[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 141 (Monday, October 3, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LOBBYING DISCLOSURE CONFERENCE REPORT
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am terribly disappointed that it was
necessary to file a cloture motion on this lobbying disclosure
conference report. I hope it will not get caught in the grip of
filibuster politics. It contains the toughest disclosure requirements
for paid professional lobbyists in the history of this country. The
bill would close the loopholes in existing lobbying registration laws.
It would streamline reporting requirements. It would reduce paperwork
and provide effective administration and enforcement.
Senator Cohen and I introduced this bill on a bipartisan basis in the
Senate with Senators Glenn, Roth, Boren, Campbell, Stevens, McCain,
DeConcini, and Bryan as cosponsors. The Senate approved the bill a year
ago by a near unanimous vote of 95 to 2. The conference report was
signed by all Senate conferees from both parties and passed the House
last Thursday by a bipartisan vote of 306 to 112.
A few inaccurate statements have been made about this conference
report in the last few days. Contrary to some reports, the bill would
not require citizens who call Congress or come to Washington to express
their own views to register as lobbyists. It would not place a gag rule
on grassroots lobbying or limit grassroots lobbying in any way. It
would not require grassroots organizations to disclose their membership
lists or their contributors. It would not require churches to register
as lobbyists.
Now, let me just set the record straight. First--and I am going to
repeat this a few times because there are some people who have spread a
statement to the contrary which is inaccurate--only paid, professional
lobbyists would be required to register under this bill, just as in
current law. Only paid, professional lobbyists would be required to
register under this bill just as it is with current law. Current law,
however, is filled with such loopholes that maybe three-quarters of the
professional lobbyists in this town escape registering so that we had
this bipartisan bill introduced. And so for the third time, so there is
no mistake, only paid, professional lobbyists are required to register
under this bill.
Just as with the bill that passed the Senate, the conference report
specifically defines a lobbyist as an individual who is ``employed or
retained by a client for financial or other compensation'' to make
those lobbying contacts. And, of course, there are de minimis
exclusions in the bill, but no one has raised an issue about the de
minimis exclusion. There has been a suggestion that somehow or other
people who are not paid, professional lobbyists might be required to
register, and that is not true.
The Senate report on the bill made the same statement:
The bill focuses on paid, professional lobbyists because it
is the element of pay that justifies the disclosure
requirements. For this reason [that element of pay] the
registration requirements of the bill apply only to paid
lobbyists.
That is from the Senate report. Nobody who lobbies on his or her own
behalf or on behalf of anyone else in a volunteer capacity would be
required to register. You do not have to register if you call your
Member of Congress. You do not have to register if you write your
Member of Congress. You do not have to register if you come to
Washington and meet with Members of Congress. You do not have to
register if you join an organization that lobbies Congress. You do not
have to register if you contribute to an organization that lobbies
Congress. You do not have to register if you sign a petition, join a
picket line, or march in a parade. You do not have to register if you
call a talk show. You only have to register, just as under current law,
if you are paid by a client to lobby on behalf of the client to express
the client's views--not your own, the client's views. Only paid,
professional lobbyists have to register.
Second, the bill would not place any limitations or disclosure
requirements on grassroots lobbying by citizens who organize to present
their own views to the Congress. What the bill does do is require paid,
professional lobbyists to estimate how much money they pay on behalf of
a special interest they represent to stimulate the lobbying at the
grassroots to Congress. It is only the paid, professional lobbyists who
are required to register, who are required to estimate how much they
paid out.
Only if a lobbyist who is otherwise required to register spends money
to conduct that kind of a campaign, that paid, professional lobbyist
then must estimate the amount of money the lobbyist and its employees
spend in that effort in the name of the person that they hire to
implement that effort.
Now, the reason for that provision is best seen from recent press
articles on these so-called rent-a-firestorm lobbying campaigns by
paid, professional lobbyists. And the description of those rent-a-
firestorm lobbying campaigns, sometimes called astroturf lobbying,
because it is artificially created, is set forth in a number of press
clippings, which I ask unanimous consent be inserted in the Record at
the conclusion of my remarks.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See Exhibit 1.)
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the point is this, that the Lobbying
Disclosure Act--and again I emphasize because it is so important, a
bipartisan act, and it is important to be kept that way--does not
require ordinary citizens to register in connection with grassroots
lobbying efforts. It does not require anybody to register or disclose
anything unless that person is a paid, professional lobbyist.
Now, some opponents of the bill have suggested that section 104(b)(5)
would require paid, professional lobbyists to disclose the names of
unpaid individuals or volunteers that they contact as part of a
lobbying campaign, and that is incorrect. The bill expressly states in
section 103(6) that the employees who must be disclosed do not include
volunteers who receive no financial or other financial compensation for
their work.
Section 104(b)(5) by its terms requires the disclosure of a person
only who is hired by a lobbyist to conduct that astroturf lobbying
campaign, and nobody who is called as part of that campaign or who
calls Congress as part of that campaign would be required to register
as a lobbyist or have their name disclosed in any way.
The provision was added to the bill at a House subcommittee markup on
November 22, 1993--about a year ago--where the bill was approved by a
unanimous vote, no dissenters from either party, and when the bill
passed the House on March 24, 1994, no member of either party raised
any concern about the astroturf lobbying provision. Staff for our
conferees were briefed on this provision in June where every word of
the proposed lobbying disclosure language was gone over. A number of
changes were made to the proposed language as a result of concerns that
were raised by staff but no concern about this provision.
Mr. President, the suggestion has also been made that section
105(b)(5) would require organizations employing lobbyists to disclose
their membership or contributors' lists. This is also untrue. Section
105(b)(5), which was added on the Senate floor, requires paid,
professional lobbyists to disclose the name of ``any person or entity
other than the client who paid the registrant to lobby on behalf of the
client.'' It is only if the bills are paid by somebody else that the
identity of the person paying the bills has to be disclosed. Indeed, it
was a Republican staff member of the House Judiciary Committee who
pointed out that unless you had that language that you would have a
major loophole.
As I explained when this provision was adopted by the Senate, it
would require only that ``if a lobbist's bills are paid by somebody
other than a client, the identity of the person who pays the bills
would have to be disclosed.'' (Congressional Record, May 5, 1993, page
S5492).
The type of case covered by this provision is one that I understand
was first raised by the Republican staff for the House Judiciary
Committee: What if a lobbying organization could not afford to pay its
lobbyists, and a trade association stepped in and paid their bills?
Shouldn't that be disclosed? I am not sure how likely that scenario is,
but this provision would require such disclosure. In any case, the
conference amendment contains the same provision as the Senate bill on
this point.
The subject of membership and contributors' lists was discussed
extensively in the Governmental Affairs Committee hearings on this
bill, and the decision was made that so much disclosure should be
required.
The subject of membership and contributors' list was discussed
extensively in the Governmental Affairs Committee. At hearings on this
bill a decision was made that no such disclosure would be required. As
a matter of fact, we went beyond that. It was not just that we were not
going to require it. It is that we should not require it because of the
first amendment implications if there were such a suggestion. It is our
Governmental Affairs Committee language which says that ``the Committee
believes that a broad requirement to disclose all coalition members
would have serious first amendment implications.'' (S. Rep. 103-37, p.
31.)
So there is no such requirement because we were aware of those
implications and acted on them.
Finally, Mr. President, the bill contains express exemptions from
registration by religious organizations, media organizations, and yes,
even talk-show hosts.
Mr. President, this bill contains express exemptions from
registration by religious organizations, even those organizations that
have paid professional lobbyists on their staff.
Section 103(9)(B) and 103(10)(B)(xviii) expressly exempt religious
organizations, such as churches and associations of churches, from
having to register. This exemption was worked out with the major
religious denominations prior to its incorporation into the bill. As
the Baptist joint committee explained in a September 29, 1994, letter
to Representative John Bryant, the chief sponsor of the legislation on
the House side:
We think that Section 103(9)(B) and 103(10)(B) adequately
protect the free exercise rights of churches and religious
organizations.
