Making Government Transparent and Accountable
The Sunlight Foundation uses cutting-edge technology and ideas to make government transparent and accountable. Underlying all of our efforts is a fundamental belief that increased transparency will improve the public's confidence in government
The Sunlight Foundation Blog
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Lobbyists Put On Ventriloquist Act
More than a dozen lawmakers inserted statements supporting a biotechnology provision added to the House health care bill that was crafted by lobbyists for the biotechnology firm Genentech. According to the New York Times, “lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.”The Genentech lobbyists crafted two statements — one for Democrats and one for Republicans — for lawmakers to insert into the Congressional Record. The collection of lawmakers is very bipartisan with ten Republicans and eight Democrats issuing near identical statements. (One Democrat, Rep. Heath Shuler, inserted the Republican statement.)
For the unstudied examiner these insertions look like amateur work; more a liability than a success for this multi-million dollar lobbying campaign. That may turn out to be true with the Times’ story, but the statements made by these eighteen lawmakers can serve a powerful purpose for the biotechnology industry and Genentech in particular.
The words spoken or inserted into the official Congressional Record carry an import that those spoken in a television interview or campaign speech do not. These are official words placed in an archived government document, preserved for posterity. The use of the lobbyist written script by these eighteen lawmakers amounts to full-throated endorsement, not just of the biotechnology provision, but of the interpretation of what that provision means to one particular company, Genentech and their parent company Roche, Inc.
These statements will aid the industry when they lobby the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the implementation of the law and the attendent rules that relate to the biotechnology industry. They also help by putting these lawmakers on the line in official support of Genentech’s view of the provision. In turn, these lawmakers will likely see a hefty rise in campaign contributions from Genentech and their friends. Perhaps Genentech or another biotechnology firm will decide to fund a research project in their district. Even better, the lawmaker could earmark a research grant that could only be filled by Genentech.
Insertions into the Congressional Record have caused controversy in the past. In 2000, Rep. Bob Ney placed two statements into the Congressional Record regarding the sale of SunCruz Casinos. It was a bit odd for an Ohio congressman to be getting involved in the middle of a casino boat sale in Florida. Ney placed one statement into the record bad-mouthing SunCruz owner Gus Boulis and another singing the praises of the potential buyer Adam Kidan. It turned out that Ney was on the take from Kidan and his partner Jack Abramoff and wound up pleading guilty to multiple charges in 2006.
In 2006, Sens. Lindsay Graham and Jon Kyl filed a brief in the Supreme Court case Hamdan v. Rumsfeld arguing that the Detainee Treatment Act, recently passed by Congress, removed Hamdan’s case from federal court jurisdiction. In the brief, Graham and Kyl cite themselves having a colliquoy in the Congressional Record during debate on the Detainee Treatment Act. Graham and Kyl were trying to show that the “legislative history,” the interpretation of legislation by lawmakers voting on it, meant to remove Hamdan’s case from the federal docket. Only problem, the colliquoy never happened. It was inserted at the last minute by the two senators. It’s hard to prove that something is legislative history when only two senators were aware of the stated congressional interpretation. The court asserted jurisdiction over the case in a 5-3 vote and sided with Hamdan against the Secretary of Defense.
FireDogLake’s Marcy Wheeler pulled together a list of congressmen using the Genentech lobbyist language. You can see them below:
Reps. Joe Wilson, Lynn Jenkins, Ted Poe, Darrell Issa, Blaine Luetkemeyer, Lee Terry, Jerry Moran, Mike Conaway, Kay Granger and Kevin McCarthy.
Reps. Bob Filner, Yvette Clarke, Bill Pascrell, Linda Sanchez, Phil Hare, Donld Payne, Robert Brady and Heath Shuler.
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Top Finance Committee Members Rake In Health Care PAC Money
As the debate over health care reform legislation has heated up over the spring and summer months, the Senate Finance Committee has found itself at the center of the debate. Leading this debate has been the duo of Max Baucus, committee chair, and Chuck Grassley, committee ranking member. According to campaign finance records filed with the FEC, the duo raised $219,000 from health and insurance political action committees (PACs) from April to June of this year.
The majority of that money was raised by Sen. Grassley, who is up for reelection in 2010 and could face a Republican primary battle. During the height of the debate over health care, Grassley pulled in $165,100 from health and insurance PACs. At the same time, Grassley’s language turned from the cautious but open words about reform in 2008 to the abrasive Twitter rants of 2009.
