Lobby Watch from The Center for Public Integrity

New GOP House leader has many old ties to K Street

2011-09-16T10:54:22-04:00

Now, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) has a difficult campaign on his hands: taking concrete steps in reducing the influence of lobbyists on Congress.

For starters, Boehner, who is currently the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, once handed out tobacco industry PAC re-election campaign contributions on the floor of the House. More recently, the Center for Public Integrity could identify 14 former staff members of Boehner's, who currently work for major K Street operations.

The other two candidates were Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.). Blunt had at least three former staff members working in lobbying firms and Shadegg had two.

The former Boehner staff members working as lobbyists are:

George H. Conant, a lobbyist for California State University since 2003, worked as a staff member on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner.
David A. Connolly Jr. was a professional staff member on the House Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner before registering to lobby with Capitol Associates, Inc. in 2004.
Allison L. Dembeck, a lobbyist for the human resources outsourcing company Ceridian Inc. beginning in 2004, previously was an executive assistant on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner.
Christy Carson Evans was a special assistant to Boehner before registering to lobby with the firm Cassidy and Associates (owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies) in 1998.
Terry Holt, a former press secretary for the House Republican Conference under Boehner, opened up his own consulting firm Holt Strategies last week, which Holt said currently has no lobbying clients. He previously lobbied for the firms Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Dutko Worldwide (formerly the Dutko Group).
Kristin Wolgemuth Fitzgerald was a professional staff member on the House and Education Workforce Committee under Boehner before opening up her own firm Fitzgerald Consulting in 2004.
Marc Lampkin served as general counsel to the House Republican Conference under Boehner before registering to lobby with Quinn Gillespie & Associates in 2001.
Patrick Lyden was a staff member on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner, before registering to lobby with the National Federation of Independent Business in 2003.
Josh Mathis, a former political aide to Boehner, lobbies for Washington Advocates. He registered to lobby in 2003 with the Petrizzo Group before the firm merged with Bockorny, Castagnetti, Hawkins & Brain in 2004 to form Bockorny Petrizzo.
Alanna Miller was an aide on the House and Education Workforce Committee under Boehner before registering to lobby for Venn Strategies in 2005.
Tyson R. Redpath, a former legislative assistant to Boehner, registered to lobby for the firm Lesher & Russell, Inc. in 2005. Redpath has previously lobbied for the firm Olsson, Frank and Weeda and the industry organization National Grain Trade Council.
Brenda B. Reese, who worked as the conference coordinator for Boehner when he chaired the House Republican Conference lobbies for Bockorny Petrizzo. She first registered to lobby in 1999 with Bergner, Bockorny, Castagnetti, Hawkins & Brain.
Benjamin T. Peltier, who first registered to lobby for the firm Arent Fox PLLC in 2003, was part of the professional staff to Boehner on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Heather Valentine, vice president for policy for the Council for Opportunity in Education, was a press secretary for the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner. Valentine previously lobbied for the MWW Group until 2005.

Lobbying FAQ

2011-09-16T10:58:56-04:00

Below is a list of the most frequently asked questions and misconceptions about federal lobbying.

What is lobbying?

Federal statute defines lobbying as any communication made on behalf of a client to members of Congress, congressional staffers, the president, White House staff and high-level employees of nearly 200 agencies, regarding the formulation, modification, or adoption of legislation.

Who is a lobbyist?

A lobbyist is a person hired directly by an organization or through a firm for services that include making more than one "lobbying contact" on behalf of a client, and who spends at least 20 percent of his or her time during a six-month period engaged in lobbying activity.

According to the Center for Public Integrity more than 22,000 companies and organizations have employed 3,500 lobbying firms and more than 27,000 lobbyists since 1998.

Who lobbies?

Corporations, organizations, much of the Fortune 500, universities, environmental and non-profit groups, and even churches lobby the federal government.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, the most commonly lobbied issue is budget and appropriations.

Who regulates lobbying?

The Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House of Representatives oversee federal lobbying. According to the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, those offices are charged with providing guidance on lobbying disclosure, ensuring the timeliness and accuracy of required reports, and making those reports available to the public.

According to a Center for Public Integrity report, nearly 14,000 documents that should have been filed periodically with the Senate Office of Public Records are missing.
Forty-nine out of the top 50 lobbying firms failed to file required forms during the last six years.

Who must register to lobby with the federal government?

Organizations that employ lobbyists in house must register with Congress if their lobbying expenditures exceed $24,500 during a six-month period. Lobbying firms must file a separate registration – at least 45 days after first contact – for each client whose lobbying billings exceed $6,000 for a six-month period.

According to a Center for Public Integrity report, nearly 300 individuals and entities lobbied without filing proper registration forms.
In addition, more than 2,000 initial registrations were filed after the 45-day time frame.

What information must organizations lobbying disclose to the federal government?

Organizations must disclose on a semiannual basis: (1) the issues lobbied during that period, including specific bills and regulations; (2) the names of lobbyists employed by the client; and (3) the federal agencies contacted. Lobbying firms filing on behalf of a client must disclose an estimate of the total lobbying-related income earned from the client during the period. Organizations employing their own lobbyists must disclose an estimate of total lobbying-related expenditures for that period.

What are the penalties for non-compliance with lobbying disclosure laws?

A lobbyist who knowingly fails to comply with any provision of the law may be subjected to a civil fine, the maximum of which can be $50,000.
The House and Senate office must refer such alleged non-compliers to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, the principal prosecutor for federal criminal and civil offenses committed in Washington, D.C.

Can a former member of Congress, legislative staff or senior executive branch staff lobby on the Hill (revolving door)?

Government ethics law prohibits former members of Congress, senior legislative staff and senior executive branch staff from lobbying their former department or agency for one year after leaving government. These officials must report their past positions on their lobbying registration forms for the first two years after leaving government.

Former members of Congress retain access to the members-only dining facilities, gymnasiums, cloakrooms and the chamber floors—areas not accessible to others.
According to a Center for Public Integrity report, more than 2,200 former federal employees, including 273 former White House staffers, and nearly 250 former members of Congress and agency heads have registered as federal lobbyists between 1998 and 2004.

Can relatives of members of Congress work as lobbyists?

Relatives of members of Congress can and do register to lobby. According to the Senate Ethics Manual,

"the decision on whether a spouse may lobby the Senate is generally a decision for the Senator and his or her spouse, giving due regard to the potential reflection upon the Senate."

Relatives of Congress members who have registered to lobby include the wife of Rep. Roy Blunt R-Mo., the wife of former Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D and the son of Sen. Harry Reid D-Nev.

Can lobbyists pay for travel for members of Congress?

According to House and Senate Ethics Rules:

Lawmakers and their employees cannot accept payment for travel from lobbyists or lobbying firms, even if a non-lobbyist client promises later reimbursement.

Can lobbyists arrange travel for members of Congress?

Lobbyists may set up, book, and travel with members of Congress on vacations, as long as they do not use personal or lobbying firm funds to pay for the trip.

Can lobbyists give gifts to members of Congress?

Lobbyists can give gifts (from meals to clothing to rounds of golf) to members of Congress that are less than $50 in value. The total value of gifts given to one member cannot exceed $100 in a year.

Lobbyists may not contribute to the legal expense funds of members of Congress or the charities controlled by a member of Congress.

Can lobbyists make political donations?

Lobbyists may make political donations under the same guidelines as other Americans. Lobbyists cannot give more than $5,000 to any political action committee per calendar year. They can, however, work on campaigns and serve as the treasurers of political action committees.

According to a Center for Public Integrity report, federally registered lobbyists served as the treasurers of at least 800 political action committees since 1998.
These lobbyist led committees have spent more than $525 million to influence the political process since 1998.
At least 79 members of Congress have appointed lobbyists to head their campaign committees or leadership PACs since 1998.

Can lobbyists write legislation?

Lobbyists can and at times do write legislation, sometimes at the behest of a member of Congress or their staff. Often, lobbyists will submit language to a member who has a working relationship with the industry which the lobbyist represents.

Candidates for GOP House Leader also have ties to K Street

Missouri,United States — 2011-11-17T16:12:13-05:00

The three candidates running to replace Rep. Tom DeLay as Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives have their own multiple "revolving door" connections to lobbying firms, each sending former staff members, and staff members of the committees they chair, to work for major K Street operations.

Rep. Roy Blunt, (R-Mo.), Rep. John Boehner, (R-Ohio), and Rep. John Shadegg, (R-Ariz.), are linked to more than a dozen lobbying firms and other organizations that lobby through employees who worked in their Capitol Hill offices, making the major differences between their operations and Delay's not immediately perceptible.

In the shadow of Jack Abramoff's guilty pleas to three lobby-related felony charges, the public, the press, and state and federal prosecutors are scrutinizing members of Congress and their relationships with lobbyists and the K Street firms.