This language has been examined and approved by a number of
religious organizations and their church-state experts,
including from the Jewish community, mainline protestants and
the United States Catholic Conference.
So that letter which we received from the Baptist joint committee
sets forth the assurance that we had gotten and that we gave to the
major religious organizations and churches that there was no way that,
even if they had a paid professional lobbyist on board, they have to
register. There is an exemption. That is why this letter was received
saying that the free exercise rights of churches and religious
organizations is adequately protected.
In other words, even if a religious organization has a paid,
professional lobbyist, it is not required to register.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the text of the letter
from the Baptist joint committee, and of similar letters from the
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the U.S. Catholic
Conference appear in the Record immediately following my remarks.
Ther PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(See exhibit 1).
Mr. LEVIN. Finally, the bill covers only persons paid to contact
Government officials on behalf of clients. Persons expressing their own
views, not those of paying clients, are not covered by the bill.
Mr. President, last Friday, the citizens' group Public Citizen put
out a factsheet addressing some of the many misstatements that have
been made about this bill. The Public Citizen statement concludes,
correctly, that only paid, professional lobbyists would be required to
register under the bill. I ask unanimous consent that the full text of
Public Citizen's factsheet be included in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From Public Citizen]
Newt Gingrich and Rush Limbaugh Are Misinforming the American People
Myths and Facts on the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1994
On September 29, 1994, Newt Gingrich and other Members took
to the floor of the House to denounce lobbying disclosure
legislation. In their statements, they horribly distorted
both the intent and effect of this bill. Rush Limbaugh took
to the airwaves on the same day, spreading the same
misinformation and needlessly alarming religious
organizations and average citizens. Here are the facts.
Myth--The bill includes a ``grass roots gag rule'' that
will require ordinary citizens who communicate with members
of Congress to register as lobbyists. For example, a staff
member of the ``California Desert Association'' who stays for
two nights in a Washington hotel and visits Members of the
California delegation will have to register. (Newt Gingrich,
R-GA, Cong. Rec. H 10277).
Fact--The only people the legislation defines as lobbyists
are those who are paid to make ``lobbying contacts''--namely,
communications with a member of Congress or his or her staff
or an executive branch official. In addition, persons paid to
make lobbying contacts who spend less than 10 percent of
their time on lobbying activities are not considered
lobbyists. Thus, volunteers or private citizens speaking
their minds will never have to register, nor will an
organization that uses only volunteers or members to contact
Congress. A paid staff member of a state organization who
makes a few trips to Washington each year to visit Members of
Congress is not a lobbyist unless 10 percent of her time
(more than a month a year) is spent on lobbying activities.
Furthermore, an organization that employs a lobbyist, but
spends less than $5,000 in a six month period on lobbying
activities, need not register at all.
Myth--The bill will require people who give $10 to the
Christian Coalition to be listed on the lobbying registration
and reports filed with the Government. (Dan Burton, R-IN,
Cong. Rec. H 10275.)
Fact--If the Christian Coalition employs a paid lobbyist,
it will register as an organization just like any other
organization that lobbies. It will identify the person it
employs as a lobbyist. It will not have to list its members
or financial supporters. The bill specifically provides that
the ``client'' of the paid lobbyist is the Christian
Coalition as an organization, not the Coalition's members.
The provision referred to by Rep. Burton only applies to
individual lobbyists who register on behalf of a paying
client and who are also paid by other entities to lobby on
behalf of that client.
Myth--Organizations must report when they communicate with
their own constituents. ``That is crippling the right of the
citizen to be involved.'' (Newt Gingrich, R-GA, Cong. Rec. H
10278)
Fact--Organizations that urge their members to contact
Congress on an issue are engaged in grassroots lobbying
communications under the bill. However, only if they have a
paid lobbyist on their staff do they have to register. And if
they register, all they have to do is make a good
faith estimates (within ranges) of expenses of their
grassroots communications. Organizations that have no
lobbyist do not even have to register. Organizations never
have to report on when they communicate with their members
or the content of the communications.
Myth--``The bill authorizes fines up to $200,000 against
private citizens for failing to register with the new
lobbying bureaucracy created by the act. Yet a Member of
Congress will not even have his or her name disclosed if he
or she breaks the law.'' (John Doolittle, R-CA, Cong. Rec.
H10291)
Fact--The bill subjects lobbyists to fines of $10,000 to
$200,000 for ``major violations'' of the Act. Minor
violations are subject to a fine not to exceed $10,000. There
is a $200 per week fine for late filing of a registration or
report required under the act. The act specifically provides
that no penalty shall be assessed until the Director of the
Office of Lobbying Registration finds that the person ``knew
or should have known'' that they were acting in violation of
the Act. Members have no obligations under the lobbying
registration provisions. They are subject to sanctions from
the House or Senate Ethics Committees for violation of the
new gift rules. Those sanctions include the possibility of
fines and even expulsion from the Congress.
Myth--If a religious group ``sees a moral issue before the
country, they must hire a lobbyist who must divulge lots of
things about the religious group involved in our political
discourse.'' (Bob Dornan, R-CA, Cong. Rec. H10275.) The bill
allows a government bureaucrat to define ``religious
freedom.'' (Newt Gingrich, R-GA, Cong. Rec. H10278.)
Fact--The bill contains two exemptions that are relevant to
religious organizations. First, any communication made by a
church, an association of churches, or a religious order that
constitutes the free exercise of religion or is for the
purpose of protecting the right to the free exercise of
religion is not a ``lobbying contact.'' Therefore, even if a
church has a staff member who is paid to communicate with
Congress on such issues, it need not register. The final
arbiter of the meaning and application of this provision, as
with the entire statute, will be the federal courts, not the
Director of the Office of Lobbying Disclosure. Second, even
if a church is required to register, when it estimates its
expenses incurred in lobbying activities, expenses for
grassroots lobbying communications conducted by its own staff
are exempt. The religious exemption provisions were approved
by the United States Catholic Conference, the Baptist Joint
Committee, and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
The only thing that a lobbyist or lobbying firm hired by a
religious organization must disclose about that organization
is its address and how much it has been paid for its
services.
Myth--The conference inserted the grassroots lobbying
provisions into the bill at the last minute. (Rush Limbaugh,
9/29/94.)
Fact--Virtually these exact provisions have been in the
bill since the subcommittee markup on November 22, 1993. No
one mentioned them when the bill passed the House on March
24, 1994. Newt Gingrich did not even speak on the bill in
March.
Myth--Radio talk show hosts could be considered lobbyists
under this bill. (Rush Limbaugh, 9/29/94.)
Fact--The bill's definition of lobbying contact
specifically excludes any communication made through radio,
TV, cable TV, or other medium of mass communication. Even if
it didn't, Limbaugh expresses his views on behalf of himself,
not his employer, so he would not be considered a lobbyist.
Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I hope that this sets the record straight,
and we can move forward to pass this bill and ensure that paid,
professional lobbyists can no longer ignore the law and avoid public
disclosure of their activities.
Exhibit 1
[From the Chicago Tribune, Dec. 6, 1992]
More and More, Lobbyists Call Shots in DC
(By: Christopher Drew and Michael Tackett)
Soon after the U.S. Senate passed an amendment last year
that would have forced banks to lower the interest rate on
credit cards, Jack Bonner's phone was ringing.
Banking industry officials, fearful of losing billions in
profits, urgently needed Bonner's help. They wanted his
``grass-roots'' lobbying firm to create the appearance of a
spontaneous uprising against the measure.
The amendment had enormous appeal. What consumer wouldn't
want to pay less interest? And why should banks be able to
charge 19 percent interest on credit card purchases, more
than 10 percentage points above the prime lending rate?
The Senate had approved the amendment by an overwhelming
vote, 79-14. Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), the amendment's
sponsor, bounced all over television, delighting in the role
of the little guy's champion. House Speaker Tom Foley (D-
Wash.) voiced initial support. And President Bush had started
the push by calling for lower rates in a speech.