Earlier in the year, Grassley teamed with Baucus to pass an extension of benefits in the State Childrens Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP). Now, the ranking Republican, while involved in bipartisan talks over a health reform bill, has become a forceful voice in opposition to all plans that have already passed out of other congressional committees and has taken to Twitter to attack President Obama and his call to get a bill completed sooner rather than later.
(Continue reading…)
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House GOP Health Group Stacked With Health Sector Campaign Cash
The House Republican group tasked with working on health care reform is packed with members who have received substantial campaign contributions from the health care sector. Seven members of the House GOP Health Care Solutions Group are in the top ten Republican recipients of health sector campaign cash since 1989. The Group seats the top four Republican recipients of health sector campaign contributions.
The Health Care Solutions Group is headed by Rep. Roy Blunt, a top recipient of health care contributions, who recently claimed that House Republicans do not need to present an alternative bill to the House Democrats bill. Blunt has received $1.6 million from the health sector since he took office in 2007. The congressman’s top donors over the course of his career have been Health Professionals, having given $828,250 to his campaigns.
The House Republican caucus has come under pressure to release a competing bill to the Democrats’ proposal. Minority Leader John Boehner, in a departure from Blunt’s comments, stated that the Republicans would release a proposal of their own. The House Republicans are relying on the Health Solutions Group to produce a Republican reform plan. The public may want to know more about how the industry influence, seen through exceedingly high health sector campaign contributions, may effect such a proposal.
(Continue reading…)
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Senate Finance Committee Health Care Influence Cluster: The Republicans
Over the past few weeks, our designer Kerry and I have visualized the health care lobbyist connections of Senate Finance Committee members. The Senate Finance Committee has emerged as the key congressional committee in the debate over President Obama’s promised health care reform legislation. The committee is also packed with members with tight ties to the health care industry. By revealing the former staffers of Finance Committee members who have become lobbyists for the health care industry, we can show how close these connections are. Previously, visualizations were created highlighting Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus and the Democrats on the committee. Below is a visualization of the Senate Finance Committee Republicans and their connections to the health care industry through former staffers turned lobbyists. (view fullscreen)
(available as a large PNG file, as well)The map shows nine out of ten committee Republicans with former staffers turned health care lobbyists. OpenSecrets.org does not report any staffers turned health care lobbyists for Sen. John Cornyn. These nine Republicans are connected to 22 different health care lobbyists.
Both Sens. Charles Grassley and Orrin Hatch have four connections to former staffers. Both senators are in powerful positions on the committee, especially as it pertains to health care legislation. Grassley is the current ranking member on the full committee and Hatch is the ranking member on the Health subcommittee. Both are also top recipients of money from the health and insurance industries. Over his career, Grassley received $1,876,479 from the health industry and $858,224 from the insurance industry. Hatch, meanwhile, pulled in $2,311,744 from the health industry and $659,307 from the insurance industry over his career.
These 22 lobbyists represent over 100 different health care organizations. Unlike with some of the lobbyists connected to committee Democrats, there is little overlap in clients. It appears that most of these staffers turned lobbyists have their own unique portfolios.
As with former staffers on the Democratic side, these lobbyists represent some of the top health care organizations lobbying in Washington. Eli Lilly, Pfizer, PhRMA, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Merck are all represented.
The money from the health and insurance industries into Republican committee member campaigns is relatively high. The insurance industry is the top contributor to Sen. Grassley’s campaigns over his career. Pharmaceutical companies are the top contributors to Sen. Hatch’s campaigns. In fact, every Republican committee member has a health or insurance industry as their one or more of their top five career contributors.
