.
As thousands take part in "tea party" rallies across the country, newspaper and blog commentators are already sounding off -- and the reviews are mixed. The purpose of the parties -- organized via the Internet by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's American Solutions and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey's FreedomWorks, among other groups and individuals -- is to protest against what organizers perceive as high taxes and excessive federal spending.
The effort's online hub -- Tax Day Tea Party -- has video of the ongoing parties. Left-leaning Think Progress, a wing of the Center For American Progress Political Action Fund, has a list of GOP lawmakers who have signed on to speak at the "radical anti-Obama" events.
So is there a surge in voter anger over taxes? Gallup recently published a poll showing that 61 percent of Americans think they will be paying their "fair" share in taxes this year, according to the progressive group Citizens for Tax Justice. But 39 percent of those who make less than $30,000 think their federal income taxes are "too high," though many of them don't actually pay federal taxes, according to Citizens for Tax Justice. See report here.
After the jump, also see a sampling of what the pundits and bloggers are saying.
Lobbyists for public interest groups are feeling increasingly frustrated that President Obama's broad ethics rules are preventing them from getting jobs in his administration.
So they're fighting back. Larry Ottinger, president of the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest and Stephen Rickard, Washington director of the Open Society Institute, have formed a loose coalition to push the White House to amend its ethics rules to delineate between lobbyists who are public interest advocates and lobbyists who pursue private monetary gain.
Under Obama's ethics guidelines, executive branch officials may hire a lobbyist, but that person cannot work in an area of policy for which they lobbied on for two years. That rule has been waived for three former lobbyists that now have jobs in the administration, but for no one else.
Ottinger and Rickard think the administration should consider several options for changing the policy. Amend the rule so it doesn't apply to public interest lobbyists; or issue a statement saying the rules don't apply to public interest lobbyists; or expand the number of waivers being offered to public interest lobbyists. The suggestions will be made in a letter being sent to the White House. Other organizations signing onto the letter are Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, OMB Watch, and the Project on Government Oversight.
Obama's executive order is "causing serious, unintended harm to nonprofit organizations who want and need to participate in our democracy," the letter is expected to say.
Public interest lobbyists are defined as those working for 501 (c) 3 and 501 (c) 4 organizations (advocacy and educational groups), but not unions or 501 (c) 6 groups (Usually trade associations). See our definitions of these groups on the right hand side of the blog under "Lobbying and Campaign Finance 101."
Readers, we'd be interested in your thoughts on this topic, should public interest lobbyists be exempt from the administration rules? Email me.
The Center for Responsive Politics takes a look at the Club for Growth and where the organization has directed its campaign donations.
The conservative economic group is looking for a new leader and apparently is focusing its search on former Rep. Chris Chocola, R-Ind., who received Club for Growth donations, the Center says. Chocola would replace former Rep. Pat Toomey, R-Pa. who is stepping down to run for Senate in Pennsylvania.
--Bara Vaida
Large numbers of people are expected to descend upon Capitol Hill this week to push for billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens' energy plan. But don't worry about overcrowding on the Metro.
Supporters will stage a "virtual march" Wednesday through Friday, contacting lawmakers by phone, fax and e-mail in support of legislation that coincides with Pickens' plan to less U.S. dependency on foreign oil. Pickens claimed about 1.5 million members of his "New Energy Army" this week, plus more affiliated with the two-dozen-plus organizations and companies that have endorsed the march and encouraged their employeers and members to participate.
Not surprisingly, many of those groups have an explicit stake in energy, such as American Electric Power, insulation company Owens Corning, the American Wind Energy Association and the National Propane Gas Association. Others have more oblique connections, such as the National Conference of Black Mayors and the American Homeowners Grassroots Alliance.
Pickens launched his plan, which focuses on natural gas, solar and wind energy, last July. The founder and chairman of BP Capital Management has invested $60 million of his own money, and major energy companies, notably AEP and Owens Corning, have pledged support as well. Spokespeople for both companies would not disclose the amount they've contributed.