The issue had gale-force Washington wind behind it.
``It came out of the blue,'' said Philip Corwin, a lobbyist
for the American Bankers Association. ``Everybody concerned
was panicked.''
The banking industry wanted Bonner to fan opposition among
influential people in the congressional districts of 10
carefully selected members of the House Banking Committee.
With the support of these members, along with those
considered reliable allies, the bankers believed they could
kill the amendment to a broader banking bill.
Bonner sells instant democracy. He offers clients help in
winning a legislative fight ``predicated on the belief'' that
the best way to sway elected officials to vote in a
particular way is to prove ``that a broad cross section of
their constituency understands the issue and supports a
certain legislative outcome.''
What are public officials responsive to? ``One is, of
course, good public policy as they see it,'' said Bonner, a
one-time aide to the late Sen. John Heinz (R-Pa.). ``And two
is what gets in their face.''
To fight the credit card amendment, hundreds of Bonner's
people, schooled in guerrilla tactics of persuasion, made
more than 10,000 phone calls over a four-day period,
including a weekend, urging voters to call or write their
lawmakers.
His people are not standard telemarketers who speak in
monotones. He calls them ``unemployed policy junkies,''
available only in Washington's unique labor pool. Many had
worked in politics and government; they knew how to construct
an argument and fervently pitched the banking industry
position.
The callers' argument was that if the amendment became law,
millions of people might have to give up their credit cards.
(The bankers association now concedes it had no firm evidence
to support the claim.) They also argued that small businesses
would suffer because the number of credit buyers would drop.
``They want to scare the hell out of people,'' said a staff
member of the House Banking Committee. ``There's no hard
evidence.''
If the telephone pitch worked, Bonner's people immediately
patched the voters through to their representative's office
or persuaded them to write a personalized letter.
Bonner claims a high success rate, and the reception area
of his downtown office is lined with framed letters of praise
from his well-heeled clients. His fees may support his claim.
The American Bankers Association paid Bonner & Associates at
least $400,000 to fight the effort to lower credit card
interest rates. Collectively, Bonner and other bank lobbyists
created a fog so thick that Congress did what it usually does
when faced with enormous pressure: preserve the status quo.
The amendment died in a House-Senate conference committee.
Curtis Prins, staff director of a House banking
subcommittee, said an operation like Bonner's ``prostitutes
the legislative process'' by spreading questionable
information.
Bonner disagrees, saying, ``We are in a democracy, in case
anybody has forgotten. A democracy is a symphony of noise,
oboes to kettle drums. The more competition there is from the
Right, the Left, the center, the healthier democracy is.''
``Everyone spins,'' he said, ``Civil rights groups,
environmentalists, the business groups, every group on God's
green acre spins.''
Bonner's business is a niche market in the influence game,
a growing segment of Washington's burgeoning fog industry
that significantly affects daily public policy decisions.
``Creating a situation,'' ``creating an environment'' and
``allowing the other side to be heard'' are catch phrases of
Washington's fog merchants, those who take facts, craft them
into a politically salable message and attempt to influence
government policy.
Few people realize just how huge the influence industry has
grown, how much it has insinuated itself into the core of the
governmental decision-making process and how much it drowns
out other voices in a national debate.
This vast army of lobbyists, consultant groups, political
law firms, public relations wizards and special interest
groups has become a virtual fourth branch of government--one
that remains powerful no matter which party is in the White
House.
Many in public affairs believe the industry's spectacular
growth also is tilting the balance of power in America and
corrupting the basic character of its democracy.
In his book ``Keeping Faith,'' Jimmy Carter, the last
president to work with a Congress led by his own party,
warned that the influence-peddlers were ``a growing menace to
our democratic system of government.''
Since Carter left office in 1981, the situation has
worsened considerably. The number of lawyers, lobbyists and
public relations consultants in Washington trying to
influence government has tripled, to perhaps 20,000--or about
37 for every member of Congress.
And their hold over public policy has become so tight that
it practically takes a political or economic crisis for
leaders to break through it.
From midway in President Ronald Reagan's first term through
the Bush administration, the national government has seemed
paralyzed in the face of critical domestic issues.
This was partly because of the incessant bickering between
the Republican White House and the Democratic Congress. But
the paralysis also reflects the growing power of the
special interest groups.
Many of them have a virtual veto over legislation in their
fields and can rip apart proposals they dislike. When their
interests diverge, they often clash so ferociously that
political leaders are unable to forge enough of a consensus
to make bold descisions of any kind.
On Nov. 3, voters elected Bill Clinton, and sent 120 new
members to Congress, partly out of hope for breaking through
the gridlock. But to fulfill his promises for sweeping
changes in economic and health policy, Clinton will have to
steer his programs through hundreds of groups interested in
preserving the status quo.
``The bottom line is that we have to change the way
business is done in Washington if we are going to achieve
change in the country,'' said Fred Wertheimer, president of
Common Cause, the citizens lobby that has long pressed for
reform of the campaign-finance system.
No presidential candidate recognized this more than Ross
Perot. If he were elected president, the Texas industrialist
said, ``All these fellows with the thousand-dollar suits and
alligator shoes running up and down the halls of Congress . .
. they'll be over there in the Smithsonian, you know, because
we're going to get rid of them.''
The influence consultants don't spend tax dollars, at least
not directly. Yet their actions affect nearly every aspect of
citizens' lives, from the price of medicine to the quality of
food, the safety of a car and the very security of American
jobs.
The $400 billion bailout of the savings and loan industry,
the graft and corruption at the Department of Housing and
Urban Development, the theft and abuse by dozens of Pentagon
contractors who traded on inside information all grew from
the mercenary culture as it tried to manipulate government
regulation or procurement for profit.
It was chemical companies, computer groups and agribusiness
firms interested in export sales that pushed President Bush
to dismiss worries about Saddam Hussein's erratic behavior
right up until the Iraqi leader invaded Kuwait. When Bush
indicated he was ready to go to war to liberate Kuwait,
Kuwait spent nearly $20 million on public relations and
lobbying to make sure that Congress and the American public
would support the president.
Some say the actions of lobbyists also have damaged the
United States' competitive standing in the world economy. As
international trade expands, well-connected American
lobbyists often represent Japanese and other foreign
corporations in their battles with Washington, sometimes
at a direct cost in American jobs.
Economist Mancur Olson of the University of Maryland
contends that as business groups win government subsidies or
restraints on their competitors, they reduce the efficiency
and the flexibility of the economy and slow America's
economic growth. Olson says that the defeat suffered by
Germany and Japan in World War II shook up their power
structures and made it easier for innovative economic
strategies to prevail.
To be sure, no one disputes the right of any group to
petition the government or to seek a guide through its
bureaucratic maze. And everyone knows that a well-placed bit
of pressure long has been a part of life in Washington.
James Madison, for example, called some of Washington's
earliest special interest groups the ``mischiefs of
faction.'' When Ulysses Grant saw influence-peddlers in the
lobby of the Willard Hotel, he coined a phrase lobbyists.
Franklin D. Roosevelt called them parasites.
But the lobbying community generally operated on the fringe
of Washington power until the late 1960s and the early 1970s,
when an explosion of federal regulations greatly extended the
reach of government and convinced many corporations that they
should be represented in the nation's capital.
Post-Watergate reforms in campaign financing made the
under-the-table cash payment nearly extinct but created a
whole gamut of legal devices, such as political action
committees, to pay for influence. The 1970s also brought
changes to reduce the power of the congressional leadership,
fragmenting discipline in Congress and giving lobbyists more
levers to appeal.
During the Reagan and Bush administrations, the demand for
lobbyists soared even more, as the tension between regulation
and deregulation made the executive branch an increasingly
important place to do business.
The new pressure points are the Food and Drug
Administration, the Commerce Department and the U.S. Trade
Representative's office, all places where influence is harder
to track than in Congress.