Rep. Boehner, the chairman of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, who once handed out lobbyists' re-election campaign contributions on the floor of the House, has connections to at least 14 lobbyists:

George H. Conant, a lobbyist for California State University since 2003, worked as a staff member on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner.
David A. Connolly Jr. was a professional staff member on the House Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner before registering to lobby with Capitol Associates, Inc. in 2004.
Allison L. Dembeck, a lobbyist for the human resources outsourcing company Ceridian Inc. beginning in 2004, previously was an executive assistant on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner.
Christy Carson Evans was a special assistant to Boehner before registering to lobby with the firm Cassidy and Associates (owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies) in 1998.
Terry Holt, a former press secretary for the House Republican Conference under Boehner, opened up his own consulting firm Holt Strategies last week, which Holt said currently has no lobbying clients. He previously lobbied for the firms Quinn Gillespie & Associates and Dutko Worldwide (formerly the Dutko Group).
Kristin Wolgemuth Fitzgerald was a professional staff member on the House and Education Workforce Committee under Boehner before opening up her own firm Fitzgerald Consulting in 2004.
Marc Lampkin served as general counsel to the House Republican Conference under Boehner before registering to lobby with Quinn Gillespie & Associates in 2001.
Patrick Lyden was a staff member on the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner, before registering to lobby with the National Federation of Independent Business in 2003.
Josh Mathis, a former political aide to Boehner, lobbies for Washington Advocates. He registered to lobby in 2003 with the Petrizzo Group before the firm merged with Bockorny, Castagnetti, Hawkins & Brain in 2004 to form Bockorny Petrizzo.
Alanna Miller was an aide on the House and Education Workforce Committee under Boehner before registering to lobby for Venn Strategies in 2005.
Tyson R. Redpath, a former legislative assistant to Boehner, registered to lobby for the firm Lesher & Russell, Inc. in 2005. Redpath has previously lobbied for the firm Olsson, Frank and Weeda and the industry organization National Grain Trade Council.
Brenda B. Reese, who worked as the conference coordinator for Boehner when he chaired the House Republican Conference lobbies for Bockorny Petrizzo. She first registered to lobby in 1999 with Bergner, Bockorny, Castagnetti, Hawkins & Brain.
Benjamin T. Peltier, who first registered to lobby for the firm Arent Fox PLLC in 2003, was part of the professional staff to Boehner on the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Heather Valentine, vice president for policy for the Council for Opportunity in Education, was a press secretary for the Committee on Education and Workforce under Boehner. Valentine previously lobbied for the MWW Group until 2005.

Rep. Blunt, the acting majority leader, has connections to at least three lobbyists:

Samantha Cook, a former senior legislative assistant to Blunt, has worked for the lobbying firm Fierce Isakowitz & Blalock beginning in 2001.
Lobbyist John Dutton served as Blunt's legislative director before registering to lobby with Manatt, Phelps & Phillips in 2003.
Gregg L. Hartley who has worked for the lobbying firm Cassidy and Associates Inc. (owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies) since 2003 was previously chief of staff in Blunt's whip office.

Rep. Shadegg, who resigned as chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee to run for DeLay's former position, has connections to at least two lobbyists:

Teddy Eynon, a lobbyist for Davidson and Co., previously served as Shadegg's deputy chief of staff. Before joining Davidson and Co. in 2005, Eynon lobbied for several years for DCI Group.
Jennifer Macdonald, a lobbyist for Association of American Railroads since 2001, previously was the district director for Shadegg.

In all, more than 2,200 former federal government employees had registered as federal lobbyists between 1998 and 2004, as the Center for Public Integrity reported in April 2005. This includes nearly 250 former members of Congress and agency heads.

In addition to these links to lobbyists that went through the proverbial "revolving door," the Center found that Blunt made similar transactions – albeit legal – to those that led to DeLay's money laundering indictment charges in Texas.

Blunt, who has temporarily replaced DeLay, accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from corporations to his 527 organization (Rely On Your Beliefs Fund) and sent $661,000 to the Missouri Republican State Committee. 527 committees—nicknamed for the section of the tax code under which they receive a tax exemption—are political nonprofits that can spend money in support of specific issues, but not on behalf of particular candidates.

The difference is that unlike Texas, Missouri state law allows corporate donations to state candidates, political action committees and parties. While it does not limit the amount a state party can take in, it does impose a $1,200 limit on corporate donations to candidates, according to the Missouri Ethics Commission.

These donations to Blunt's 527 group include contributions from four of the same companies that were implicated in the DeLay indictment, including:

Abramoff plea: digging up K Street

2011-11-17T16:12:27-05:00

Lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty plea to charges of mail fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials, could potentially open a Pandora's Box on both K Street and Capitol Hill, industry experts said.

"This thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets a lot better," said Paul Miller, President of the American League of Lobbyists. "And as busy as it's been, this is the calm before the storm."

The storm will be sparked by Abramoff's plea agreement, which stipulates that the lobbyist must provide information and testimony to prosecutors "concerning any matter," presumably including his dealings with members of Congress and their staff as investigators continue to scrutinize the relationship between politicians and K Street.

Throughout the past decade, the Center for Public Integrity has scrutinized and monitored the lobbying industry. The Center's LobbyWatch project provides access to data from 2.2 million public documents and details who the lobbyists and lobbying firms are, how much they spend and on whom.

For example, the Center found that Abramoff was one of 52 registered lobbyists who were major fundraisers for George W. Bush's presidential campaigns. Abramoff raised at least $100,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign and lobbied on issues brought before the White House for 19 clients.

In addition, federally registered lobbyists have served as the treasurers of at least 868 political committees since 1998. These committees have spent more than $525 million to influence the political process.

Abramoff is only one—albeit one of the most high profile—of the many well-connected operatives who have sought to reshape the political landscape through money and access. The Center for Public Integrity's LobbyWatch, an ongoing series of stories and a frequently updated database, reveals that the lobbying industry has grown more pervasive and influential on all political levels, over time becoming a "fourth branch of government."

Prosecutors' ability to require that Abramoff provide evidence about his transactions with members of Congress, congressional staffers and executive branch officials marks a turning point in this paradigm. Abramoff's plea gives credence to calls for greater transparency throughout the lobbying industry and will serve as a catalyst for increased scrutiny of K-Street activities.

"It [the Abramoff plea] has people shaking in their boots a little," said Celia Viggo Wexler, the vice president for advocacy at Common Cause. "What he did goes beyond the pale, and not what a typical lobbyist would do. But there are plenty of lobbyists wining and dining out there."

There are laws regulating the industry, but compliance is incomplete. Currently, the Senate has less than a dozen people who keep track of the $2 billion-a-year lobbying industry. An April 2005 Center study found that nearly 14,000 documents that should have been filed periodically with the Senate Office of Public Records were missing. Similarly, 49 of the top 50 lobbying firms had failed to file one or more required forms.

In addition, the Center for Public Integrity has issued numerous reports and investigative studies on lobbying industry issues, including:

The Revolving Door: In April 2005, the Center for Public Integrity revealed that more than 2,200 former federal government employees had registered as federal lobbyists between 1998 and 2004 and that nearly 250 former members of Congress and agency heads had registered to lobby.

Campaign Finance: A Center study revealed that more than 1,300 registered lobbyists have personally given more than $1.8 million to President Bush from 1998 through March 2004. Senator John Kerry received $520,000 from 442 lobbyists during the same period.

Cheney sidesteps travel disclosure rules

2011-12-06T10:26:20-05:00

Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff have been unilaterally exempting themselves from long-standing travel disclosure rules followed by the rest of the executive branch, including the Office of the President, the Center for Public Integrity has discovered.

Cheney's office also appears to have stuck taxpayers with untold millions in travel costs rather than accepting trip sponsors' funds that the rules would require to be disclosed.

It's not as if those in Cheney's office don't indulge in the type of junkets that are routinely funded by private sources. Instead of accepting reimbursement for such trips like other government travelers, it appears that his office labels them "official travel." As a result, however, the public is kept largely unaware of where he and his staff are traveling, with whom they are meeting with and how much it costs, even though tax dollars are covering the bill.

It's also not as if Cheney hasn't faced questions about secrecy and his travel in the past. In January 2003, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was reportedly Cheney's guest aboard Air Force Two on a flight south for a winter duck hunting trip at a property owned by an oil executive in southern Louisiana.

The trip took place shortly after the Supreme Court had agreed to hear Cheney's appeal of a lawsuit that sought to force him to disclose the details about the national energy policy task force he chaired behind closed doors in 2001. Cheney had refused to disclose the substance of the discussions or to list those who met with the task force; that list was believed to include major players in the energy industry.

Some would credit the vice president's office for not accepting outside cash to cover his travel costs. That may be true, but critics point out that the Office of the Vice President's lack of disclosure also creates an opaque situation, with little or no transparency or accountability and at a substantial cost to taxpayers.