The march is planned to coincide with the crucial early days of Obama's presidency, said Jay Rosser, a spokesman for Pickens. "The most critical period is the first 100 days of the new administration," he said. "If things don't get done in the first 100 days, they just don't get done or are exponentially harder to achieve."
The oilman himself will also be on Capitol Hill lobbying his plan. Rosser said Pickens will be making media appearances, testifying at congressional hearings and meeting with lawmakers one-on-one.
-- Amy Harder
With fundraising lagging expectations, government watchdog group Common Cause has just let go 19 staffers and cut $2 million in spending. The cuts leave the group's Florida and New Jersey chapters without paid staff, and trimmed the national office payroll by 12.
The group realized several months ago that it was unlikely to meet the $13 million budget it had for the fiscal year that ends in June, said the group's spokeswoman, Mary Boyle. The budget woes reflect both the competition for funds during an election year and a more severe than expected economic downturn.
The shortfall is the latest setback for the group, begun in 1970 by former Health Education and Welfare Secretary John Gardner to be a citizens lobby to counter the power of special interests. Two years ago, the group hired former Rep. Bob Edgar, D-Pa., to help restore some of the funding and prestige lost as new groups took up similar issues.
Read Edgar's announcement on the cuts. Common Cause Statement.pdf
Ironically, the money woes arise even as the group's signature issue - government ethics and campaign finance reform - have been making something of a comeback, with President Obama issuing new rules for lobbyists dealings with his administration and new campaign finance reform being introduced in the Congress. Boyle said the group intended to be an active participant in these issues at the national and state levels.
The group's national office still has a staff of 54, she said, and the cuts were made "to allow us to keep working on key issues important to us," including public financing measures in Maryland and Wisconsin. The group has also added staff recently in Hawaii and Michigan, and plans to add staff in Ohio and Illinois.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Congress Daily breaks the news that Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa. won't support the Employee Free Choice Act, otherwise known as "card-check" legislation. (subscription)
Specter was a potential swing vote for the measure, so his opposition is a blow to organized labor which has spent millions on garnering support in Congress for the measure which would make it easier for employees to form a union.
It is a win for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce which has also spent millions to oppose the bill.
"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce will continue to use every tool at its disposal to fight this legislation until it is taken off the table altogether," said Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the chamber.
Liberal groups today announced a campaign pressuring moderate congressional Democrats to support President Obama's policy agenda.
The heads of Campaign for America's Future and USAction argued on a press call this morning that moderate Blue Dogs in the House and a moderate Senate group led by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., are listening too much to business lobbyists.
"It's important they hear from their constituents, not just their contributors," Campaign for America's Future co-director Robert Borosage said.
William McNary, president of USAction, said the group's members will urge lawmakers to "stand up to the special interests."
Conservative and moderate Democrats argue they are representing their moderate and conservative states and districts in pushing for changes to Obama's proposals, but the effort shows Democrats in the middle will be taking fire from both sides in the coming years.
--Brian Friel
Business and labor groups have brought hundreds of people to D.C. this week to rally for and against the Employee Free Choice Act, slated to be introduced Tuesday by Democratic lawmakers in both houses of Congress.
The SEIU today hosted protests outside eight major corporate industry associations that oppose the legislation. More than 300 workers from around the country were expected to participate, according to spokesman Jeff Cappella. SEIU's targets include the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, National Restaurant Association, Business Roundtable and Retail Industry Leaders Association. The union supporters plan to meet with lawmakers on Tuesday to push the legislation.
EFCA would allow unionization if a majority of workers sign authorization cards and would eliminate a company's right to demand a secret ballot election. Proponents maintain that it allows workers to unionize more easily and freely, while opponents counter that union organizers will coerce individual workers to join and hurt small business.
These efforts come on the heels of AFL-CIO's winter meeting last week in Miami Beach, Fla., where both President Obama (via video message) and Vice President Joe Biden (in person) explicitly embraced the legislation.
SEIU's biggest rally today was planned for Lafayette Park, which borders the Chamber of Commerce's offices and the White House. This suits the chamber just fine, according to Justin Hakes, external affairs manager for the group's anti-EFCA campaign, the Workforce Freedom Initiative. "We're glad they're here," Hakes said. "First of all, it's exhibit A as to the kinds of pressure that individual workers will face if card check passes."
