The John McCain School for Lobbyists
While the Arizona senator was decrying Washington's "revolving door," his own staffers were zipping back and forth through it.
Mon May. 26, 2008 11:00 PM PDT
As one of the leading critics of Washington's quid pro quo culture, John McCain has not just denounced the influence lobbyists have over policy and the legislators who make it. He has repeatedly bashed the "revolving door" through which government officials move from federal jobs overseeing an industry to high-paying private positions repping for that same sector—and vice versa. He has supported legislation that would strengthen lobbying restrictions on former members of the Executive Branch, former Members of Congress, and former congressional staff. On his campaign website, McCain declares that he "has fought the 'revolving door' by which lawmakers and other influential officials leave their posts and become lobbyists for the special interests they have aided."
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Continued From Above
Yet, McCain's offices have been part of the revolving door culture. Mother Jones conducted a review of lobbying disclosure forms and publicly available information at OpenSecrets.org and Legistorm.com. The records show that since the Keating Five scandal, which by McCain's own account turned the Arizona senator into a crusader for reform, at least 20 McCain staffers—working for McCain's personal Senate office or for one of the committees he has chaired—either came to McCain's employ from a lobby shop or joined one after leaving the congressional payroll.
It is common practice for congressional aides from both parties to head to lucrative lobbying positions after working on Capitol Hill. And often lawmakers themselves leave Congress and return to lobby their former colleagues. But McCain has a special lobbyist problem. It's not just that his presidential campaign has been managed by former lobbyists for corporations and foreign governments. (Though several lobbyists have recently left his campaign, McCain's two closest aides—Charlie Black and Rick Davis—used to be top-tier lobbyists.) McCain has surrounded himself with lobbyists and lobbyists-to-be, all while positioning himself as the revolving door's top critic. McCain vows that if he's elected he'll change the revolving door culture of Washington. But if he can't do so in his own outfit, how can he do so for the entire town?
Below are several case studies demonstrating how the revolving door has worked at McCain's Capitol Hill offices:
Currently the head of John McCain's Senate office, Mark Buse started working as one of McCain's legislative assistants in 1987. He went on the serve as staff director for the Senate Commerce Committee from 1997 to 2001, when McCain was the committee's chairman. From there, Buse decamped to the law firm Mintz Levin and its affiliate ML Strategies, where he spent six years lobbying for financial services companies, pharmaceutical firms, telecoms, oil and gas interests, and other corporate clients. Apparently, Buse's trip through the revolving door didn't taint him in McCain's eyes. In 2007, McCain hired him to be his Senate chief of staff.
Buse wasn't the first McCain chief of staff to take this route. Christopher Koch headed McCain's office from 1987 to 1990. He then spent three years as the chairman of the Federal Maritime Commission, an independent federal agency that regulates America's ocean-based commerce. He left the commission to spend the majority of the '90s lobbying for the shipping industry and in 2000 became the president of the World Shipping Council, the industry's trade group in Washington. Early this month he announced that he would be taking a temporary leave of absence to work as the policy coordinator for the McCain campaign.
Paul Martino took over as Republican counsel for the Senate Commerce Committee in June 2001. In 2005, when the committee chairmanship transferred from McCain to Senator Ted Stevens, Martino left to lobby for Alston & Byrd, where he now advances the agendas of clients as diverse as Goodyear and the Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. Martino touts his connection to McCain on Alston & Byrd's website, and he currently serves as a fundraiser for McCain's presidential campaign.
Then there's former McCain staffer Mary Phillips, currently an official at the Federal Highway Administration. Prior to arriving in Washington, Phillips held a number of positions within the railroad industry. From 2002 to 2004, Phillips served on McCain's commerce committee staff, advising him "on surface transportation matters, including Amtrak policy," according to her bio on FHWA's website. She left McCain's staff to become vice president for legislative affairs for the American Trucking Association, lobbying for the trucking industry on Capitol Hill. Now that she's back on the government payroll, she currently helps to make federal policy that effects the same industry she until recently represented.
In these instances McCain staffers left the Arizona senator's office or committee staff to become lobbyists. Sometimes the process happened in reverse. McCain has employed staffers who had previously lobbied on the same issues they would be overseeing on his staff. For example, lobbyist John Tahsuda was general counsel and legislative director for the National Indian Gaming Association from 1999-2000. From there, he switched to First Nations Strategies and Hobbs Straus Dean & Walker, where he lobbied for Indian tribes. In 2002, he was hired by the Senate Indian Affairs committee and served as Majority Staff Director during McCain's tenure as chairman.
A call requesting comment from the McCain campaign was not returned.
McCain certainly cannot be blamed for the actions of his staff. But it is clear that McCain's passion for ending the access and power of lobbyists did not influence his staff aides. Many of them practiced Washington's business as usual even as their boss was condemning it.
Comments
Ever wonder how the Patriot Act got passed? Seems like anyone who read it would never in a million years vote for it right? Do you know Congress doesn't even READ the laws it passes? There is legislation being introduced in the House and Senate that would stop your freedoms from being trampled in the mud. It's called the Read The Bills Act and it requires each law being passed in Congress to be READ OUT LOUD IN ITS ENTIRETY. Also, the law must be published on the web for 7 days before voting to give we the people time to comment on it. I know everyone's very active politically this year and here's something we can ALL agree on - we don't want Congress sneaking around behind our backs! If you're active politically, please be active in this - go to the link below and let your Congressmen know of your support!