According to the White House Web site, Cheney made 275 speeches and appearances between 2001 and June 1, 2005, including 23 speeches to think tanks and trade organizations and 16 at colleges and universities. Before his term in office, the cost associated with travel, lodging and food for the vice president and his staff to attend such events was routinely reimbursed by the sponsor and reported to the Office of Government Ethics, which collects and distributes travel disclosure reports for the executive branch per disclosure rules. During the Clinton administration, former Vice President Al Gore's office disclosed more than $180,000* in outside-funded travel from 1997 to 2000.

The rules in question cover the thousands of trips by government officials each year that are sponsored by outside groups such as trade associations, academic institutions and many other organizations. The private sector reimburses elected officials and bureaucrats for such trips, but laws require officials to disclose where they went, how much it cost and who paid for it.

The Ethics Reform Act of 1989 requires every executive "agency" to file a semiannual report of payments accepted from non-federal sources. Regulations implementing this provision state that the term "includes an independent agency as well as an agency within the Executive Office of the President."

President George W. Bush's office accepts reimbursement for travel and has reported hundreds of thousands of dollars in travel funded by private sources in fiscal years 2003 and 2004, including trips taken by high-profile staffers such as Karl Rove and Alberto Gonzales. Public records show that all but one of the other offices within the Executive Office of the President also have filed travel disclosure reports showing privately funded trips. The lone exception, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, appears to have filed no financial disclosure forms at all.

"Official travel"

More than a dozen organizations and colleges have confirmed that Cheney's office was not compensated for travel to their events — and in some cases even refused offers of reimbursement.

One such trip was for a commencement speech given by Cheney at the University of Missouri School of Agriculture in May 2003.

The school offered reimbursement for the trip, but Cheney's office refused, said James Hundle, Assistant to the Dean of the University of Missouri School of Agriculture. The vice president accepted only a University of Missouri sweatshirt, he said. Cheney also spoke at the annual conference of the National Association of Homebuilders in Atlanta in June 2002. The association usually pays for the travel and lodging of its keynote speakers, but Cheney's office did not report a non-federal sponsor of that trip.

The association did, however, pick up the $1,009 tab for Rep. Anne Northup, R-Ky., to travel to Atlanta for the group's 2001 convention, and footed the $2,683 bill for Rep. Randy Neugebauer, R-Texas, and his wife to travel to a speaking engagement in Boston in 2003, according to their disclosure filings.

Instead of making disclosures like most of the White House, Cheney's office since March 2002 has periodically responded to OGE inquiries by stating that it is not obligated to file such disclosure forms for travel funded by non-federal sources.

The letters were signed by then-Counsel to the Vice President David Addington, who two weeks ago was named Cheney's chief of staff, replacing indicted aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Addington also reportedly helped write a memo validating the use of torture or similar techniques on terrorism suspects abroad that came to light during the attorney general confirmation process of Gonzales, Bush's former counsel.

In the letters to the Office of Government Ethics, Addington writes that the Office of the Vice President is not classified as an agency of the executive branch and is therefore not required to issue reports on travel, lodging and related expenses funded by non-federal sources. The letters go on to say that neither the vice president nor his staff had accepted any non-federal payments for travel during the period, and that the office is making that limited disclosure as "a matter of comity."

The Office of the Vice President did not return repeated phone calls seeking comment on its travel disclosure policies for this report.

One former director of the Office of Government Ethics says that he finds the Office of the Vice President's exemption argument surprising.

"That is unusual that the [Office of the Vice President] alone would claim such an exemption," says Stephen D. Potts, who served as OGE director under Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Potts theorizes that a case could be made to exempt Cheney's office from travel disclosure rules, but that such a rationale would include the Office of the President, not exclude it.

"It would be a much stronger argument if it were broader than just the one office and was based on national security," says Potts. "The argument that they are not an agency of the executive branch seems a bit of a reach."

Meanwhile, an official from one government watchdog group says that the Office of the Vice President's interpretation of the law is, at best, up for debate.

"The issue of whether that office is covered by the [travel disclosure and Freedom of Information] laws hasn't been resolved in court — and I think the vice president's office would even admit that," says Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, which sued unsuccessfully to force disclosure of documents and minutes from closed door meetings of Cheney's energy policy task force.

"It's not surprising [the Office of the Vice President] would take that stand," Fitton says. "Their view is that the vice president is a constitutional office that is not subject to the laws that others in the executive branch are. They have been consistent in that."

Zero enforcement

But the question of legality is largely moot. Bureaucrats and elected officials are largely on the honor system when it comes to obeying travel disclosure law. According to one longtime OGE official, his agency is merely a repository for the required travel disclosure reports and lacks any authority to force government offices to actually comply with the law.

"We really don't do anything except collect the forms and make them available to the public," says Tom Zorn, OGE deputy associate director for program services.

Zorn says that years ago the office did try to review the filings and make sure everyone covered by the law was following it, but that those efforts quickly proved unworkable and were abandoned in the 1980s.

The lack of OGE enforcement shouldn’t matter, though, contends Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, D.C. She says that Cheney’s office should offer disclosure about travel, even if it is not technically required to make such information available to the public.

“The vice president’s refusal to provide this information, particularly when every other office in the White House voluntarily discloses its travel, suggests that he may be hiding something,” she says.

*This number has been changed from its original publication.

Lobbying the White House

2011-11-17T16:12:27-05:00

Not many companies change their names to accommodate a recent hire, but not every new employee has the standing of Kirk Blalock. In a town where influence is predicated on who you know, Blalock's connections are a conspicuously valuable commodity. As special assistant to the president, he often counseled George W. Bush and crafted political strategies with now-Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove. And as deputy director of the White House Office of Public Liaison, he coordinated the Bush administration's outreach to the business community—a role that gave him unique stature along Washington, D.C.'s K Street corridor.

Perhaps that's why in October 2003, just 11 months after Blalock left public service for Fierce & Isakowitz, the 25-year-old lobbying shop made him a name partner. It proved to be a profitable decision: Since Blalock's arrival, the firm has nearly doubled its annual revenue to more than $6 million, with its new marquee partner involved in much of the business. In fact, during Blalock's freshman year at what is now Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock, he personally registered to lobby on behalf of 33 clients. Of those, more than 20* listed the White House as a lobbying target.

Blalock was part of a team that lobbied the White House for the American Forest & Paper Association in support of the Healthy Forests Initiative, a legislative plan that was billed as a common-sense way to reduce the threat of destructive wildfires. The proposal was applauded by Blalock's timber-business client as a way to address the "crisis" facing the nation's federal forests, but roundly criticized by environmental organizations as being a mere giveaway to the timber industry. On Dec. 3, 2003, over the vehement protests of those environmentalists, President Bush signed the Healthy Forests Restoration Act into law.

Lobbying the White House, as the American Forest and Paper Association did in that legislative fight, has become an increasingly preferred tactic in Washington. More than one in five of those lobbying the federal government since 1998 have lobbied the offices of the White House, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity. More than 4,600 companies, trade associations and interest groups have directly lobbied the 14 offices of the White House, including those of the president and vice president. In fact, over the past seven years, the White House has been lobbied by more parties than have the Federal Communications Commission and the departments of Education and Veterans Affairs combined.

From Pennsylvania Avenue to K Street and back

Because industry profits can be affected by agency budgets, executive orders and federal regulations, many lobbying firms are now employing veteran ex-White House officials like Blalock who can navigate the halls of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Indeed, a new Center analysis reveals that 273 former White House staffers registered as lobbyists since 1998. Collectively, this analysis shows, these lobbyists have represented more than 3,000 special interests. They have been personally involved in billings worth approximately $1 billion—or as much as 10 percent of all federal lobbying since 1998.

"It can be alleged that they can leverage their contact base and knowledge base to help out clients," Bertram J. Levine, co-author of a book about lobbyists, told the Center. Most lobbying can be beneficial, he added, even though it may involve inherent conflicts of interest. "If there is any problem in the way that this is done," Levine said, "the problem would reside with the policymakers and how they do their jobs."

Sometimes these new lobbyists work on the same issues and legislation that occupied them during their White House tenure. Consider, for example, Alexander "Sandy" Kress, a former education advisor to President George W. Bush who was the primary architect of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001.

These days Kress is a lobbyist for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, the powerhouse global law firm. According to his disclosure forms, which must be filed with the House and Senate semiannually, Kress was part of a duo who lobbied the White House on education for some of the companies that have benefited handsomely from the law he helped create.He has lobbied for NCS Pearson Inc., which has received millions from the testing mandated by the No Child Left Behind Act. He also lobbied for Kumon North America—one of the world's largest providers of supplemental education, which has seen greater demand for its services with the passage of this law.

In some cases, however, the familiar "revolving door" has swung in reverse, sending denizens of K Street to the White House.

Andrew Card, the president's chief of staff, previously lobbied on issues like product liability for the American Automobile Manufacturers Association. Similarly, Philip Cooney, former chief of staff of the President's Council on Environmental Quality, lobbied for the American Petroleum Institute (he resigned his post last June after revelations that he had altered national climate-change reports and will soon be heading for a position with ExxonMobil). And there is Edwina Rogers, who was a lobbyist for NASSCOM (India's IT trade association) before working as associate director for the White House's National Economic Council. Then, in 2004, Rogers left government to lobby for the Erisa Industry Committee, which represents the interests of employers in matters relating to retirement, pensions, health care and other worker benefits.