The chamber launched its own campaign this week by helping fly in 180 business leaders from across the country to meet with lawmakers. The group plans to follow up with TV and print advertisements in the business leaders' home states, and Hakes said the chamber will likely host a second round of guest advocates in April. The business group vowed to spend at least $10 million this year to fight the legislation, the Wall Street Journal reported.
--Amy Harder
Progressive organizations including MoveOn.org and the Center For American Progress are adamant about reforming health care -- and not letting insurance company lobbyists get in the way. That was the message conveyed this morning in a conference call with reporters conducted by the Health Care For America Now coalition ahead of President Obama's summit on health care.
Coalition representatives, along with Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, attended the summit today. "We're pleased that [Obama] is committed to an inclusive process and inclusive debate," Becerra said this morning. "We're happy that all stakeholders are being asked to participate and all options are on the table. That's the way it should be."
But one particular stakeholder is not so welcome in the eyes of this coalition. Judy Feder, senior fellow at the CAP Action Fund, recalled her time pushing for health care reform during Bill Clinton's presidency in the mid-1990s and the opposition she faced from insurance organizations, especially the Health Insurance Association of America -- now called America's Health Insurance Plans. The insurance industry initially "pretended" to be on board, Feder said, but then launched their own campaign -- including the legendary "Harry and Louise" TV spots -- arguing against Clinton's reform efforts.
So, what's different this time around? Richard Kirsch, national campaign director for Health Care For America Now, said that in the current political landscape, unlike during the Clinton administration, left-leaning groups and the administration are united on one position -- universal health care that gives Americans a choice between either a public or private insurance plan.
But while Kirsch said that having the choice of a public insurance plan "is an essential part of the reform," he stopped short of saying his group would withdraw support for any plan that did not include it. "For anyone other than, say, the president to say what's a deal-breaker would be presumptuous," Kirsch said.
HCAN also has yet to take position as to how the reform duties should be divided among Congress, the administration and other entities. These are decisions, Kirsch said, that will be made in the next several months. While short of details, HCAN representatives were firm on one point: that the status quo of health care -- maintained, they said, by insurance company lobbyists over the past decade or more -- needs to change. It is "crippled," Kirsch said.
-- Amy Harder
Liberal groups didn't skimp on advertising against Republicans who opposed the stimulus bill, and their attacks haven't been limited to the GOP. MoveOn.org has been quietly taking aim at Democratic congressmen who voted against the final version of the bill with an online advertising effort that places small ads next to Google searches of the lawmakers' names.
MoveOn is just finishing up the two-week Google AdWords campaign, intended to praise or censure centrist Democrats for their position on the stimulus. Depending on the target's vote, the ads send users to a page highlighting the number of jobs that will be created or to one featuring the lawmaker's contact information. A similar campaign is in the works for the current omnibus spending legislation, but MoveOn's economic campaign director, Daniel Mintz, said he doesn't have any specific plans laid out yet.
This time around, Reps. Bobby Bright of Alabama, Walt Minnick of Idaho, Collin Peterson of Minnesota and Heath Shuler of North Carolina were among MoveOn's top targets. Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Evan Bayh of Indiana meanwhile earned positive ads for their "yea" votes.
While MoveOn has advertised online for years now, this is the first time the group has launched a search engine campaign "specifically calling out legislators of any kind," Mintz said. Indeed, the progressive group is catching on to a developing trend: turning lawmakers' names into online lobbying tools.
Continue reading MoveOn Targets Democrats Who Opposed Stimulus.
A coalition of organized labor and other progressive groups are gearing up to help ram President Obama's budget through Congress this spring.
Organizers are describing the campaign, called "Rebuild and Renew America Now", as the biggest grassroots effort in history. The coalition plans to spend $5-7 million from now through May on TV, print and Web advertising and field organizing.