Nowadays, the influence industry has some widely known
players, including nearly 2,000 business and trade groups,
from the National Association of Home Builders to the
Independent Insurance Agents of America. Defense contractors,
automakers, computer companies and other big firms have
``governmental affairs'' offices to oversee their interests
in Washington.
The trade groups and corporations usually square off
against labor unions and consumer and environmental
organizations ranging from the Sierra Club to dozens of
groups linked to Ralph Nader. But sometimes they battle among
themselves. The American Newspaper Publishers Association,
for instance, is lobbying Congress to keep the regional Bell
telephone companies from offering classified advertising and
stock quotations over their phone lines.
Then there are several thousand influence consultants,
whose law, lobby and public relations firms line Washington's
K Street and nearby avenues.
Most of them work for corporations and trade groups, and
their calling card is normally the strength of their
political connections.
In many ways, lobbying, like politics, is the most human of
endeavors. The lobbyist's job is to get in to see the chief
decision-maker and win him or her over--through friendship,
blandishments or political ties. But in other ways, the
influence business has become as complex and arcane as
science and as nasty as political campaigning.
From lavish offices close to the White House or the
Capitol, Republican and Democratic lobbyists alike sell their
Rolodexes full of contacts and an intimate knowledge of how
government works with little allegiance to anything but their
own clout.
``They're courtiers,'' said William von Raab, who served
for eight years as U.S. Customs Service commissioner in the
Reagan administration and now does some lobbying himself.
``It's Louis XIV all over again,'' he added. ``In that era,
if you were a courtier, you made your money by selling
access, and these people do the same thing except they don't
live in the palace.''
Every day, lobbyists and government officials share lunch
table at expensive Washington restaurants, such as 21 Federal
and the Jockey Club at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. Lobbyists
buy up blocks of tickets to Washington Redskins games and
Kennedy Center shows to entertain officials. They play
host to the most lavish parties in town. They put together
golf outings, Potomac River cruises and duck shoots on
nearby Chesapeake Bay. Some are said to be willing losers
in poker games with somebody they want to influence.
All of this has created a cocoon-like atmosphere in
Washington. Indeed, the governing circles have become so
inbred that harried members of Congress often turn to
friendly lobbyists for advice on how to give--or even let
them draft bills.
But if quiet persuasion fails, today's lobbyists do not
hesitate to launch high-tech ``grass-roots'' campaigns--using
advertisements, phone banks, a flood of computer-generated
letters and hastily formed coalitions of citizen groups--to
place their own spin on an issue and create the appearance of
enormous public pressure. Some of the top lobbyists also work
as political campaign strategists and they know that
controlling the perception of an issue in the media is
crucial.
In many ways, information has become as important a form of
political currency as campaign contributions. But critics
ask: What happens if the only voice a decision-maker hears is
distorted or one that is simply the loudest or best connected
that money can buy?
Essential Information, a self-described public interest
research group, studied front groups and concluded, ``Every
day, groups with deceptive-sounding names, groups that
represent major American corporate powers, are seeking to
convince journalists and the American people that the groups
represent something more than the usual corporate interests.
``The reason is simple--it's easier to believe
disinformation when disinformation is coming from an
apparently disinterested party.''
One example is the National Wetlands Coalition. It sounds
like an environmental protection group, but it actually is
comprised of real estate developers and oil companies that
wants to reduce the amount of wetlands protection by federal
law.
None of this comes cheaply, and the lobbyists don't always
succeed. The most powerful can charge each client monthly
retainers of anywhere from $10,000 to more than $100,000,
depending on the amount of work. A number of the best
personally earn anywhere from $500,000 to several million
a year.
But if a company can earn an extra $5 million by preventing
a regulation or by winning a contract, 10 percent is a cheap
price for influence.
And such results are visible across the spectrum of the
government every day.
Banking lobbyists recently persuaded regulators, for
instance, to slash a proposed increase in premiums for
deposit insurance, even though experts warn that a banking
crisis could be looming.
Lobbying has ``stalled a lot of what the ordinary American
would care about and facilitated a lot of what the average
American wouldn't like,'' said Kevin Phillips, a Republican
political strategist.
Phillips said that on a wide range of little-publicized
issues, lobbyists routinely ``take advantage of the process.
They can preempt it, tailor it sometimes with a little
amendment that doesn't affect very many people, just the
Glotz Corp.''
But on the bigger issues, where there is a wide public
interest and greater scrutiny, Phillips said that often the
net effect of all the lobbying is to ``paralyze the process.
Sometimes it means you wind up with the status quo. Often
what it means is it is impossible to achieve any innovative
breakthrough.''
The revolving door between the government and the private
sector is spinning faster than ever, and people who enter
government often must confront lobbyists who once held their
jobs and who know the rivalries and minefields within their
agencies better than they do.
Indeed, some critics say government positions have become
little more than a training camp for high-paying jobs in the
influence industry.
For example, John Sununu became a lobbyist for a Fortune
500 company after he got bounced as White House chief of
staff. Craig Fuller, who was Bush's chief of staff when he
was vice president, pulls down $500,000 a year as the top
lobbyist for Philip Morris Co., one of the biggest tobacco
companies. One-time Senate Republican leader Howard Baker has
a contract, also for $500,000 a year, to help the nation of
Jordan hold on to its foreign aid.
``One of the tragedies is that there is an insider
deferred-compensation syndrome that is in many instances very
unseemly,'' said Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa).
Leach's point is not that former officials are taking
payments from companies for which they did specific favors
but that they are selling the knowledge and expertise that
they gained at taxpayer expense to interests that want to
manipulate government policy.
``There are very few Dean Rusks who served in Cabinet-level
jobs in Washington recently,'' Leach said. Rusk, who was the
secretary of state under Presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon
Johnson, ``went back to the University of Georgia, which I
consider a decent and thoughtful retirement,'' the
congressman said.
Leach said his criticism also applies to Congress, where a
number of the departing members have been intensely recruited
by influence firms.
One of them, Rep. Marty Russo (D-Ill.), agreed to join the
lobbying firm of Cassidy & Associates, which promptly issued
a news release trumpeting his former standing on the powerful
House Ways and Means Committee, where all tax legislation
originates. More important perhaps is that Russo is a golfing
buddy of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), the Ways and Means
Chairman, and shares a house in Washington with three other
legislators, including Rep. Leon Panetta (D-Calif.), chairman
of the House Budget Committee.
The critics also are concerned about the lengths to which
many special interests will go to try to overwhelm officials
who disagree with them.
The drug industry, for example, has repeated blocked
efforts by Sen. David Pryor (D-Ark.) to impose cost controls
or trim its special tax breaks.
But the incident that upset Pryor the most happened in
1990, when he suggested that the Medicaid program could save
$300 million a year by adopting the same discount drug-buying
strategies used at a number of hospitals and national health
maintenance organizations.
Pryor wanted Medicaid programs in each state to pick one
drug out of each class of similar medicines and require
physicians to prescribe it whenever possible. But to make
sure that no one's health suffered, the doctors still would
have been free to substitute any other drug by simply
scrawling ``medically necessary'' on the prescription.
Besides pulling together a coalition of medical groups to
oppose the plan, the drug lobby hired Vernon Jordan, the
civil rights leader who is now chairman of Clinton's
transition team, to help recruit black and Hispanic groups
will to denounce the idea.
Jordan, who also is a lawyer-lobbyist, sent a letter
telling minority groups that Pryor's bill ``may result in
inadequate treatment'' for minorities. Jordan also maintained
that ``while the prescribing physician is given discretion to
overrule these restrictions, the process will be both
cumbersome and time-consuming.''
The leaders of one black organization then sent out their
own letters claiming that Pryor's plan represented the kind
of approach used whenever ``mean-sprited bigots want to
strike at the black underclass.''
Pryor said he thought the racial thrust of that lobbying
campaign was ``one of the cheaper shots I've seen.'' A
spokesman for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association denied
that his group was ``exploiting any racial aspect'' of the
issue; Jordan did not return repeated calls for comment.