All told, the Center identified 12 former registered lobbyists who have been hired to work in the various offices of the White House—sometimes formulating public policy about the various issues on which they once lobbied. Similarly, the Center found that the Bush administration appointed 92 lobbyists to its transition advisory teams between 2000 and 2001.

Pioneers of the West Wing

Not surprisingly, large campaign contributors are often among those employing well-connected lobbyists in hopes of influencing the White House. PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the largest donors to the Bush-Cheney re-election effort, retained Cheney's former press secretary in 2002 to lobby on corporate accountability legislation brought before the Office of the Vice President.

The Center found 52 registered lobbyists who were major fundraisers for the Bush campaigns. These "bundlers" include so-called Mavericks (who raised $50,000), Pioneers (who raised $100,000) and Rangers (who raised $200,000). The donations gathered by each fundraiser were tabulated with "Solicitor Tracking Numbers" assigned by the campaigns—a way to insure that each fundraiser received due credit for the donations he or she collected. Such tracking numbers appear on disclosure forms signed by lobbyists Wayne Berman of Federalist Group, Thomas Loeffler of The Loeffler Group and David Metzner of American Continental Group Inc., all of whom pledged to raise $250,000 for Bush.

Embattled lobbyist Jack Abramoff raised $100,000 for Bush's 2004 campaign as a Pioneer and represented 15 clients that were lobbying the White House, including such business enterprises as Tyco International Ltd. and Unisys Corp. Abramoff is also listed among those lobbying the Executive Office of the President and the White House on behalf of three American Indian tribes, including the Agua Caliente Band of Cahuilla Indians, Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians.

There are also hundreds of Bush Mavericks, Pioneers and Rangers working for companies that lobbied the federal government since Bush was inaugurated in 2001. Their ranks include Blalock, who already had close connections to Bush after leaving the White House. As a Pioneer, Blalock raised $100,000 for the president's re-election.

While Fierce, Isakowitz & Blalock can legitimately trade on the currency of Blalock's White House experience, the firm didn't disclose his previous employment there on more than a year's worth of lobbying forms. Congressional rules require that such positions be detailed on all lobbying disclosure forms for two years following the termination of that employment. But none of the 92 pages that mention Blalock's name from 2002-2003 fulfill this requirement.

PAC-Men lobbyists

2011-11-17T16:12:27-05:00

WASHINGTON, October 3, 2005 — When lobbyist William Oldaker sits down to negotiate with a member of Congress, he brings years of experience working for the federal government to the table, as well as the legislative resources of his own firm. He also brings quite a bit of money.

As the treasurer of 23 political committees, groups that raise funds to elect or defeat politicians, Oldaker has signed off on more than $2 million in donations since 1998 to the parties and candidates he is paid to influence, according to a study by the Center for Public Integrity. At the same time that these committees doled out millions to politicians, some 100 companies paid Oldaker's lobbying firms $14 million to influence some of the same lawmakers.

For example, in 2004 four committees that he managed donated a combined $30,000 to Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking member of the transportation appropriations subcommittee. In that same year, Oldaker lobbied Congress on transportation appropriations issues for at least five of his clients. Odaker did not return repeated calls from the Center.

Oldaker is just one of hundreds of Washington, D.C., lobbyists who play this dual role, influencing members of Congress while also controlling donations that finance their campaigns. Lobbyists have served as treasurers for at least 800 political action committees and 68 campaign committees in the past six years, according the Center's study. In that time these committees have spent more than $525 million to influence the political process. In other words, these lobbyist-led committees spent more money than President George W. Bush and Sen. John Kerry raised in combined contributions during the 2004 presidential campaign.

"That is truly a lot of money," said Frances Hill, the tax program director at the Campaign Legal Center and a professor of election law at the University of Miami law school. "I think it is all right for people to band together and hire a lobbyist in an expensive suit to represent their interests, but I don't think it is OK to use [campaign] money as the clincher," she said.

Although there are no restrictions on who can be a committee treasurer, Hill said she was "seriously concerned" that so many lobbyists are filling the position. According to federal election law, the treasurer is responsible for all of a committee's expenditures and is also responsible for monitoring contributions.

Meanwhile as these lobbyist-led PACs donate millions, their firms have raked in $3 billion from 10,610 companies and organizations between 1998 and 2004—constituting one quarter of all federal lobbying expenditures for that period. In addition, 557 companies that spent more than $3.5 billion lobbying employed PAC or campaign treasurers as in-house lobbyists.

Most PACs with lobbyist treasurers were actually formed by their clients. New York Stock Exchange lobbyist Cecile Srodes, for example, was the treasurer of two NYSE PACs in 2004. Under her management that year, the committees donated $11,000 to Rep. Michael Oxley, R-Ohio, while Srodes simultaneously lobbied on the "Broker Accountability through Enhanced Transparency Act," which Oxley co-sponsored.

Lobbying expert Bertram Levine said that appointing a lobbyist as the treasurer of a corporate PAC is a "very poor practice." He said that because corporate PACs raise money from the company's employees, they should be the ones designating where the money goes, not lobbyists.

"It buys access," said Levine, a professor of political science at Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., and co-author of a book about lobbying. "And that is not something that should be taken lightly; the opportunity to make the argument is the opportunity to win the argument."

'How you buy influence'

Although Levine said that allowing lobbyists to run corporate PACs raises "red flags," he characterized the practice of having them run campaign committees and leadership PACs as the "most obvious conflict of interest." Campaign committees raise money for a candidate's election; leadership PACs are committees formed by politicians to fund other candidates' campaigns.

"Raising money is how you buy influence," Levine said. "There is a loophole here that needs to be closed or at least more closely monitored."

Since 1998, 79 members of Congress have appointed lobbyists as the treasurers of their campaign committees or leadership PACs. There are 39 sitting members of Congress who currently have lobbyists at the helm of such committees. Lobbyists have also been treasurers for major presidential contenders, including Al Gore's 2000 campaign.

For instance, Harold Ickes, a partner at Ickes & Enright Group, is the treasurer of New York Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign committee "Hillary Rodham Clinton For U.S. Senate Committee Inc." Ickes clients have included the insurance company Equitas Ltd. and Verizon Services Group. Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D- Ill., co-sponsor of the recently introduced lobbying reform act, the "Emanuel-Meehan bill" also appointed a lobbyist to oversee his campaign committee, "Friends of Rahm Emanuel." Emmanuel's committee raised more than $4 million under the watch of lobbyist William Singer, whose clients include Sara Lee Corp. and United Airlines.

But these lobbyist-led campaign committees are not limited to the Democratic side of the aisle. Lobbyist Timothy McKeever is the treasurer of Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens' campaign committee, "Stevens for Senate." McKeever said that he has worked on the committee since 1980, before he became a lobbyist.

During McKeever's last two election cycles as treasurer, the committee raised nearly $3 million to influence the political process. He insists, however, that his work as a fund-raiser has no impact on his role as a lobbyist.

"I really don't think there is a connection between the two (positions)," McKeever said. "I do relatively little lobbying work for the senator."

Still, in 2003, McKeever reported lobbying on a Senate appropriations bill rider authored by Stevens that would have eliminated funding for certain habitat protection programs in the North Pacific Ocean. The measure was supported by the commercial fishing industry, including Seattle-based Arctic Storm Management Group, one of McKeever's clients. Despite much opposition by environmentalists and other Republicans in Congress, Stevens attached the rider to the bill. In the end, the bill passed, but without the rider.

McKeever did not comment on the specifics of his lobbying, but said that his committee position does not give him any special advantages in attracting clients. "I don't believe they hire me because of it," McKeever said. "Whether (an advantage) is something they perceive, I don't know."

Among the lobbyists overseeing leadership PACs is the Republican political consultant Mark Valente. He serves as the treasurer of 15 PACs, nearly all of which are leadership PACs, including those of House Republicans Joe Wilson, S.C.; Mike Ferguson, N.J.; and Mike Rogers, Mich.

Valente, who heads his own lobbying firm Valente & Associates, said he does not believe any conflicts of interest result from heading the leadership PACs of several members of Congress while lobbying. Although at times the job requires fund-raising, Valente said that the majority of his tasks as treasurer involve filling out forms and keeping banking records.

"The members are looking for people they can trust, and we want to help our friends out," Valente said. "And they are already our friends."

Only a few of his clients donate to the PACs he oversees, Valente said, and not many of them have PACs that could make contributions. "Just as we encourage our clients to donate to like-minded members of Congress, we would not exclude the PACs," he said.

By the book

While lobbyists like William Oldaker and Mark Valente are connected to many PACs, neither of them hold the record for the most committees controlled by a registered lobbyist. That distinction belongs to political savant Barbara W. Bonfiglio.