Campaign Contributions for Republican Members of the Senate Finance Committee
Senator 2008 Health Sector Career Health Sector 2008 Insurance Sector Career Insurance Sector CHUCK GRASSLEY (IA) $334,237.00 $1,876,479.00 $72,200.00 $858,224.00 ORRIN G. HATCH (UT) $122,300.00 $2,311,744.00 $24,880.00 $659,307.00 OLYMPIA J. SNOWE (ME) $6,000.00 $744,640.00 $5,000.00 $408,490.00 JON KYL (AZ) $68,550.00 $1,971,968.00 $2,000.00 $533,044.00 JIM BUNNING (KY) $40,450.00 $1,045,687.00 $45,100.00 $769,016.00 MIKE CRAPO (ID) $92,000.00 $549,192.00 $63,750.00 $360,932.00 PAT ROBERTS (KS) $657,749.00 $903,337.00 $157,900.00 $296,342.00 JOHN ENSIGN (NV) $16,550.00 $1,795,899.00 $19,150.00 $580,690.00 MIKE ENZI (WY) $287,549.00 $612,715.00 $84,250.00 $240,953.00 JOHN CORNYN (TX) $950,669.00 $1,994,353.00 $289,069.00 $568,253.00
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Partying With Senate Finance Committee Staffers Turned Lobbyists
Over the past few weeks, we’ve been looking at the connections between the Senate Finance Committee and the former staffers of committee members turned health care lobbyists. Our previous posts focused solely on those connections — one visualizing the connections to committee chair Max Baucus and another showing the connections for all Democrats. Another way to look at these connections is to look at the fundraisers these lobbyists are throwing for Finance Committee members.
After reviewing the data on Party Time, only four fundraisers for Senate Finance Committee members were found to be hosted by one of the staffers turned health care lobbyists. The four fundraisers were for three senators: Chuck Schumer, Mike Crapo, and two fundraisers for Orrin Hatch.
Partying with the Senate Finance Committee Senator Host Clients Date Chuck Schumer Chuck Jones American Council of Life Insurers, American Medical Assn, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries 04/30/2009 Mike Crapo Bryan Cunningham Eli Lilly & Co, Pfizer Inc 05/07/2009 Orrin Hatch Bryan Cunningham Eli Lilly & Co, Pfizer Inc 06/19/09 Orrin Hatch Bryan Cunningham Eli Lilly & Co, Pfizer Inc 06/26/09 Unfortunately, the total campaign contribution data for these dates is not yet available due to reporting schedules. Also, the data from Party Time, due to the source of the data, does not always contain host information. It is without doubt that there are many more fundraisers occurring for Senate Finance Committee members with their former staffers turned lobbyists as hosts.
As I continue to take a look at congressional committees and their connections to the health care industry, I’ll keep my eye on the fundraisers they are throwing for key committee members and bring that data here.
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Senate Finance Committee Health Care Influence Cluster: The Democrats
Last week, I took a look at the circle of former staffers turned health care lobbyists that surround Senate Finance Committee Chair Max Baucus. The Senate Finance Committee is one of the two central committees in the Senate charged with formulating health care reform legislation. Knowing the connections to the health care lobby of all committee members provides us with a glimpse into whom may have access to shape the forthcoming legislation. In continuing with mapping Baucus’ connections, below you’ll find a map of all the committee Democrats and their connections, through former staffers turned health care lobbyists, to various health care lobbies:
The map shows only ten of the thirteen committee Democrats, as OpenSecrets.org does not report any staffers turned health care lobbyists for Sens. Jay Rockefeller, Jeff Bingaman or Bill Nelson. These ten Democrats are connected to a total of 20 former staffers turned health care lobbyists. Sen. Baucus leads all of the committee Democrats with five health care lobbyist connections and Sen. Chuck Schumer and Tom Carper both have three connections.
These 20 staffers represent approximately 91 different organizations, often overlapping in the clients they handle. The overlap usually occurs when the health care lobbyists are employed at the same firm. This can be seen clearly with David Castagnetti, Sen. Baucus’ former chief of staff, and Kelly Bingel, Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s former chief of staff. Both Castagnetti and Bingel work for Mehlmen Vogel Castagnetti Inc. and handle nearly all the same clients.
The organizations represented by these 20 health care lobbyists include some of the biggest opponents to center piece of President Obama’s health care plan: the public option. These include the American Medical Association, the American Hospital Association, PhRMA, and various pharmaceutical, medical device and insurance companies. The Senate Finance Committee is seen as the biggest obstacle to the public option.