But the lobbying created enough controversy among Pryor's
colleagues in Congress to force him to drop the proposal and
substitute something else. It also convinced Pryor, who is
close to Clinton as well, that the president-elect must
reform the influence system.
Some lobbyists also recognize this. Many enter the business
with enthusiasm, then burn out and quit in disgust.
``I think the whole system should be stood on its head
right now,'' said Stephen Gabbert, who was the top lobbyist
for the nation's rice millers for 17 years before shifting to
business consulting. ``It's the way, the mindset, the
attitude of the hidden government that has operated for a
period of time.
``And we've reached the point where it's unable to deliver
to the needs of the country, he said. ``So all of these
people who have been sucking their livelihoods off it,
there's going to have to be some changes made.''
____
[From Newsday, Mar. 8, 1993]
Stirring Up the Grass Roots for Industry
(By Martin Kasindorf)
When President Bill Clinton warned that ``the special
interests will be out in force'' to warp his economic
package, his plea for grassroots loyalty was instantly
countered by Jack Bonner's full-page ad courting the business
lobbyists who read Congressional Quarterly.
``Do you have a tough tax battle ahead?'' Bonner &
Associates asked. If so, the Washington-based consulting
``boutique'' said, it could supply ``quality grassroots
support to help you win.''
Bonner got a dozen inquiries for his rent-a-firestorm
service, signing up several energy-industry clients paying
him to drum up grassroots opposition to Clinton's energy tax
in Congress--in the form of mail, phone calls and visits from
home--district influentials.
``Our time has come,'' chortled Bonner, who likes to argue
that ``some guy in a pinstripe suit telling a senator this
bill is going to hurt Pennsylvania doesn't have the impact of
someone in Pennsylvania saying it.''
Critics have compared the grassroots content of money-
nurtured ``spontaneous'' popular uprisings to Astroturf. But
Bonner has demonstrated since 1984 that industry can match
presidents, labor unions, environmentalists and Ralph Nader
in whipping up voter pressure on Congress.
Representing Detroit automakers, it was Bonner, a 44-year-
old former Senate aide, who organized high-profile complaints
from the disabled and the Boy Scouts that higher gas-mileage
standards would do away with ``safe'' big cars. ``Call off
the dogs,'' one member of Congress pleaded.
The 1990 clean-air amendment was killed.
Bonner scored a splashy coup in 1991 when 200 temporary
workers in what he calls his ``yuppie sweatshop'' helped
bankers kill in the House the populist amendment rammed
through the Senate by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.) that
would have forced banks to lower credit-card interest rates.
The Bonner brigade made 10,000 phone calls in four days,
persuading constituents of House Banking Committee members to
protest that banks would cancel ``millions of credit cards''
if rates were lowered.
The Chicago Tribune's resulting name for operations like
Bonner's: ``Fog merchants.'' Whatever it's called, Bonner's
specialty can be lucrative. His fees, based on the number of
proven contacts he generates with public officials, have
topped $400,000.
``There's no gee-whiz to it,'' said Bonner. ``It's just
old-fashioned, roll-up-your-sleeves political work. But it
works.''
Groups that often oppose business interests in Washington
sneer at Bonner's method. ``That is damaging,'' said Nancy
Waitzman, a policy analyst for Ralph Nader's Public Citizen,
``because it's the moneyed interests that really are
fomenting this; it's not genuine citizen involvement.''
It's unimportant, Bonner asserts, that the public reaction
isn't as spontaneous as in, say, the Zoe Baird flap. ``The
issue is whether people understand the issue or not,'' he
said. ``Is it spontaneous when the Sierra Club does a
mailing? It's wonderful that industry as well as the
environmental movement takes its message to the people
outside the Beltway.''
____
[From the Los Angeles Times, Mar. 16, 1993]
Phone Frenzy in the Capitol--Special Interest Groups Are Using
Sophisticated Electronic Networks To Generate an Astonishing Volume of
Calls to Congress.
(By Paul Houston)
Almost without letup, the phone calls pour into Ilisa
Halpern's headset as she sits in the office of Sen. Dianne
Feinstein (D-Calif.), typing the caller's name, address and
comments onto a computer screen.
From a Sonoma woman upset about President Clinton's
economic plan: ``Very definitely not support it. President is
pathological liar. Can't fool all of the people. Tired of
listening to all of the rhetoric. Feinstein also a radical.''
From a Los Angeles man with mixed feelings about Clinton
initiatives: ``Encourage you to pass the plan. Don't get
carried away with weakening defense. Health care is important
but don't lessen the consumer's choice of M.D.'s.''
After each call, Halpern sends the message to the
computer's memory bank. At the end of the day, the messages--
as many as 1,000, which are recorded by up to 10 of
Feinstein's 60 aides--are automatically sorted by issue,
printed out and placed on the senator's desk.
Accompanying the phone calls are a flood of letters,
postcards and Mailgrams. In a recent week, Feinstein received
9,000 letters and 50,000 postcards and Mailgrams--far more
than her predecessor, John Seymour, ever got in a week.
The outpouring is being duplicated all over Capitol Hill.
Senate and House offices are being hit with twice as many
calls this year as last--4.2 million vs. 1.9 million in
the first month alone, officials say. And mail to
lawmakers has soared past 400 million pieces a year.
The surge is fed by several forces, including radio and
television talk shows and a general upswing in citizen
interest in government, stimulated in the 1992 presidential
election by the direct-voter-participation efforts of
candidates Bill Clinton, Jerry Brown and Ross Perot.
But the principal cause, one that concerns many scholars
and lawmakers because of its potential for manipulation, is
the ``grass-roots'' lobbying done by special interests. In
contrast with the not-so-distant past, when members of
Congress identified hot issues from a handful of constituent
letters, numerous interest groups have built sophisticated
electronic networks that can generate an astonishing volume
of calls and letters from folks in the hinterlands.
Some of the most technologically slick grass roots
organizing is being mounted by groups ranging from the
National Rifle Assn. to the National Abortion Rights Action
League.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, is about to
begin a phone bank that will call the chamber's 215,000
members about issues of interest to the organization. Those
answering the phone will be able to press 1 to have a
Mailgram or letter sent in their name to their
representative, press 2 to record a voice-mail message for
the lawmakers or press 3 to have a computer connect them
immediately with the lawmaker's office.
Last week, the Phillip Morris tobacco company got smokers
to flood the offices of members of the House Ways and Means
Committee with phone calls protesting President Clinton's
proposal for a huge increase in cigarette taxes. Incensed
aides to several committee members retaliated by sending
dozens of ``junk'' documents to Phillip Morris' Washington
fax machine.
Many special-interest groups hire private businesses to
carry out the direct-mail and phone-bank aspects of their
grass-roots lobbying. One of the most successful is Jack
Bonner and Associates, a Washington-based firm that assists
only corporate interests.
Millions of cards and letters generated by the Bonner firm
helped keep Northrop Corp.'s B-2 Stealth bomber alive, helped
auto makers fight off tougher fuel-economy standards and
helped banks defeat a forced reduction in credit-card
interest rates.
The Stealth campaign in 1991 and 1992 involved getting
5,000 groups--including farm, senior citizens, minority, even
religious groups--in more than 100 congressional districts to
write their representatives, supporting the radar-evading
bomber.
It was a tough sell--the Cold War was ending and the $800-
million per copy bomber was under heavy fire as wasteful. But
Bonner's phone bank operators won over the groups' leaders by
arguing that the plane would save lives; they noted that the
stealthy F-117 fighter built by Lockheed Corp. in Burbank had
flown 3,200 missions in the Persian Gulf War without a loss.
In turn, the groups' letters to Congress sounded precisely
that theme, helping keep Los Angeles-area production lines
going on a projected 20 planes.
``We chose groups in the congressional districts that we
thought lawmakers would be most politically responsive to,''
says Bonner, a former aide to the late Sen. John Heinz (R-
Pa.).