"Obama's budget is the blueprint for transformational change," said Brad Woodhouse, president of Americans United for Change, in an afternoon conference call. "Powerful interests are lining up against this budget because they are vested in the status quo that was established over the last eight years."
Plenty of powerful interest groups are lining up behind the coalition, too, which includes Big Labor heavyweights AFSCME and SEIU and progressive groups like the League of Conservation Voters and Environment America. This isn't the first dance for Americans United for Change, which is spearheading the effort: The group has also led campaigns against former President Bush's Social Security plan and his veto of SCHIP, and fought to pass Obama's stimulus package.
"There's no question this is a very ambitious budget, and there's also no question that the president is taking on a lot of sacred cows in this town," said AFSCME legislative director Chuck Loveless. "I think the support is going to be there, and I think the great majority of the president's proposals are going to make it through."
-- David Herbert
Top lobbying stories from EarlyBird, NationalJournal.com's daily news roundup:
• "Firing some of the first shots in the coming showdown over health care, a conservative group led by the former owner of the Hospital Corporation of America is beginning a multi-million dollar campaign" today "in opposition to government-run coverage," the Politico reports.
• "Around a dozen nonprofit groups spent $80 million on television advertisements and grassroots lobbying efforts last election, according to a new study," The Hill reports. "Most of that money was spent debating a controversial proposal to expand union membership known as the Employee Free Choice Act, an analysis by the Campaign Finance Institute released Friday found.
This week National Journal reported on the huge battle over Cape Wind, a project off Nantucket Sound that is poised to become the country's first offshore wind farm if it can get past the remaining regulatory obstacles. In our story (subscription required) we reported that $1.4 million has been spent on federal lobbying against the project by the powerful opposition group the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. Now, we've unearthed news about additional federal lobbying dollars that bring the anti-Cape Wind lobbying total to a cool $2 million. It turns out that alliance board member William Koch spent $620,000 through his company Oxbow to lobby against Cape Wind in 2006 and 2007.
--Eliza Krigman
As federal spending on bailouts and the economic stimulus soars into the trillions, the Obama administration faces growing pressure from a broad range of watchdog groups across the ideological spectrum to account for just where all those taxpayer dollars are going, reports National Journal's Eliza Newlin Carney in her "Rules of Game" column.
The new Coalition for an Accountable Recovery is a diverse alliance of anti-tax activists, community organizers and government transparency watchdogs that is tracking the $787 billion stimulus package. This coalition of strange bedfellows brings together progressives, libertarians and conservatives, notes Gary Bass, executive director of OMB Watch, which co-chairs CAR with Good Jobs First, a policy center promoting accountability in economic development. Other coalition members include the Center for Cities and Schools, Public Citizen and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
OMB Watch has also helped spearhead another, smaller coalition dubbed Bailout Watch, which is bird-dogging the $700 billion financial stabilization plan. CAR and Bailout Watch are part of a growing fiscal oversight craze both on and off Capitol Hill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called on committee chairs to develop plans for fiscal oversight hearings. House GOP Whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., has announced a "stimulus-watch program" that invites citizens and watchdog groups to report how contractors and agencies dole out the $787 billion. There's even a new "Stimulus Watch" wiki set up by a couple of senior research fellows at George Mason University that invites citizens to find, discuss and rate state and local projects receiving federal stimulus dollars.
Read the full column here.
The Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for transparency and accountability in corporate political spending, has sent a letter to 19 financial companies that received more than $1 billion under the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program urging that they adopt political disclosure measures.
The letter ( CPA.pdf), signed by 23 shareholder advocates, including unions, religiously affilicated nonprofits, asset management firms, and others, calls on the companies to disclose on their websites all political spending including soft money contributions and payments to trade associations and other tax-exempt organizations that are used for political purposes. It also calls on the companies to require board oversight of their corporate political spending, and to adopt policies and procedures for approval and review of political spending.
The 19 companies receiving the letter are Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, PNC Financial Services, Regions Financial Corp, Fifth Third Bancorp, BB&T, Bank of New York Mellon, KeyCorp, CIT Group, Comerica, State Street, Marshall & Ilsley, Northern Trust, Zions Bancorporation, Huntington Bancshares and SunTrust Banks. Three other companies - Prudential Financial Services, American Express and Capital One -- have already agreed to full reporting and board oversight of their political spending with corporate funds, according to the CPA.