During her tenure as a lobbyist from 1998 to 2001, Bonfiglio mastered the demanding jobs of both overseeing the finances of 31 political committees—more than half of which were campaign committees and leadership PACs—while lobbying for six companies at the D.C. law firm Williams & Jensen. In addition to running FEC-regulated committees, Bonfiglio was also the treasurer of five 527 organizations once connected to members of Congress, which were allowed to raise money without contribution limits.

Though balancing such a vast array of lobbying and campaign finance interests at one time may seem difficult, Bonfiglio could be considered an expert. She wrote the book on it—literally. The attorney is author of How to Cross the Potomac without Falling In, a guide to following the Lobbying Disclosure Act, Federal Election Commission regulations and House and Senate gift rules.

K Street pushes Chinese textiles interests

China — 2011-09-16T11:07:18-04:00

Top lobbying and law firms—including Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, Patton Boggs, and McDermott Will and Emery LLP—have helped mainland China and Hong Kong with outreach to key U.S. textile negotiators and policymakers, as well as with obtaining strategic advice on trade matters.

The analysis is part of a comprehensive Center investigation into Chinese lobbying activities in the United States released last week. The report found that since July 1997, the Chinese and Hong Kong governments and their government-controlled companies and organizations have spent at least a combined $19 million lobbying the U.S. government and trying to sway public opinion.

Although China and Hong Kong have lobbied the U.S. government separately, many of the issues they've lobbied on have been the same—including textile imports.

In a letter to the Center for Public Integrity, Stephen Wong, regional director of the government-backed Hong Kong Trade Development Council, emphasized that his organization is focused "purely on protecting Hong Kong's interest," but explained how that interest overlaps with China's. "On textile matters, Hong Kong, as a major textile manufacturing and exporting economy, is concerned about safeguarding its legitimate rights and trade interests as provided for under the WTO," Wong wrote. "With a significant number of Hong Kong businesses having investments in textile manufacturing operations in Mainland China and with Mainland China being subject to certain China-specific trade measures, we are naturally concerned about how such measures impact our trade interests."

According to the Center's initial study, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council has spent $7.2 million on lobbying and public relations activities since July 1997, more than any other Chinese organization.

China's increased lobbying presence comes at a time when the U.S-China trade deficit continues to grow—last year it hit an all time record high of $162 billion—and textile agreements have become a crucial part of the two nations' already complicated relationship. In January 2005, a 30-year-old agreement on textile and clothing quotas from China expired. Chinese textile imports to the United States immediately surged. When American manufacturers complained, the U.S. government imposed what it called a "safeguard": a 7.5 percent annual growth restriction on import levels of several categories of textiles from China, including shirts and trousers. The U.S. could impose such a limit under terms China agreed to when joining the World Trade Organization in 2001.

Not surprisingly, American manufacturers want to keep these restrictions in place. They claim that the boost in Chinese clothing imports has eliminated nearly 30,000 textile and apparel-related jobs this year alone. The U.S. and Chinese governments have engaged in negotiations aimed at limiting a wide range of clothing imports through 2008, the maximum time restriction allowed under the WTO safeguards provisions. A second round of talks broke down in Beijing Aug. 31.

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, which lobbies on behalf of small and medium-sized U.S. companies, said that China would be the group's "Number one priority now that the Central America Free Trade Agreement has passed." The organization opposed CAFTA, and it strongly supports restrictions on Chinese textile imports.

But Tonelson and the U.S. manufacturers are facing opposition from some of the top U.S. lobby shops and law firms in their efforts; those that have represented Chinese interests on textile issues in recent years include:

McDermott Will and Emery LLP. One of the largest law firms in the United States, it was hired by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce in May "to present [China's] views that threat-based special safeguard actions on textile imports from China should not be imposed by the United States," lobbying records show. The firm's director of government relations, Paul Hatch, was a consultant to the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign. According to lobbying records, McDermott lawyers anticipated contacting members of the executive branch and Congress, as well as the media. However, in a phone conversation, Michael House, a partner in the firm's International Trade Practice Group, said that the work for the Chinese government had been "strictly [offering] legal advice," on the safeguard cases filed by U.S. manufacturers.

Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates. Since 1998, this lobbying firm has represented the interests of Hong Kong on areas such as textiles, export control and strategic trade. Recent lobbying activities include several contacts with the House International Relations Committee, the House Ways and Means Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, as well as meetings with officials at the U.S Trade Representative's Office. The firm is headed by former Pennsylvania U.S. Rep. Robert Walker and Ann Wexler, who was a top official in the Carter administration. So far, the shop has received slightly more than $3 million from the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.

Patton Boggs. The firm lobbied Congress and U.S. Customs officials on textiles and bilateral trade issues on behalf of HKTDC between 2001 and 2002. Its assignment included "analyzing the trade and political scenes of the constituencies of targeted Congressmen who are influential on textiles and to spread the message of Hong Kong industry as a potential business ally [rather] than a threat," lobbying records show. In one year, the firm collected $250,000. In July, Patton Boggs was hired by the Chinese Embassy in Washington, D.C., to counsel officials on "congressional matters." The firm declined to comment on its work for China. Currently, there are several bills pending in Congress that touch on aspects of the U.S.-China trade relationship, including textiles.

Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy LLP. This blue chip law firm based in Atlanta also maintains a substantial lobbying practice in Washington, D.C. Between July 1997 and 2002, it lobbied on behalf of the Commercial Office of the Embassy of China, the state-owned China Textiles Import/Export Corp. and the Hong Kong Government. The bulk of the firm's work involved international trade matters and textiles, and it included contacting U.S. government officials and legislators and drafting "Dear Colleague" letters on behalf of its clients.

Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. The Chicago-based law firm is one of the largest in the country, with offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. Since 2002, it has represented the interests of the Hong Kong Government in Washington, D.C., on trade matters, "particularly the textiles and apparel trade." Lobbying records don't provide details on the specific activities performed.

China steps up its lobbying game

China — 2011-12-06T10:26:20-05:00

In an eight-day span in June, lobbyists from Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld contacted federal and state officials nearly 250 times in an unsuccessful effort to build support for an $18.5 billion bid for Unocal by China National Offshore Oil Co. And Akin Gump was just one of six top-flight lobbying firms hired by CNOOC to push its bid.

At Akin Gump, a strike team made up of more than a dozen of the firm's most influential lobbyists descended on Capitol Hill with newspaper excerpts, Wall Street Journal editorials and talking points that highlighted the Western qualities of CNOOC, 70 percent of which is owned by the Chinese government. The team drafted "Dear Colleague" letters for members of Congress to pass on to their fellow legislators. Rep. James Moran, a Virginia Democrat, even stopped by Akin Gump's swanky offices for a personal briefing on CNOOC's bid.

"The lobbying on CNOOC was particularly intense on both sides," said Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., one of the founders of the U.S.-China Working Group, a new congressional panel that focuses on trade and diplomacy issues. "It was really symbolic of the problems that we are having defining what our relationship with China will be in the future."

While CNOOC's lobbying onslaught might seem an unusual strategy to be used by a state-owned company from the world's largest communist country, it is really just the latest and most visible example of China's long-running and rapidly escalating efforts to influence U.S. policy and public opinion.

"Direct, indirect and covert"

Since July 1997, the Chinese and Hong Kong governments and government-controlled companies and organizations have spent at least a combined $19 million lobbying the U.S. government, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of foreign agent lobbying disclosure records filed with the U.S. Department of Justice. A small amount of that total accounts for lobbying efforts by private companies in mainland China and Hong Kong, such as the conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa.

The Center study focused on lobbying disclosure forms filed with the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Act public records office. U.S. organizations working for foreign governments or foreign government-controlled enterprises are required to file detailed reports on their activities with the FARA office. Foreign companies that are not government-controlled can either file disclosure forms with FARA or Congress, or they can file with both. Disclosure forms filed with Congress, however, are much less detailed than FARA filings. (See methodology)

To take their message to Capitol Hill, state capitals, the media and the U.S. public, Chinese clients have hired some of the most prominent and well-connected lobbying shops, public relations specialists and law firms in Washington, including Patton Boggs, Hogan & Hartson, and Wexler and Walker Public Policy Associates. The contracts cover services that range in scope from a one-shot effort at arranging a meeting between China's U.S. ambassador and a senator to discuss a Taiwan-related security bill to decades-long assignments to persuade legislators on trade, tariffs and human rights issues affecting China.

"China is expanding its influence and network on a daily basis," said Michael R. Wessel, a member of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a bipartisan body appointed by Congress to investigate and monitor the national security implications of the countries' relationship. "Their attempt to influence Congress is direct, indirect and covert."

Lobbying records show that lobbyists and PR specialists gave tours to congressional staffers in Hong Kong. They wined and dined U.S. representatives to push for permanent Normal Trade Relations status for China. And they reached out to reporters from newspapers across the ideological spectrum, from The Washington Times to The New York Times.