His firm also alerted lawmakers that the campaign was
coming, so that they would be ready to respond to the
outpouring.
``We never try to fool the Hill,'' he says.
Bonner employs about 200 phone bank operators who have
worked in government or in campaigns are accustomed to
discussing issues. When they call citizens seeking to
generate phone calls and letters to legislators, they make
clear what client they are representing, Bonner says.
Now, he says, his business is booming because defense,
insurance, drug and other firms feel threatened by President
Clinton's proposed tax increases, spending cuts and health
care reforms. These interests hope that orchestrated
groundswells from the grass roots will help bend lawmakers to
their causes.
``Corporate America has seen more and more that grass roots
works,'' Bonner says.
Which is why the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is setting up one
of the most elaborate phone banks of all. The chamber hopes
to form a huge base of activist members--grouped by business
type and location--who will agree to be contacted by a
computer-driven phone bank when a hot issue arises in
Congress.
Chamber members will be mailed materials in advance that
will background them on such issues as health reform. Then
when a key vote looms, a computer will start dialing their
numbers and a recorded message will give them the choices of
sending a letter or voice-mail message, or being immediately
plugged into their congressional representative's office.
Later, the computer will print out the member's choice so
that chamber officials can gauge the size of their efforts
and the cooperation of members.
``We think we are really making a quantum leap here,'' says
Don Kroes, who runs the chamber's grass-roots activities.
The NRA, the powerful gun owners' lobby, has made extensive
use of a 900 number to enable its 3 million members and
allies in 10,000 affiliated clubs to send an NRA-drafted
letter to their representative or to be patched directly into
the lawmaker's office. The technique helped block
congressional enactment of a waiting period for gun purchases
and a ban on the sale of semiautomatic ``assault weapons.''
``Constituents' personal visits are the most effective on
an issue, but after that it's phone calls and letters,'' says
James Baker, the NRA's chief lobbyist. ``Postcards and
petitions are the least effective.''
The success of such campaigns has not escaped the notice of
the media-savvy Clinton Administration. Although the White
House has decried the influence of special interests, it
doesn't shun their techniques.
The Democratic National Committee, in an unprecedented
move, is helping to sell Clinton's economic plan through
phone-bank and direct-mail contacts with more than 1 million
party activists. They are being urged to call lawmakers and
talk shows, make speeches and write letters to newspaper
editors.
Though many grass-roots efforts succeed, some fail
miserably. Last year, cable TV owners, in ads and bill
stuffers, got thousands of customers to protest a bill in
Congress that the owners claimed would force cable rates up,
not down as intended. Despite the torrent of calls and cards,
Congress enacted the bill over the veto of then-President
George Bush.
``We generated calls like mad. But the calls didn't
generate that many votes,'' a cable lobbyist says ruefully.
While Washington phone lines have been heating up over the
last decade because of such campaigns, they began to sizzle
over the last year with outpourings of genuine citizen
expression.
As Zoe Baird's nomination for attorney general cruised
toward Senate approval in late January, for example, Capitol
offices suddenly were deluged with calls assailing her
employment of two illegal aliens as domestic help. Senators
swiftly abandoned their support of the corporate lawyer, and
her nomination was withdrawn.
That stunning demonstration of grass-roots power was a
potent catalyst, encouraging many citizens and groups to
speak out as Clinton made controversial moves on gays in the
military, spending, taxes and health care.
At the same time, the continuing proliferation of talk show
hosts--especially the rabble-rousing variety--is helping
to stimulate the cascade of calls and letters.
For example, on a daily talkfest, Herb Nero of KUTY in
Palmdale constantly urges his 45,000 listeners to get in
touch with their elected representatives. When he brings a
member of Congress on the show, the phones ring off the hook,
he says--and so do the phones in the lawmaker's office.
Many lawmakers and scholars applaud the rising decibels of
vox populi, saying it's just what the architects of democracy
ordered.
``Participatory democracy can produce an informed
constituency, which is our best ally. An uninformed
constituency is our worst enemy,'' says Rep. Mike Synar (D-
Okla.), chairman of a group of liberal House Democrats.
``It's clearly healthy for representative democracy,''
agrees Tony Blankley, an aide to conservative Rep. Newt
Gingrich (R-Ga.), the House minority whip.
But others fear that the rising tide of citizen voices is
so fraught with manipulation that the decision-making process
is in danger of being twisted, especially if most of the
expressions on an issue conflict with true public opinion.
For instance, many lawmakers report that, while calls to
their offices are running heavily against Clinton's economic
proposals, sentiment on the streets back home matches the
strong support in national polls.
``Politicians are hypersensitive to public preferences, and
artificial stimulation of responses by interest groups simply
intensifies the problem,'' says Thomas E. Mann, a political
scientist with the Brookings Institution. ``It is one thing
to vote after thoughtful deliberation. It is another to act
on the basis of constituents' spleens.''
Synar contends that ``any politician worth his salt does
not weigh his mail or count the number of phone calls in
making a responsible decision.'' But Rep. David R. Obey (D-
Wis.) fears that far too many colleagues do just that.
``This is a corruption of participatory democracy,'' he
grumps, referring to the efforts of interest groups to whip
up calls and letters to lawmakers. ``It means that those who
are well-organized with special axes to grind will have an
advantage over persons genuinely interested in the issues.''
Obey recalls that, when he entered Congress 24 years ago,
``most of the mail was from people's gut--simple letters they
scratched out when something was bugging them. Now, the
overwhelming majority of mail is ginned up by some Washington
interest group trying to keep themselves in business by
scaring the hell out of people--frothing them up to write or
call their congressman.''
He concludes: ``We have to elect people tough enough to
discount the baloney.''
There are signs that hyped popular uprisings are beginning
to backfire as lawmakers and their aides learn to distinguish
scripted voices from truly spontaneous ones. For example,
while Feinstein answers most letters, she ignores a closetful
of printed postcards that have been sent in by members of
anti-abortion and other groups.
But aides have a tougher time determining whether phone
calls are organized or spontaneous.
Feinstein's aides merely take down comments from callers
without asking questions. But Sen. Bill Bradley's office
cross-examines many callers, attempting ``to have people tell
us why they feel a certain way,'' says Anita Dunn, an aide to
the New Jersey Democrat. ``That gives us clues about what
they are thinking.''
Interest groups assert that their grass-roots efforts are a
healthy means of getting people in touch with their
government. Some groups argue that the calls and letters they
generate add important balance to debates.
For years, says Kate Michelman, president of the National
Abortion Rights Action League, anti-abortion priests and
preachers have passed out fliers in church pews, spurring
floods of parishioner mail to government officials. Not until
recently, she says, did her abortion rights group assemble a
huge, computer-assisted network of activists that can spawn
rivers of countervailing mail and calls.
In 1991, NARAL phone banks helped launch barrages of calls
against the Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas, a
federal judge accused by law professor Anita Faye Hill of
sexual harassment. More than 100,000 messages swamped Senate
offices during hearings on the charges.
``Senators begged us to call off the troops,'' Michelman
says. Thomas was confirmed by only a two-vote margin--and the
uproar helped elect record numbers of women to office in
1992.
But the lobbying groups' phone-jamming activity can be a
double-edged sword. A lobbyist groaned recently that it took
him three hours to get through the barrier of citizen calls
to make an appointment with Sen. Bradley.
____
[From the Dallas Morning News, Mar. 18, 1993]
Special-Interest Lobbying Increases Mail to Congress
(By Paul Houston)
Almost without letup, the phone calls pour into Ilisa
Halpern's headset as she sits in the office of Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., typing the caller's name, address and
comments onto a computer screen.
From a Sonoma, Calif., woman upset about President
Clinton's economic plan: ``Very definitely not support it.
President is pathological liar. Can't fool all of the people.
Tired of listening to all of the rhetoric. Feinstein also a
radical.''