"As major political givers, banks should, as a matter of course, be open and above board in this spending," said CPA Executive Director Bruce F. Freed. "Unfortunately, many have been resistant to full disclosure. A safe and sound financial system must be based on that."
See the press release here: CPA - Press Release - TARP letter - 02-19 09.pdf
-- Robert Gettlin
Former Sen. Bob Smith, R-N.H, has a new project, called Americans for Accountability, or A4A, which debuted yesterday with a Freedom of Information Act request seeking "all Obama Administration documents and data pertaining to Sen. Tom Daschle's tax evasion." See here.
The group, which styles itself as an ethics watchdog, is described as a project of the American Patriot Foundation, a 501(c)(3) group, and is soliciting tax deductible contributions. That foundation was set up in 2003, by Smith and his friend Paul Rolf Jensen, a Costa Mesa, Calif. personal injury lawyer whose law office and the foundation share an address.
In its last tax filing, for 2003, the same year it was founded, the group reported spending more than half the $29,000 it received in contributions. That was shortly before Smith, who moved to Florida to sell real estate after his 2002 defeat in New Hampshire's Republican primary, briefly entered the Florida senate race for the seat now held by Sen. Mel Martinez. With Martinez retiring in 2010, Smith has been weighing another run at the seat, according to an article in late January in the New Hampshire Union Leader.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Here's what is new in this week's National Journal: (all stories require a subscription)
The Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery, a coalition of liberal groups formed to lobby for passage of the stimulus bill, today released 21 new radio ads targeting Republican lawmakers in both chambers who voted against the legislation. The group also released a general pro-stimulus TV ad in D.C. and on national cable. That brings the total number of spots the group has run to 40 since mid-January, for a cost approaching $800,000.
But judging from the list of 21 targeted Republicans, the group could have saved its money for the next legislative battle; even if every representative and senator targeted by the Campaign again votes against the bill, the legislation will still pass both chambers. Further, two of those targeted aren't even running next year: Ohio Sen. George Voinovich has announced he won't seek another term in 2010, and Nevada Sen. John Ensign isn't up for re-election until 2012.
"We feel that it's important that it's not just passed but that it gets a broad support base, and we really think that in some of these districts, it's really important they have this package," explained Lauren Weiner, a spokeswoman for Americans United for Change, one of the groups funding the campaign. "Our campaigns aren't strictly political, election-oriented."
MoveOn.org this afternoon expanded the ad onslaught with a radio spot attacking Texas Sen. John Cornyn that it plans to run the rest of the week. The buy has some symbolic resonance because of Cornyn's position as head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, but -- like Voinovich and Ensign -- Cornyn voted against the stimulus bill on Tuesday, he is likely to do so again, and he won't face re-election next year.
Updated at 5:08 p.m. on Feb. 11.
The Fix Housing First Coalition prides itself on innovation, and is leaving no stone unturned. It's using Twitter so that it's members -- and everyone else -- can stay abreast of the fast-moving developments on the stimulus bill. Go here to see.
MoveOn.org's Eli Pariser is, well... moving on as the group's executive director, according to a press release from the group. The pioneering online activist group is promoting its national organizing director, Justin Ruben, to the top slot, while Pariser plans to remain as president of the board. Ruben, a former organizer for the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union, has been with MoveOn since 2004. He helped create the organization's field organizing program and run its 2006 campaign efforts, and has spent the last two years supervising its issue campaigns.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
When President Obama signed the State Children's Health Insurance Program expansion into law Wednesday, the relative quiet of third-party groups was a dramatic counterpoint to previous SCHIP efforts -- and, perhaps, an argument that when it comes to getting results, a willing White House trumps advocacy.
In the fall of 2007, left-leaning groups bombarded the airwaves with ads slamming George W. Bush for vetoing the SCHIP renewal and pushing lawmakers to override it, to no avail. MoveOn.org, Americans United For Change, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had campaigns going -- not to mention hundreds of thousands of dollars flowing -- in an effort to renew SCHIP. This year, even though these groups' attention has been focused on economic legislation, the legislation passed with relative ease.