When it comes to money from the health care and insurance industries, Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president, leads the pack. For senators who have not run for the presidency, which requires raising exhorbitant amounts of money, Sen. Baucus is ahead of other committee Democrats with Sens. Schumer and Kent Conrad following close behind. See the table below:
Senator 2008 Health Sector Career Health Sector 2008 Insurance Sector Career Insurance Sector MAX BAUCUS (D-MT) $1,148,775.00 $2,797,381.00 $285,850.00 $1,170,313.00 JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER IV (D-WV) $515,150.00 $1,674,229.00 $107,874.00 $394,074.00 KENT CONRAD (D-ND) $117,350.00 $1,331,363.00 $56,650.00 $821,187.00 JEFF BINGAMAN (D-NM) $14,151.00 $861,841.00 $1,500.00 $160,875.00 JOHN F. KERRY (D-MA) $289,430.00 $8,145,141.00 $90,250.00 $1,397,367.00 BLANCHE L. LINCOLN (D-AR) $226,753.00 $1,281,608.00 $49,500.00 $440,033.00 RON WYDEN (D-OR) $96,925.00 $1,161,488.00 $45,999.00 $229,173.00 CHARLES E. SCHUMER (D-NY) $10,000.00 $1,402,358.00 $3,000.00 $946,400.00 DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI) $239,018.00 $1,188,186.00 $40,800.00 $246,750.00 MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA) $48,951.00 $573,076.00 $12,300.00 $80,850.00 BILL NELSON (D-FL) $60,015.00 $1,163,210.00 $22,500.00 $520,016.00 ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ) $81,650.00 $1,216,476.00 $67,450.00 $458,679.00 THOMAS CARPER (D-DE) $15,450.00 $452,000.00 $28,700.00 $447,984.00 For Senate Finance Committee Democrats, the connections to the health care industry are wide and deep. Campaign contributions are high and staffers easily jump ship to lobby their former bosses. The impact of these influence measures are sure to be felt in the debate over the form of health care reform.
Stay tuned later this week as we look at the other side of the committee: the Republicans.
Technical Notes: The “Gmap” interface is courtesy of Google and the UCL Google Maps Image Cutter. The graph/map was generated using the Graph library of Nodebox.
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NPR Launches Dollar Politics
NPR launched a new series, Dollar Politics, today to look at the influence of money in the debate over three legislative items: financial regulation, energy policy, and health care. Today’s report focuses on health care, looking at the role of lobbyists in the effort to pass, or not, a health care reform bill.
Of particular interest in the piece is the packing of committee hearings by these lobbyists. One lobbyist is quoted explaining why lobbyists show up to the hearings, “[They] have friendships with various members of Congress or staff and hope to be seen. It’s a reminder that their interests are at play.” They may hope to be seen by senators and congressmen, but not in the way NPR had in mind. Dollar Politics turned the camera around on the lobbyists and put their pictures on line. NPR is seeking help in identifying potential lobbyists and you can see the pictures and send them information here.
This is a very important project and I hope to be following it (or waking up to these stories, as I did today) as they track influence around these important issues. Listen to the full report below:
NPR Dollar Politics – Health Care
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A Vision of Real Time Lobbying Disclosure
Mockups of Lobbying Disclosure Demonstrate Potential for Real Time, Online
When we talk about real time, online disclosure, as we did yesterday, it’s easy to miss just what this would mean.
The real, functional changes that come from new tools aren’t always obvious when we first encounter them. We have to use and adjust to new tools to realize how transformative they can be.
President Obama’s new lobbying policies come with an element of public disclosure that is transformative in ways we’re just starting to process. While most analysis has either praised generally or criticized specifics, we’d like to demonstrate just what real time lobbying disclosure actually looks like.
In that spirit, we worked with Sunlight Labs Designer Ali Felski to put together the following mockups of web based lobbying disclosure. We imagined a single site that would function for the entire executive branch, allowing agency employees to file daily reports on lobbying meetings (the first image), and allowing the public to examine and search through the disclosures (the second image). In our conception, a single destination functions across all agencies, creating a single access point for up-to-date influence information.
The Input Form
The input form is intended as a destination for agency employees to fulfill their reporting requirements, which we envision as a daily task: one form for each meeting where a lobbyist is present.
We have included all the identifying information one may expect, while still maintaining a simple form that isn’t overburdensome for agency employees. There’s a place for an LDA code, which we’re using as a simple identifying code for the topic of the meeting.
All of the information entered by agency employees would be submitted by lobbyists at the time of the meeting, and then entered into this simple web form either daily, or after the meeting occurs.
To get a sense of just what kind of view this reporting would enable, take a look at the next mockup.
The Search Page
Even a quick glance of this information should suggest the sort of window on influence we’re imagining. Imagine having this sort of information across the federal government right now — being able to track who is paying for lobbying, and what those discussions entail. One could quickly sort or browse all paid lobbying for individual clients or issue areas, and understand what agency actions are being influenced.