From a Los Angeles man with mixed feelings about Clinton
initiatives: ``Encourage you to pass the plan. Don't get
carried away with weakening defense. Health care is important
but don't lessen the consumer's choice of MDs.''
After each call, Ms. Halpern sends the message to the
computer's memory bank. At the end of the day, the messages--
as many as 1,000, which are recorded by up to 10 of Ms.
Feinstein's 60 aides--are automatically sorted by issue,
printed out and placed on the senator's desk.
Accompanying the phone calls are a flood of letters,
postcards and mailgrams. In a recent week, Ms. Feinstein
received 9,000 letters and 50,000 postcards and mailgrams--
far more than her predecessor, John Seymour, ever got in a
week.
The outpouring is being duplicated all over Capitol Hill.
Senate and House offices are being hit with twice as many
calls this year as last--4.2 million vs. 1.9 million in the
first month alone, officials say. And mail to lawmakers has
soared past 400 million pieces a year.
The surge is fed by several forces, including radio and
television talk shows and a general upswing in public
interest in government, stimulated in the 1992 presidential
election by the direct-voter-participation efforts of
President Clinton and candidates Jerry Brown and Ross Perot.
But the principal cause, on that concerns many scholars and
lawmakers because of its potential for manipulation, is the
lobbying done by special interests. In contrast with the not-
so-distant past, when members of Congress identified hot
issues from a handful of constituent letters, numerous
interest groups have built sophisticated electronic networks
that can generate an astonishing volume of calls and letters
from folks in the hinterlands.
Some of the most technologically slick organizing is being
mounted by groups ranging from the National Rifle Association
to the National Abortion Rights Action League.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for instance, is about to
begin a phone bank that will call the chamber's 215,000
members about issues of interest to the organization. Those
answering the phone will be able to press 1 to have a
mailgram or letter sent in their name to their
representative, press 2 to record a voicemail message for the
lawmaker or press 3 to have a computer connect them
immediately with the lawmaker's office.
Last week, the Phillip Morris tobacco company got smokers
to flood the offices of members of the House Ways and Means
Committee with phone calls protesting Mr. Clinton's proposal
for a huge increase in cigarette taxes. Incensed aides to
several committee members retaliated by sending dozens of
junk documents to Phillip Morris' Washington fax machine.
Many special-interest groups hire private businesses to
carry out the direct-mail and phone-bank aspects of their
grass-roots lobbying.
One of the most successful is Jack Bonner and Associates, a
Washington-based firm that assists only corporate interests.
Millions of cards and letters generated by the Bonner firm
helped keep Northrop Corp's B-1 Stealth bomber alive, helped
automakers fight off tougher fuel-economy standards and
helped banks defeat a forced reduction in credit-card
interest rates.
The Stealth campaign in 1991 and 1992 involved getting
5,000 groups--including farm, senior citizens, minority, even
religious groups--in more than 100 congressional districts to
write their representatives, supporting the radar-evading
bomber.
It was a tough sell--the Cold War was ending and the $800
million-per-copy bomber was under heavy fire as wasteful. But
Mr. Bonner's phone bank operators won over the groups'
leaders by arguing that the plane would save lives; they
noted that the stealthy F-117 fighter built by Lockheed Corp.
in Burbank, Calif., had flown 3,200 missions in the
Persian Gulf war without a loss.
In turn, the groups' letters to Congress sounded precisely
that theme, helping keep production lines going on a
projected 20 planes.
``We chose groups in the congressional districts that we
thought lawmakers would be most politically responsive to,''
says Mr. Bonner, a former aide to the last Sen. John Heinz,
R-Pa.
His firm also alerted lawmakers that the campaign was
coming so that they would be ready to respond to the
outpouring.
``We never try to fool the Hill,'' he says.
Mr. Bonner employs about 200 phone bank operators who have
worked in government or in campaigns and are accustomed to
discussing issues.
When they call people seeking to generate phone calls and
letters to legislators, they make clear what client they are
representing, Mr. Bonner says.
Now, he says, his business is booming because defense,
insurance, drug and other companies feel threatened by Mr.
Clinton's proposed tax increases, spending cuts and health-
care reforms. These interests hope that orchestrated
groundswells will help bend lawmakers to their causes.
``Corporate America has seen more and more that grass-roots
works,'' Mr. Bonner says.
Many lawmakers and scholars applaud the rising decibels of
vox populi, saying it's just what the architects of democracy
ordered.
``Paticipatory democracy can produce an informed
constituency, which is our best ally. An uninformed
constituency is our worst enemy,'' says Rep. Mike Synar, D-
Okla., chairman of a group of liberal House Democrats.
``It's clearly healthy for representative democracy,''
agrees Tony Blankely, an aide to conservative Rep. Newt
Gingrich, R-Ga., the House minority whip.
But others fear that the rising tide of citizen voices is
so fraught with manipulation that the decision-making process
is in danger of being twisted, especially if most of the
expressions on an issue conflict with true public opinion.
For instance, many lawmakers report that, although calls to
their offices are running heavily against Mr. Clinton's
economic proposals, sentiment on the streets back home
matches the strong support in national polls.
``Politicians are hypersensitive to public preferences, and
artificial stimulation of responses by interest groups simply
intensifies the problem,'' says Thomas E. Mann, a political
scientist with the Brookings Institution. ``It is one thing
to vote after thoughtful deliberation. It is another to act
on the basis of constituents' spleens.''
Mr. Synar contends that ``any politician worth his salt
does not weigh his mail or count the number of phone calls in
making a responsible decision.'' But Rep. David Obey, D-Wis.,
fears that far too many colleagues do just that.
``This is a corruption of participatory democracy,'' he
says, referring to the efforts of interest groups to whip up
calls and letters to lawmakers. ``It means that those who are
well-organized with special axes to grind will have an
advantage over persons genuinely interested in the issues.''
Mr. Obey recalls that when he entered Congress 24 years ago,
``most of the mail was from people's gut--simple letters they
scratched out when something was bugging them. Now, the
overwhelming major of mail is ginned up by some Washington
interest group trying to keep themselves in business by
scaring the hell out of people--frothing them up to write or
call their congressman.''
He concludes: ``We have to elect people tough enough to
discount the baloney.''
____
[From the Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Mar. 17, 1993]
High-Tech Lobbying Takes Off Slick Networks Tap Public Outrage
Washington.--From a distance, it looks like the boiler room
of any telephone sales company, with fresh-faced young men
and women in narrow cubicles reading intently from typed
scripts.
But these operators are not pitching Veg-O-Matics or life
insurance. Here at Bonner Associates, they prospect by phone
for that most elusive of Washington commodities: outbursts of
public outrage.
It is a business ideally suited to the age of electronic
vox pop, when radio talk show hosts can stir up a populist
frenzy that brings down a prospective attorney general.
On behalf of its clients, generally trade associations and
corporations, the company, one of a new breed of Washington
lobbying concerns, specializes in stirring up the sort of
hometown pressure that state and federal legislators are
loath to resist.
Unlike old-fashioned letter-writing campaigns, which rained
easily identifiable form letters on lawmakers, the new
campaigns are sometimes indeed to appear spontaneous. Jack
Bonner, who founded Bonner & Associates in 1984, says he
always lets his targets know of his activities. But the rise
of this industry has made it hard to tell the difference
between manufactured public opinion and genuine explosion of
popular sentiment.
As they put it in the lobbying industry: Is it grass roots
or Astroturf? Bonner Associates specializes in marshaling
local interests groups and can, on a few days' notice, rain
cloudbursts of faxes, phone calls and letters on Congress or
the White House. Some competitors rely more on a retail
approach. They phone potentially irate citizens, deliver
detailed briefings, and then transfer the newly aggravated
callers directly to the office of the relevant senator or
representative.
``The golden age of grass roots has arrived,'' Mr. Bonner
said. He has mobilized public opinion against limits on
credit card interest rates when he was working for the banks,
against tougher fuel-efficiency standards when he was on the
side of the hired automakers, and against triple-trailer
trucks when he was hired by a railroad.