Among other findings:

The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region has been significantly more aggressive than the People's Republic of China government in its attempt to influence the U.S. government and seek favor with the American public. This is especially true on trade matters. Since July 1997, the government-backed Hong Kong Trade Development Council spent $7.2 million, more than any other Chinese client, to lobby on issues affecting Hong Kong, including China's entry into the World Trade Organization and the 2003 SARS epidemic. To get the work done, it hired seven lobby shops.
Reacting to growing criticism of China in Congress, over the past two years the nation's government has retained additional top lobby and law firms to improve its connections with official Washington and to secure strategic advice on trade matters. In contrast to new hires Patton Boggs and Hogan & Hartson, the firm of Jones Day has represented the Chinese government since 1986, lobbying the White House, federal agencies and Congress on issues ranging from religious freedom to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
British-owned WPP, in its own words "one of the world's largest communications services groups" with offices in 103 countries, tops the earnings list among firms that lobbied and did public relations on behalf of mainland China and Hong Kong since July 1997. So far, WPP has received $5 million. Its affiliated firms Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates, Hill & Knowlton, Inc. and Burson-Marsteller have extensively represented the interests of the Hong Kong government in the United States. Another WPP firm, BKSH & Associates, was part of CNOOC's lobbying offensive.
Second behind WPP on the top 10 earnings list is Garvey Schubert Barer, a law firm with offices in Washington, D.C., and Beijing. Since 1985, the firm has counseled the government-owned China Ocean Shipping Co., whose cargo vessel Liu Lin Hai in 1979 became the first to call at a U.S. port in 30 years.
Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., a Fortune Global 500 company with holdings that include communications, ports and energy, is seeking to boost its image on Capitol Hill. It recently hired the public relations firm Public Policy Impact Strategies to arrange "courtesy visits" with members of Congress. In recent years, the conglomerate raised concerns among Washington officials over its alleged connections with the Chinese government.

Meanwhile, on the Hill …

The lobbying offensive comes at a time when more than two dozen bills touching on different aspects of the U.S.-China relations—including Taiwan-related defense issues, intellectual property rights and World Trade Organization compliance—are pending in Congress.

Two groups on the Hill formed to monitor China-related issues have popped up in recent months: the Congressional China Caucus, led by Rep. J. Randy Forbes, R-Va., and the U.S.-China Working Group, launched by Larsen and Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.. The difference in the groups' stances seems to reflect a deep division in attitudes toward the Asian nation: some look at China and see a threat to the United States, but others see a potential partner. While the Congressional China Caucus says it will "investigate China's global reach and the consequences of its growing international, economic, and political influence on U.S. interests," the U.S.-China Working Group says it will focus on finding "new opportunities for a successful and strategic relationship."

Lobbyists say that their job is to help their Chinese clients be understood by the U.S. government. "China is serious about being a member of the world community, and the world will have to deal with that," said one Washington lobbyist, speaking on condition of anonymity because he didn't have clearance from his clients to comment. "Our system requires an active intervention with the government, and that requires lawyers and requires lobbyists."

One expert on China said that the increased lobbying is part of a natural progression.

"The lobbying seems consistent to me," said Bates Gill, who holds the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. "In other words, as the U.S.-China relationship has become more complex, it's normal that our counterparts in China will seek advice. And Americans do the same thing. In Beijing, consulting is a big business."

Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., a member of the Congressional China Caucus, disagrees. On July 12, the congressman sent a strongly worded letter to Akin Gump's lobbyists questioning their representation of CNOOC. "When I noted that CNOOC was one of your newest clients, I immediately thought, 'Is there no bright line to separate who the lobbyists in Washington will or will not represent?'" wrote Wolf.

In an interview Wolf said: "The Chinese government is prosecuting Christians. They have Catholic bishops and Protestant pastors in jail. In Tibet, they are prosecuting Muslims and Evangelicals. The Chinese government is spying on the United States. Why would you work for a government that is spying on the United States? Greed is driving them."

Daniel Spiegel, a partner at Akin Gump, said that the firm's relationship with the Chinese oil company "has come to an end," but that Akin Gump feels "perfectly comfortable with our representation of CNOOC. We were not representing a country; we were representing a company."

All told, lobbyists and experts say that the bulk of the money spent on lobbying on behalf of China actually comes from U.S. corporations that have interests there. Executives from Coca-Cola, Ford Motors, Wal-Mart, Microsoft and other big companies sit on the board of directors of the U.S.-China Business Council, which "works to enhance media and public understanding of complex issues in U.S.-China relations," according to its Web site.

More lobbying partners

With a busy front on the Hill, in July the Chinese Embassy hired the firm of Patton Boggs for a monthly fee of $22,000. Lobbying records vaguely state that the firm will counsel the embassy on "congressional matters." The firm has assigned Mark Cowan and Bob Horn, both former officials in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, and Timothy Chorba, who was U.S. ambassador to Singapore from 1994 to 1997, to that task. Patton Boggs officials declined to comment on the firm's work for China.

Meanwhile, Cleveland-based Jones Day, the second-largest U.S. law firm, has maintained a long relationship with the Chinese Embassy. Jones Day has been paid $1 million to carry the embassy's water in official Washington since 1997, according to its disclosure forms.

Jones Day has a substantial presence in China, maintaining offices in Beijing, Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Unlike many FARA filings, Jones Day's records contain few details on its specific lobbying activities on behalf of the embassy. The filings show that the firm has lobbied Congress, the White House and various federal agencies on trade and tariff issues, Radio Free Asia, human rights, U.S. sanctions, Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, proliferation issues, religious freedom, the World Trade Organization, the 2008 Olympics, foreign exchange rates and maritime law.

China's recently appointed ambassador to the United States, Zhou Wenzhong, seems determined to build solid relationships on Capitol Hill. In less than a month this summer, the ambassador met with congressmen twice.

He spoke on June 30 at the launch of the U.S.-China Working Group. On July 20, the Chinese ambassador engaged in what a congressional aide described as "a small, casual" meeting with members of Congress to discuss currency and national defense issues, including a statement by a Chinese general that China will respond with nuclear weapons if the United States intervened in a conflict over Taiwan.

"I hadn't seen a Chinese ambassador on the Hill before," said Larsen. "In the past four months, the Chinese embassy has been more aggressive in trying to contact members of Congress."

Another outfit working for the government of the People's Republic of China is Hogan & Hartson LLP, a Washington, D.C., law firm with offices in Hong Kong and Beijing. China hired the firm in October 2003 to get advice on WTO negotiations. Its disclosure forms say that Hogan & Hartson "also may render advice" to the Chinese central government "on U.S. laws, regulations, policies and [government] actions." Handling the work is Jeanne Archibald, the firm's director of international trade; in the early 1990s, she was general counsel at the Treasury Department. So far, the firm has received slightly more than a half-million dollars from the Chinese government.

Hogan & Hartson is also representing the Liaoning Province of northeast China in a lawsuit brought by Yang Rong, a former chief executive officer of the country's largest maker of vans. Yang fled to the United States in 2002 after the provincial government accused him of financial mismanagement. He sued the Liaoning Province in the United States, but a federal court in the District of Columbia ruled in March that it had no jurisdiction in the case. Yang has appealed.

The blitz up close

As part of the CNOOC lobbying blitz, Akin Gump put 13 of its best-connected lobbyists on the job to try to win over legislators and White House officials, disclosure records show.

Led by Daniel Spiegel, former U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations under President Bill Clinton, the team included Bill Paxon, a former Republican congressman and key adviser to George W. Bush's 2004 presidential campaign; Victor Fazio, a former Democratic congressman from California; and Toby Gati, a former White House and State Department official in the Clinton administration.

In just eight days at the end of June, the lobbyists reported about 250 contacts with the Office of the President, the Office of the Vice President, the Department of Energy, the Department of Commerce, and a long list of congressmen and senators and their staffs. Records show that while some lobbyists knocked on the doors of legislators, others worked the phones, sent out dozens of e-mail messages with information about CNOOC and distributed favorable newspaper articles about the Chinese company.

Lobbyists also called and sent e-mail to officials at the Treasury Department, which houses the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States—or CFIUS—a panel that reviews corporate mergers on national security grounds.

At the same time, many of the same public officials also were being lobbied by Chevron Corp., the California-based oil company that merged with Unocal after CNOOC withdrew its bid in July. "Our lobby was very intense because of the opposition [to CNOOC in Congress]," said Akin Gump partner Spiegel.

Lobbying records show that the ambassador called Rep. James Moran, D-Va., the week before the congressman voted against resolutions that condemned the CNOOC bid on June 30. Spiegel denied calling Moran and said that the filing with the Department of Justice, which says that the ambassador called James Moran on June 23 and carries Spiegel's signature, contained a "mistake."

"I just got the weeks mixed up," said Spiegel. Moran also denied the contact. As of Sept. 6, Akin Gump had not filed an amendment with the Department of Justice correcting what Spiegel said was an error.