Why the drastic change? That's easy, according to Jeremy Funk, spokesman for Americans United For Change: Bush is now out of the equation. Funk pegged the former president as the "only impediment" to renewing SCHIP two years ago. The legislation moved so quickly this time, Funk said, because "it's always been a high priority of Democratic leadership" and there was no pushback from Republican lawmakers.
In 2007, rebuking Bush soaked up hundreds of thousands of advertising and promotional dollars, Funk said. Today, he said, his group's money is needed to help pass Obama's economic stimulus package.
Nita Chaudhary, campaign director for MoveOn.org, said Obama's signing proves there are "enormous opportunities in front of us now that there weren't before." Once getting wind that Congress was going to take up the bill soon, MoveOn "put in thousands of calls and sent thousands of letters" into lawmakers to urge its passage, Chaudhary said. By then, though, the SCHIP ball was rolling.
As President Obama continues reaching out to congressional Republicans in hopes of winning bipartisan support on the economic stimulus bill, a coalition of labor and progressive groups is taking a harder-edged approach, bringing the fight to the home states of five Republican senators.
In their first major ad campaign of Obama's presidency, more than 30 left-leaning groups -- including MoveOn.org, the Service Employees International Union, and Americans United For Change -- are spending $500,000 to run ads around the country urging Congress to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan. The ad will air nationally as well as in smaller buys targeting five Republican senators: Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Charles Grassley of Iowa. Grassley, Gregg, and Murkowski are all up for re-election in 2010.
Jeremy Funk, communications director for Americans United For Change, said the buy focused on Collins, Snowe, Gregg and Murkowski because they seem to be the "most persuadable and moderate," with "the best chance to do the right thing." As for the Iowa ad buy, Funk explained that Grassley was a "purely symbolic target, as he's the ranking member on the Finance Committee." Mark McCullough, an SEIU spokesman, said the ads are designed to "add some pressure to the Senate" ahead of their vote on the package.
"This is no doubt the most significant vote since the vote to authorize the war in Iraq," Funk said. "That's how big of a deal this is."
The coalition, which goes under the name the Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery, was launched in December after Obama announced plans for an economic stimulus. Participating organizations include a slew of unions, the Campaign for America's Future, the Sierra Club, and ACORN, the community group that became an issue during the presidential campaign.
Funk called Wednesday's party-line vote in the House "unfortunate," but said that, for now at least, the campaign was keeping its focus on the Senate. "Senate Republicans have the most power to roadblock change," Funk said. "So that's why we're going to keep up a steady drumbeat of grassroots pressure in these folks' districts."
That drumbeat is likely to be heard by more Republicans, and on more issues, in the coming months, as Obama's energized supporters throw their weight behind his legislative agenda. One group, American Rights At Work, is launching a new TV, print and online ad campaign this weekend advocating for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, according to spokesman Josh Goldstein.
But while Republicans have yet to get on board with the president's stimulus proposals -- yet alone the Employee Free Choice Act -- left-leaning groups are optimistic that they can win on many key goals with Democrats in control of Congress and the White House. "It's as if this mountain has been lifted and this cloud of pessimism is gone," Funk said. "We're feeling extremely ecstatic about the possibilities ahead."
Common Cause called for Congress to hold hearings on whether financial institutions that received funds through the Troubled Asset Relief Program turned around and used those funds to lobby on the administration of the program.
"These companies already have too much influence in Washington because of their huge campaign contributions and lobbying presence," said Bob Edgar, president of Common Cause. "That they would take our tax money and then use it to influence Congress on oversight of the same money is unacceptable."
Eight of the top TARP recipients spent $6.3 million on lobbying in the fourth quarter of 2008.
Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. and Olympia Snowe, R-Me. this month introduced legislation (S. 133) that would block firms receiving money from the TARP from using those funds to lobby.