This would be valuable for the public, journalists, and even agency heads and employees, who are striving to evaluate decisions and understand what kinds of pressure they’re feeling. This is the sort of view that could elucidate influence, and help us make better decisions.
This is just the beginning. What else can you imagine tracking? Would you set up an RSS feed of all lobbying related to your interests? Would you, as an agency head, track all lobbying directed at your agency? Do you have some other mashup or view in mind, that we haven’t thought of? Let us know!
Online awareness is only starting to affect the way we see the world — adding new perspective and analysis that we didn’t have before. Like OpenSecrets.org or PoliticalPartyTime.org, technology has great promise to change the way we understand and interact with influence in government.
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Wall Street to Washington
The complete meltdown in subprime mortgages has caused a total makeover of the investment industry. The effect of the makeover on Wall Street will trickle down to Washington, with diminished campaign contributions, lobbyists out of work, and new bills and regulations to wrangle over.
First came the government takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The home loan giants were two of the biggest names in the Washington influence game over the past decade. The two organizations spent a combined $200 million on lobbying over the last ten years and, since 1990, have contributed $19.5 million to political campaigns. It is no wonder that Fannie and Freddie avoided the crucial scrutiny that they needed over the last ten years. And now, Fannie and Freddie’s lobbying shops are shuttered, their political contributions are cut off, and they will no longer throw extravagant fetes for lawmakers and cabinet secretaries.
Yesterday’s collapse of Lehman Brothers, the Bank of America takeover of Merrill Lynch, and today’s AIG firesale, will cause similar aftershocks in Washington. Since 1989, these companies have contributed millions to federal candidates for election:
Merrill Lynch – $14.7 million
Lehman Brothers – $9.2 million
AIG – $9.7 million
The fall-off in campaign contributions from these companies will likely spread to the entire securities and investment industry. The Wall Street Journal points out that during the 2008 election cycle securities and investment contributions are the 2nd largest source of money for Democratic candidates and the 3rd largest source for Republicans. Already those contributions have slowed over the summer months preceding this crisis.
Lobbying spending is likely to shift, but probably not drop-off. Since 1998, Merrill Lynch spent $39.3 million on lobbying in Washington. That account will likely be wiped out for now, as Bank of America takes over for them. Lehman Brothers, which was denied help during their collapse, is a smaller player in Washington with $6.3 million in lobbying expenses since 1998. The events of the past few days have completely wiped out the lobbying enterprises of two companies that spent over $45 million over the decade.
The securities and investment industry is one of the biggest spenders on lobbying Washington. Since 1998, this industry has pumped $551 million into influencing decision makers in Washington. Over the past two years, 2007-2008, the industry spent over $132 million on lobbying.
With the raft of new legislation and regulations about to break through like storm surge over New Orleans levees, the industry, despite its massive financial problems, can’t afford to cut their lobbying expenses. Some lobbyists may wind up out of a job, but there will always be new ones to take their place.
(All totals calculated from data available at OpenSecrets.org.)
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Looking Back at the Convention Parties
Our Party Time hostess, Nancy Watzman, looks back fondly over her two weeks of Democratic and Republican convention party crashing and provides some highlights. The Party Time project documented more than 400 parties during the two conventions, and Watzman, along with Sunlight Foundation communications director Gabriela Schneider, tried to “crash” as many as they could and blog on what they saw. Their reporting shows that despite a new ethics law in effect for the first time this year, members of Congress made merry with lobbyists at the conventions.
Read Watzman’s post to find out which party featured the best slogan—”Vote for real estate!” Find out where she observed partiers eating Caesar salad in a shot-glass, exemplifying the best “toothpick exemption” food. Read about the best no show event—a party sponsored by U.S. Bank and Visa to honor freshmen Democratic lawmakers, a party that got a lot of sunlight and exposure in the media. Learn about the most creative application of ethics law, a Kanye West concert that House members and staffers had to pay for but senators and Senate staff could attend for free. The best party-attendee perk went to the luxury porta-potties outside a Denver event. And for best definition of a “customer”, check out the account of a party thrown by Qwest CEO Ed Mueller.
Party Time doesn’t end now that the convention parties are over. The project now turns to the thousands of invitations to fundraisers and members of Congress that Watzman and staff have been collecting. There is a lot of partying happening this month, as congressional candidates get ready to report their third-quarter fundraising totals (pdf) to the U.S. Federal Election Commission on September 30. As they say over at Party Time, party on.