Moran said that he did meet with Spiegel on July 8, when he was driving his car in Dupont Circle and decided to stop by Akin Gump's offices. There, Moran received a 30-minute personal briefing on CNOOC's potential purchase of Unocal.

"I happened to be in Dupont Circle already, so it was easier for me to stop by their office. Security is difficult these days in the Hill," said Moran.

"We briefed him on the transaction, and we asked him what he thought was likely to happen at the Senate," Spiegel said.

Moran said there was no lobbying because the meeting occurred after he already had made up his mind and voted on legislation involving the CNOOC case. He said he didn't send out a "Dear Colleague" letter written for him by Akin Gump lobbyists. The letter condemned an amendment that banned Treasury from using funds to recommend approval of the merger between Unocal and CNOOC.

On July 25, Akin Gump's PAC contributed $1,000 to Moran's congressional campaign, but he said that is not out of the ordinary. "I normally get $1,000 from Akin Gump," Moran said. He added, "The firm is not a significant giver" to his campaign.

Three other congressmen whose votes favored CNOOC received contributions from Akin Gump at about the same time: Mark Steven Kirk, R-Ill., Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and Tom Davis R-Va.

Moran added: "I represent thousands of lobbyists in my district [in the Virginia suburbs of Washington] so I am not going to say anything negative about them. But I read that Chevron spent millions of dollars lobbying on this issue and, thus, saved themselves a lot of money in the purchase of the company."

He said he wishes that there had been less lobbying on the CNOOC issue.

"Probably Chevron taught the Chinese a lesson," said Moran. "And they will feel that they need to be more involved in the future."

Hong Kong plugs in

The biggest player by far with ties to the Chinese government, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council, says that it doesn't work for the central government in Beijing at all.

Great Britain returned Hong Kong to China in 1997, but only under the condition that it could maintain its free market economy and some other democratic institutions. Hong Kong's relationship with the mainland has remained a hotly debated topic ever since, commonly portrayed as "one country, two systems."

When it comes to trade and commerce, however, the interests of Hong Kong and Beijing are commonly aligned, with Hong Kong in recent years seeking to become the trade and financial gateway to the fast-growing mainland. For example, HKTDC underwrote a major lobbying effort to convince the U.S. government to grant permanent Normal Trade Relations to China in 2000. More recently, it has sponsored a Washington lobbying offensive on textile trade with China.

HKTDC does not have a Washington office, but it maintains bureaus in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami. Its U.S. lobbying activities are coordinated through the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington, an arm of the Hong Kong government.

According to lobbying disclosure records, the firms contracted by HKTDC were expected to "identify key lobbying targets in the U.S. Congress and Administration who may have a bearing on legislation or policies affecting the trade interests of Hong Kong."

"We did lobby for [Normal Trade Relations] status for China, but purely as it related to Hong Kong," said Daniel McAtee, senior information officer at the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington. "We are always keen to highlight the distinction."

Since the turnover of Hong Kong to China in 1997, HKTDC has spent $7.2 million to maintain an expensive stable of thoroughbred lobbying firms to roam the halls of official Washington on its behalf.

Among them:

Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates. ($3,043,145) This top-tier lobbying firm is headed by former U.S. Rep. Robert Walker and Ann Wexler, a top official in the Carter Administration who has since gone on to become one of the city's leading lobbyists. The firm has had dozens of meetings and meals with congressional members and staff, including Reps. Michael Castle,R-Del., and John Shadegg, R-Ariz., to push Hong Kong issues such as textiles, China's permanent NTR status, and technology transfers. The firm has also had meetings with administration and agency officials, including Bob Cassidy, who was chief U.S. negotiator on WTO accession for China. Records also show that Walker arranged receptions for HKTDC.
Loeffler Tuggey Pauerstein Rosenthal, LLP. ($1,634,462.69) This government affairs shop is headed by former U.S. Rep. Tom Loeffler, a key fundraiser for and insider in the administrations of President Bush and his father. Lately, the Texas Republican served as South Texas co-chairman for Bush-Cheney '04, Inc. The firm has lobbied the White House and Congress, including Sen. John Kerry, Sen. Rick Santorum and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's staff, on trade concerns, the "one country two systems" philosophy and the SARS epidemic, among other issues. The firm did not return phone calls about its work for HKTDC.
Powell, Goldstein, Frazer & Murphy, LLP. ($976,923.43) This blue chip law firm is based in Atlanta, but maintains a substantial lobbying practice in Washington. The firm lobbied on behalf of HKTDC on international trade matters. In the past, it also represented the commercial office of the U.S. Embassy of China, the state-owned China Textiles Import/Export Corp., and the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in Washington. The company says it has not lobbied for HKTDC or any China clients for the past several years.
Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. ($888,187.95) Chicago-based Sidley Austin is one of the largest law firms in the country and has offices in Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai. The firm has 225 attorneys in its Washington office. It has lobbied for HKTDC on textile and apparel trade matters. The firm did not return phone calls about its work for HKTDC.
Patton Boggs, LLP. ($251,054.14) Patton Boggs is one of the most powerful lobbying firms in Washington. It has lobbied Congress and U.S. Customs officials on behalf of HKTDC on textile matters, for which it collected a quarter-million dollars between July 2001 and June 2002, records show.

A big portion of the efforts to sell Hong Kong in the United States has been in the hands of public relations firms, which have targeted the media.

Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest public relations companies, represents the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. It has reported "generating positive [media] stories," and "responding swiftly to inaccurate or unfavorable coverage," as well as "recommending and qualifying journalists to visit Hong Kong as part of the sponsored visitor program."

The firm also arranged a meeting between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and a Hong Kong government official to talk about trade opportunities for California companies, and worked to position Hong Kong "as a strategic partner that the U.S. could engage" in exploring opening up mainland China.

In the past, Burson-Marsteller represented the People's Republic of China Ministry of Culture and the government-backed Better Hong Kong Foundation.

A Hong Kong press group even spent more than $124,000 to fight a mention in the Department of State Annual Report on Human Rights Practice, lobbying records show.

The Oriental Publishing Group hired Washington-based TKC International in early 1997 to send out a letter to 17 senators and 47 congressmen, including John Ashcroft and John Kerry, in which it protested "a serious error of fact" which characterized one of its newspapers, the Oriental Daily News, "in a negative manner" in the freedom of speech section of the 1996 DOS report. A letter was also sent to Timothy E. Wirth, the State Department's undersecretary for global affairs.

The DOS report said that the Oriental Daily News, one of the most popular dailies in Hong Kong, had set off "a newspaper price war" when it lowered its retail price "in an attempt to woo readers away from Apple Daily, a tabloid-style daily newspaper that has captured a larger share of the market from other papers." The report also stated that the price war led to the closure of four newspapers, a weekly periodical and a newspaper supplement.

The Taiwan issue

One of the more unusual FARA filings involving lobbying for the Chinese government was submitted by former U.S. Sen. L. Bennett Johnston, a powerful Louisiana Democrat responsible for most of the energy legislation that moved through Congress in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Johnston said in his filing that he set up a meeting between himself, his "friend" former Chinese Ambassador Jiechi Yang, and Michigan Sen. Carl Levin to state the ambassador's opposition to a section of the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization bill.

Section 1202 of the bill established "joint operational training for, and exchanges of senior officers between," the United States and Taiwan armed forces." The People's Republic of China has considered Taiwan an illegitimate entity ever since 2 million Nationalists retreated to the island and set up a separate government after the 1949 communist victory in the mainland.

Since then, the United States' security commitments to Taiwan have often inflamed the Chinese leadership.

According to lobbying records, the Chinese ambassador wanted Congress to get rid of Section 1202, which had been inserted into the bill by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was the House majority whip at the time.

In the filing Johnston said that he received no compensation for arranging the meeting and none was expected. Although passed by the House, the provision was watered down to require only a feasibility study.

Johnston could not be reached for comment, but his son said that the filing was made due to an "overabundance of caution."

"Dad just made the filing to be absolutely sure that he was in the clear," said Hunter Johnston, who is a partner with his father in a Washington lobbying firm, Johnston & Associates.

On its Web site, Johnston & Associates says Hunter "has been active throughout Southeast Asia … concentrating his attention and time in China, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, and Thailand." Hunter Johnston said that he is unaware of any work the firm is currently doing, either in China or on behalf of the Chinese government.

A player to watch

Experts say economic concerns are going to dominate discussions about China in Congress in the next few years. "Economic problems are going to rise to the surface. Therefore, more Chinese firms will be turning for advice, lobbyists and consultants," said Gill, the CSIS China expert. "Chinese companies want to invest here, and they don't want to make mistakes."

Along those lines, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa, owned by billionaire Li Ka-shing, hired Public Policy Impact Strategies to do public relations "in support of its image and brand in the United States," records show. Hutchison Whampoa's businesses include hotels, telecommunications and ports around the globe.