-- Bara Vaida
Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope plans to step down as soon as a replacement is found. After that, Pope plans to move into the role of chairman of the club and focus on climate change. He has been the head of the organization since 1992 and has worked for the club for more than 30 years.
"The Sierra Club Board of Directors has begun the process of forming a search committee and will formally launch the search for Pope's successor in the coming weeks," said a release from the group. Under Pope's leadership the environmental organization says it pressured the Bush administration to reverse its position against rules that would lower the amount of arsenic in drinking water and mercury in the country's fisheries. The group also advocated for no oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
-- Winter Casey
In conjunction with today's March for Life on the anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion, a coalition of evangelical and Catholic leaders called RealAbortionSolutions.org is running print and radio ads aimed at moderates on the abortion issue.
"With 1 in 5 pregnancies in America ending in abortion and the number of abortions unchanged from 32 years ago, it's time to stop the political posturing and get serious about protecting life," the radio ad says. "We need to ask ourselves what it really means to be pro-life and help move the conversation beyond bumper sticker slogans."
The coaltion says it has an "abortion reduction" message. Its supporters include the group Faith in Public Life, and religious leaders like Florida pastor Joel Hunter, Rich Cizik, former vice president of governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, and liberal Rev. Jim Wallis.
Listen to the radio ad: http://www.realabortionsolutions.org/listen/
View the print ad : http://www.realabortionsolutions.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/life-ad-final.pdf
-- Gregg Sangillo
On the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, Hotline On Call editor Jennifer Skalka interviewed Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards via email about her expectations of the policy differences between the Bush and Obama administrations on reproductive health issues and abortion rights.
Take a look here.
Even while Minnesota's courts continue to wrestle with the state's disputed U.S. Senate race, Republican contender Norm Coleman (who hopes to return to the Senate seat he held for one term from 2003-2008), has decided to keep busy by agreeing to sign on as a consultant and strategic adviser to the Republican Jewish Coalition.
RJC Executive Director Matt Brooks said that Coleman will represent the group by addressing Jewish communities around the country on "the state of current affairs" and helping expand the group's "national leadership base." Brooks said the RJC is "confident that in a few months Senator Coleman will return to his seat in the Senate, but until that time, we are eager for him to travel across the country on our behalf and to be an important voice within the organization." See full statement here.
Meanwhile, the Democratic aspirant to the seat, Al Franken, who was in town to celebrate the inauguration, told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that he held a fundraiser to help defray the costs of his ongoing Senate quest.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
Interest groups on both sides of the debate over the Employee Free Choice Act aren't letting the inauguration get in the way of their messages to Congress. Two groups -- American Rights at Work and the Employee Freedom Action Committee -- have been flooding the inside-the-Beltway crowd with ads this week.
The legislation, also known as "card check," would make it easier for unions to organize, but opponents argue that its provision allowing unionization without a secret-ballot vote is undemocratic.
Josh Goldstein, a spokesman for the pro-labor group American Rights At Work, said he has an "extremely positive outlook" for the bill being taken up early in Barack Obama's tenure, but the incoming president signaled otherwise in an interview with the Washington Post's editorial board Thursday.
"If we're losing half a million jobs a month, then there are no jobs to unionize, so my focus first is on those key economic priority items," Obama told the Post. He added that he is open to considering "other mechanisms" to address the conflict between unions and employers, but he wouldn't say whether he wanted to see the issue debated during his first year in office, the Post said.
The multimillion-dollar ad campaign launched last month by the environmental advocates of the Reality Coalition to debunk the idea of clean coal, is now being matched by a similar-sized effort by Peabody Energy, the world's largest private sector coal producer. Peabody is appealing for federal funding for carbon recapture technology to be part of the stimulus plan.
The campaign, handled by Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates, reprises the tagline "Coal Can Do That" that Peabody used several years ago to tout the various products that come from coal. The new campaign attempts to frame carbon recapture technology as the second phase of an already successful effort to reduce harmful emissions from coal plants. Peabody is also sending out thousands of direct mail and e-mail missives with the same message to lawmakers and opinion leaders around the country.