John McCain's Chief Financial adviser, Former Senator Phil Gramm, is behind mortgage crisis and high gas prices.
Breaking: McCain Campaign General Co-Chair At Heart Of Foreclosure Crisis - Listen to short summary:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/27/breaking-mccain-campaign-genera...
OBAMM AND HIS LOBBYISTS
When Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison wanted state lawmakers to back a hefty rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach, concocting a new outfit that seemed devoted to the public interest: Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity, or CORE. CORE ran TV ads warning of a "California-style energy crisis" if the rate increase wasn't approved—but without disclosing the commercials were funded by Commonwealth Edison. The ad campaign provoked a brief uproar when its ties to the utility, which is owned by Exelon Corp., became known. "It's corporate money trying to hoodwink the public," the state's Democratic Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said. What got scant notice then—but may soon get more scrutiny—is that CORE was the brainchild of ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior partner is David Axelrod, now chief strategist for Barack Obama.
Last week, Obama hit John McCain for hiring "some of the biggest lobbyists in Washington" to run his campaign; Obama's aides say their candidate, as a foe of "special interests," has refused to take money from lobbyists or employ them. Neither Axelrod nor his partners at ASK ever registered as lobbyists for Commonwealth Edison—and under Illinois's loose disclosure laws, they were not required to. "I've never lobbied anybody in my life," Axelrod tells NEWSWEEK. "I've never talked to any public official on behalf of a corporate client." (He also says "no one ever denied" that Edison was the "principal funder" of his firm's ad campaign.)
But the activities of ASK (located in the same office as Axelrod's political firm) illustrate the difficulties in defining exactly who a lobbyist is. In 2004, Cablevision hired ASK to set up a group similar to CORE to block a new stadium for the New York Jets in Manhattan. Unlike Illinois, New York disclosure laws do cover such work, and ASK's $1.1 million fee was listed as the "largest lobbying contract" of the year in the annual report of the state's lobbying commission. ASK last year proposed a similar "political campaign style approach" to help Illinois hospitals block a state proposal that would have forced them to provide more medical care to the indigent. One part of its plan: create a "grassroots" group of medical experts "capable of contacting policymakers to advocate for our position," according to a copy of the proposal. (ASK didn't get the contract.) Public-interest watchdogs say these grassroots campaigns are state of the art in the lobbying world. "There's no way with a straight face to say that's not lobbying," says Ellen Miller, director of the Sunlight Foundation, which promotes government transparency.
Axelrod says there are still huge differences between him and top McCain advisers, including the fact that he doesn't work in D.C. But his corporate clients do have business in the capital. One of them, Exelon, lobbied Obama two years ago on a nuclear bill; the firm's executives and employees have also been a top source of cash for Obama's campaign, contributing $236,211. Axelrod says he's never talked to Obama about Exelon matters. "I'm not going to public officials with bundles of money on behalf of a corporate client," Axelrod says.
Courtesy of Newsweek
The Straight Talk Express has morphed into the Bullcorn Express. (We Texans use euphemisms to avoid problems with censorship.) Can anyone reading this believe how the whole house of cards is tumbling about Sen. John McBush?
First the Grammgate scandal, followed less than 48 hours by Scott McClelland's expose' of the machinations of Bush's cabinet (and in particular Porky Pig Himself!) -- a Perfect Storm of Negativity.
I'm ready for America's New Manifest Destiny to be realized and Lincoln's Dream fully brought to life when Obama takes the Oval Office next January.
Washington's full of hypocrites and McCain is no different. That man will do and say anything to be president. With all the talk about his integrity you have only to look below the surface to see that he is one of the most duplicitous creatures in the federal government. If he wins the presidency, our country will descend even further into the abyss of corporate welfare while our most vulnerable citizens continue to suffer due to the massive national debt and Republican tax cuts. You cannot continue to borrow billions to finance a war, make unwise tax cuts permanent and keep our economy strong for the welfare of the people. Especially when your solution is to continue slashing social programs. They are financing their stupid policies on the future of our children. If we are dumb enough to elect the likes of McCain, I will continue to question the mindset of a people who continually vote against their own self-interest.
Lobbyists/Revolving Door. Business News reported the Carlyle Investment Group (Bush,Baker,Carrluci,binLaden,John Majors,former leaders of SKorea,Thailand) offered $2 Billion for Booz, Allen, Hamilton, a headhunter agency suppling the CIA, FBI, Pentagon, all Fed agencies, executive appointees.
The Bush DyNasty will permanently control "our" government inside and out!
When McSlime talks about how he will never raise taxes. He is talking about the taxes to the wealthy not the common working joe and jane. McSlime is liar and full of gimmicks. When you start living out of card board boxes and looking for food in garbage cans then you will realize how the Republican Party has fooled Americans. Remember that the Holy evangelicals had a lot to do with Bush's second term and possibly a third term under McSlime
McCain or McInsane is a hypocrite. He took money from that other crazy maddog Senator from Alaska. Lobby money!. And he won't give it back. He wants to drill all over the Federal Lands and give the rights to the oil companies for the next 1000 years. More price increases at the pump. And maybe in 20 years the price of oil in America will go done 3 cents. Thank you McSenile your so smart and good.