The conglomerate was in the news in early 2003 when former Reagan administration official Richard Perle resigned from the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon, amidst allegations of conflict of interest for his representation of companies with business before the Defense Department. Perle was a paid adviser to a bankrupt telecommunications company, Global Crossing, and his job was to persuade the Pentagon and other government agencies to approve the sale of the company to Hutchison Whampoa. The FBI and the Department of Defense objected to the purchase citing concerns about the company's ties to the Chinese government.

Starting in 2004, Public Policy Impact Strategies arranged "courtesy visits" between Hutchison Whampoa officials and legislators to discuss "U.S.-China relations, international trade and telecommunications." Among others, the Chinese businessmen met with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who chairs the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee.

"People confused Mr. Li with the PRC [People's Republic of China]," said William Nixon, president of Public Policy Impact Strategies. "We are helping clear misunderstandings about who Hutchison Whampoa is and what they do."

Nixon said that the misunderstandings began in the late 1990s, when Li bid for strategic port operations on both ends of the Panama Canal.

He compared Li's relationship with the Chinese government with Bill Gates' relationship with the U.S. government. "If Bill makes a call to the White House, someone will get back to him," he said. "The same happens with Mr. Li in Beijing. They take him into consideration because they see him as someone important; they see him as the future." Yet, Nixon said, Hutchison Whampoa doesn't have ties to the Chinese government.

So far, Nixon said, the meetings between Hutchison Whampoa officials and congressman and senators have been "very positive." He explained that Li "doesn't lobby on legislation" and "doesn't have immediate plans to invest in the United States. But I wouldn't be surprised if in the future they are interested in buying a chain of health and beauty stores, for example."

"Mr. Li is a very sweet man," added Nixon as he talked about a $40 million donation the Hong Kong tycoon made in June to the University of California-Berkeley, the largest international gift in the university's history, to build a biomedical and health sciences building. "I hope I work with him forever."

Between May 2004 and April of this year, the public relations firm received $300,000.

An industry to watch

As the U.S. trade deficit with China has grown, textiles have become one of the most sensitive issues in the nations' already complicated relations. A three-decade-old system of clothing and textile quotas expired Jan. 1, and Chinese textile imports in the United States surged 97 percent to $7.4 billion. When American manufacturers complained, the U.S. government put a 7.5 percent annual growth restriction on several categories of textiles from China, including shirts and trousers. This was allowed under China's WTO entry agreement.

The Chinese Ministry of Commerce hurried to hire the law firm McDermott Will and Emery LLP, whose director of government relations, Paul Hatch, was a consultant to the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign.

The law firm's assignment from the Chinese government was to fight "the potential imposition of the threat-based safeguards on imports of textiles from China."

The Justice Department lobbying filing says that McDermott lawyers would contact members of the executive branch and Congress, as well as the media. In a phone interview from Korea, Michael House, a partner in the firm's International Trade Practice Group, said that the work for the Chinese Ministry of Commerce has been "strictly legal advice," and that it finished in June when the Committee for the Implementation of Textile Agreements, an interagency group chaired by the Department of Commerce, resolved the safeguards cases in favor of the U.S. manufacturers. House didn't comment on whether McDermott will do further work for the Chinese government on the textile disputes.

On Sept. 2, the fourth round of negotiations between the United States and China over garment imports broke down.

Meanwhile, domestic groups are getting ready for a counter-offensive on the China front.

Alan Tonelson, a research fellow at the U.S. Business and Industry Council, an organization that lobbies on behalf of small and medium U.S. companies, said "China will be our No. 1 priority now that the Central America Free Trade Agreement has passed." The BIC opposed CAFTA and it strongly supports restrictions on Chinese textile imports.

"We expect to convert congressmen and their staffs to our own view point in trade policy," said Tonelson.

Other issues that will keep legislators and lobbyists busy in the near future are China's growing military presence and military intelligence, and new attempts by the Chinese government to acquire international capital, said Michael Wessel of the U.S-China Economic and Security Review Commission.

"The China issue is just an overwhelming one."

Agustin Armendariz, Laura Arriaza, Alexander Cohen and Adela Maskova contributed to this report.

Timely, effective and fair?

2011-12-06T10:26:20-05:00

It is a detailed database that could be shining a constant light on the shadowy and complicated world of Washington lobbyists working for foreign governments and overseas companies, a potentially invaluable tool for promoting government transparency, honesty and accountability.

Instead, the Foreign Agent Registration Act database housed at the Justice Department— which is a public record by law—is a shadowy, complicated beast. And that seems to be just fine with the government officials in charge of it.

For example, many of the most damning records in the Washington, D.C., scandal involving indicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff lay buried in the FARA database until they were finally dug up by congressional investigators. The database is rich in such records, everything from meetings between government officials and high-powered lobbyists to public relations campaigns.

The Justice Department defended its stewardship of the FARA database when contacted by the Center for this report.

"It is the mission of the FARA office to provide public information in a timely, effective and fair manner," said Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra in an email response to questions from the Center. "The FARA staff is committed to providing publicly available information as quickly and efficiently as possible." (See the Center's response to Justice and the Department's reply.)

Whether by design or neglect, the FARA public records office itself is a Byzantine operation. It is only open to the public for only four hours each day, although it allows the lobbyists for foreign principals to stop by with filings anytime between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

And even though the office maintains filings electronically, it does not make the vast majority of those filings available electronically to the public. Citizens who want to obtain copies of the detailed forms that offer the best insight on the lobbying activities, called "supplementals," need to make a personal visit to the FARA public records office—and possess well-developed computer skills and a substantial bankroll to pay for photocopies of it. Even then, they must know fairly precisely what information they are looking for and where it is likely to be located.

Should they be lucky enough to find the documents they want, they will be charged 50 cents per page for copies. FARA filings often contain dozens of pages. The Center for Public Integrity paid more than $3,000 for copies of the documents used in its report on lobbying by China, and then spent days transferring the data in the filings to a database for analysis.

"That is absolutely ridiculous," said U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., chairman of the Science-State-Justice-Commerce subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees the Justice Department's budget. "Those kinds of records should be freely available to the public."

Even the information that the FARA office supplies to Congress is relatively old and contains few of the details denoted in the filings.

The FARA unit provides Congress with semi-annual reports on registrants and their clients, which are subsequently posted on the FARA Web site. The reports are usually a year or two old, however. Currently, the latest one on the FARA Web site covers the six months that ended on Dec. 31, 2003.

One government secrecy watchdog group says the situation "reeks of bad faith and reflects poorly on the integrity of the Justice Department itself."

"They're going out of their way to make this valuable resource nearly impossible to use, thereby defeating its purpose," says Steve Aftergood, editor of Secrecy News, an electronic newsletter published by the American Federation of Scientists. "What's the point of maintaining a database that no one can really use? It's extremely cynical."

The Center for Public Integrity has been trying to obtain a working electronic copy of the FARA database through the Freedom of Information Act for more than 18 months. The Center wants to make the entire database freely available to the public on its Web site—something that some government officials, such as Wolf, believe the FARA office should already be doing itself.

The battle to obtain the FARA database has resulted in some of the most remarkable excuses and roadblocks from government officials the Center has ever seen. The group has filed hundreds of FOIA requests with various government agencies over the past 15 years.

The Justice Department has never officially denied the Center's right to obtain a working copy of the FARA database. Instead, it has cited one technical or bureaucratic problem after another that it has said prevented it from fulfilling the request for a complete working copy of the database. They include:

In June 2004, the Justice Department told the Center that because the FARA office's computer system was so antiquated, even attempting to copy the database could cause it to be lost forever. Computer experts contacted by the Center called the excuse laughable—and almost certainly untrue. The Center subsequently filed a lawsuit to force the Justice Department to comply with its FOIA request.
In the fall of 2004, the Justice Department said it was in the process of updating its FARA database system and expected to be able to produce a full working copy for the Center by the end of December 2004. In early 2005, the Justice Department supplied the Center with what it purported to be a working copy of the FARA database, but it did not contain the proper index information or the necessary software to make the database functional. In addition, the Center later discovered that the Justice Department had deleted several important fields of information from the database without disclosing that it had done so.
In negotiations with the Center to dismiss its lawsuit, the Justice Department said it would supply a complete working copy of the updated database by July 2005. The Center then dropped its lawsuit to obtain a copy of the useless, antiquated database, but immediately filed a new FOIA request for a full, functioning copy of the modernized database promised by the Justice Department.
In late August, the Justice Department sent a letter stating that a copy of the modernized database could be provided only in an Oracle database format and would require the Center to obtain (apparently very expensive) software. In addition, the letter said that even if the Center were to obtain the software, it would require extensive and complicated modifications in order to work properly with the modernized FARA database.

One of the oddest exchanges in the Center's pursuit of the database came in March 2005, when the Justice Department sent a letter warning that the numbers in the database it was supplying at that point should not be trusted.

"It is not designed to be released to the public in its current form," warned the letter. "Some of this information is preliminary, and has not been reviewed for accuracy. In some cases, it may be affirmatively misleading."

The Center for Public Integrity will continue its efforts—including negotiations and legal options—to obtain a working copy of the database.