The ads build on the efforts of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which plans to plow up to $40 million this year into a continuation of its year-old advertising campaign. ACCCE's latest ad showcases remarks by then-candidate Barack Obama on the campaign trail touting the potential for clean coal technology. But the Center for American Progress -- whose president, John Podesta, has headed Obama's transition -- recently released a study charging that ACCCE's 48 member companies spent only $3.5 billion of their combined profits of $58 million on clean coal research and concluded that "the real purpose of the clean coal campaign is to postpone requirements to reduce emissions." ACCCE says the report's figures are misleading.
-- Julie Kosterlitz
After spending $85 million on the 2008 election cycle to get its candidates into office, the Service Employees International Union is now launching an approximately $50 million campaign, called "Change That Works," aimed at supporting passage of President-elect Barack Obama's economic recovery package, healthcare reform and the Employee Free Choice Act.
"When the SEIU [puts out] a goal, we move into action in a big way," Anna Burger, secretary-treasurer, told reporters on Wednesday.
Burger said the SEIU has pledged 30 percent of its staff and financial resources to the campaign, which means that the union will be spending "at least" $50 million. She added the union already has staff devoted to the campaign in 35 states and has created a campaign-like "war-room" in D.C. She also said that the SEIU will be commissioning a "multi-million" advertising campaign beginning this month that will run throughout 2009.
Earlier in the day at a briefing for reporters, U.S. Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue vowed to fight union efforts. See Congress Daily's story here. (subscription required)
-- Bara Vaida
My Atlantic magazine colleague Marc Ambinder has a post on liberal interest groups and unions uniting to create the Campaign for Jobs and Economic Recovery Now (C-JERN). The aim is to pressure Congress to pass Barack Obama's economic recovery package. The move is noteworthy because this group could possibly become an important player in also pushing Obama to take liberal position's on economic issues once he is in the White House.
--Bara Vaida
Opponents of the controversial Employee Free Choice Act are making the most out of the scandal surrounding Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
The pro-business Americans for Job Security is running a TV ad in Arkansas, Nebraska and North Dakota telling Democratic senators in those states not to vote for the EFCA, commonly referred to as the "card check" bill but dubbed the "union boss bailout" in the ad. The group likens the money the Service Employees International Union used to help elect Democratic senators to the pay-to-play accusations against Democrat Blagojevich. The spot alleges that the senators' "payback" to the SEIU will take "from workers the right to a secret ballot." The ad links the two issues through a Dec. 10 Washington Post article that reports a SEIU official acted as an "apparent intermediary between the governor and Barack Obama's camp in discussions over Obama's Senate seat."
AJS President Stephen DeMaura said that the SEIU and Blagojevich are "very close." Just as the governor looked to sell the Illinois Senate seat, the SEIU looked to buy Senate seats for $85 million, DeMaura said. The ad targets Democratic senators Ben Nelson of Nebraska; Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan of North Dakota; and Blanche Lincoln and Mark Pryor of Arkansas.
Josh Goldstein, a spokesman for the pro-EFCA American Rights at Work, brushed off the ad as yet another tactic aimed at finding "every single way to attack this legislation without ever actually talking about the bill." The group is going to continue its campaign and has no plans to launch a specific counterattack, he said.
Supporters say the legislation would make it easier for workers to unionize, but critics, like DeMaura's group, contend that a provision eliminating businesses' ability to demand a secret ballot election before workers form a union would leave employees vulnerable to intimidation and coercion by union bosses.
Meanwhile, the two sides are sparring over Obama's yet-to-be-announced Labor secretary. Goldstein said his group would like to see American Rights at Work founding Executive Director Mary Beth Maxwell at Labor's helm. The only name DeMaura threw out as a nonstarter was Maxwell, calling her "unacceptable to many in the business community."
Both Maxwell and former Democratic Rep.David Bonior of Michigan, a member of Obama's economic transition team and chairman of American Rights at Work, have been vocal supporters of the legislation. Bonior is also rumored to be one of Obama's top Labor picks.
-- Amy Harder
CLARIFICATION: The original version of this report had a different description of the debate in the fifth paragraph.