Mr. Bonner reports a surge in potential clients in the last
two to three months, ``In the past,'' he said, ``a lot of
businesses wouldn't go to the grass roots because they
thought they could contain their problems in D.C., either by
lobbying or by George Bush vetoing anti-business legislation.
Well, that veto isn't there anymore.''
Through the early 1980s, environmental groups and others on
the fringes of the Washington establishment relied on
letters, petitions and other manpower-intensive methods to
counter the power and connections of big corporations.
But by the end of the decade, specialists such as Mr.
Bonner, as well as several Washington political consultants
and lobbyists, had begun to co-opt the strategy, a trend that
gathered more momentum when Ross Perot and Bill Clinton
tapped into the electronic babble of dissent that is talk
radio and television.
____
[From the Plain Dealer, Apr. 11, 1993]
The Cultivation of Grass Roots
(By Peter H. Stone)
When President Bill Clinton unveiled an energy tax proposal
in his speech to Congress in February, shock waves rolled
through the offices of Washington's energy lobbyists. But the
announcement didn't surprise Jack Bonner, owner of Bonner &
Associates, a Washington firm that specializes in
orchestrating telephone and mail lobbying blitzes from the
hinterlands to Capitol Hill.
Several days before Clinton's speech, Bonner had been
contacted by a new group, the Energy Tax Policy Alliance,
that was gearing up to fight such taxes. The alliance is
raising money to hire Bonner & Associates for a grass-roots
campaign: It has already secured about $50,000 in
commitments, primarily from utilities.
Meanwhile, Bonner has made sales pitches to several other
energy trade groups and utilities, some of which have
expressed interest in joining a lobbying drive against the
tax.
Though the effort is still taking shape, Bonner thinks it's
likely that he'll get the go-ahead. An energy tax is a
``perfect (issue) for grass roots because it hits so many
people unfairly,'' he said. Bonner is already showing
prospective clients a sample telephone script that he
proposes to use in stirring public opposition to the tax.
``Tax the rich, tax foreign companies, but don't tax those
who can least afford it,' the script says.
It's hardly surprising that energy companies are turning to
Bonner for help. In recent years he and other grass-roots
specialists have won kudos from an array of corporate and
trade association clients for rapidly turning up grass-roots
pressure on Congress.
The Washington lobbying landscape is dotted with big and
small firms promising to deliver the support that will make a
critical difference in federal, state and local lobbying
fights. For hefty fees, sometimes running more than $1
million per project, these firms use phone banks to drum
up constituent support in key congressional districts or
find a small group of community leaders who can put the
arm on a member of Congress.
For their clients, these grass-roots consultants are often
the last line of defense, called in when other lobbying,
advertising and public relations efforts have been exhausted.
The success of boutiques such as Bonner & Associates has
prompted bigger firms to expand into the field. Last
December, for example, the public relations giant Burson-
Marsteller announced that it was setting up a Washington-
based division, the Advocacy Communications Team, to handle
grass-roots work.
The industry's growth is being fueled by changes in the
political world. Grass-roots firms say their business has
received a fillip from the rising influence of talk radio and
from the volunteer network put together by Ross Perot.
Growing criticism of K Street lobbyists--including attacks by
the president--is forcing companies and trade groups to look
for ways to exert pressure from outside the Beltway. And
grass-roots practitioners say that the unusually large number
of congressional freshmen, who tend to be more susceptible to
home-state pressure, present a special opportunity.
What's more, Clinton has demonstrated consummate skill as a
grass-roots lobbyist and has targeted some industries that
may well turn to grass-roots firms for help. The tobacco and
pharmaceutical industries, for instance, are developing
multipronged public relations, advertising and lobbying
campaigns to fight new taxes on cigarettes and controls on
drug prices.
As the grass-roots business has expanded, it has also
become more sophisticated. A few years ago, for instance, the
industry started pitching ``grass tops'' lobbying.
Rather than generating letters and phone calls from
ordinary Joe Sixpacks, they promise to round up local
business and civic leaders who have clout with members of
Congress. The Washington-based RTC Group Inc., a major grass-
roots firm, boasts that it has databases enabling it to
pinpoint such leaders in every congressional district,
``based on a variety of demographic and psychographic
characteristics.''
Lobbyists say that grass-roots campaigns must constantly
change, lest they appear manufactured and lose their clout.
``This is a business where you've got to be selling this
year's refinement and improved version,'' said James E.
McAvoy, who runs Burson-Marsteller's grass-roots unit. ``If
you keep doing the same thing over and over again, they see
the pattern and it's not good.''
But some members of Congress say the patterns are easy
to discern. ``You can tell after three letters or three
phone calls,'' Rep. Mike Synar D-Okla., said. ``We're
moved more by individual letters than by orchestrated
campaigns. . . . It just doesn't work. They're under this
delusion that we weigh our mail and phone calls.
The sheer volume of congressional mail, which is more than
300 million pieces per year--double what it was 10 years
ago--has forced aides to look more critically at what they
receive. Many have become expert at detecting what Treasury
Secretary Lloyd Bentsen likes to describe as the difference
between grass roots and AstroTurf.
``There's nothing new about grass roots,'' said Bonner, a
former aide to the late Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa. ``It's what
started this country 200 years ago. What's new is that people
are going back to it.''
The technique may go back that far, but it has come a long
way. Bonner's firm, dubbed a ``yuppie sweatshop'' by Newsweek
magazine, between old-fashioned letter writing and the latest
high-tech industry wizardry used in political campaigns.
When Bonner opened his shop in 1984, his forte was
generating large mailings to Congress. But his expertise has
broadened considerably since then; he now offers a wide menu
of services.
Bonner says he eschews retainers and charges only by
results; the firm carefully logs the numbers of calls and
letters it generates and bills clients accordingly. One of
Bonner's specialties is finding what he calls ``community
leaders''--people who speak on behalf of a group and who may
know a Congress member personally. Bonner charges $350-$500
for each letter or call generated by a community leader. He
also offers to set up meetings between community leaders and
members for fees ranging from $5,000 to $9,000.
The hot house where Bonner cultivates his grass roots is a
downtown Washington office dominated by a computerized
telecommunications operation. The equipment enables his staff
to make telephone calls to targeted congressional districts
and patch constituents through directly to their member's
office.
Bonner says that his biggest sales tool is his success rate
with major corporations and trade groups. His office walls
are studded with framed letters testifying to his efforts for
the American Bankers Association, the Pharmaceutical
Manufacturers Association, the Smokeless Tobacco Council,
U.S. Tobacco Co. and others.
``Nothing succeeds like success in this town,'' he bragged.
``People don't come to us with easy issues.'' Bonner's grass-
roots work now is divided almost evenly between efforts aimed
at Congress and at state governments. The latter have become
fertile ground because of the more activist roles that state
legislatures have played on such issues as health care.
One of Bonner's biggest successes in recent years was his
battle for the ABA against lowering interest rates on credit
cards. In late 1991, after the Senate passed an amendment
that would have forced banks to lower their rates, the ABA
hired Bonner to develop a popular revolt against the
measure--or at least the appearance of one.
During a four-day period, he generated about 10,000 calls
from voters, including community leaders, in 10 districts
represented by members of the House Banking, Finance and
Urban Affairs Committee. The amendment died in a House-Senate
conference committee, and the ABA paid Bonner an estimated
$400,000.
Some recent endeavors have not been so successful. Bonner
was retained by McDonald's Corp. in 1988 to fight a ban on
polystyrene food packaging in Suffolk County, N.Y., which the
fast-food chain saw as a testing ground for its efforts to
block similar laws elsewhere. According to some former Bonner
executives, the firm had a tough time finding community
leaders to go to bat for McDonald's. After a two-year drive
costing roughly $800,000--about half of which went to
Bonner--McDonald's abruptly switched its position and agreed
to use paper packaging.
The Bonner staff had carefully cultivated a network of
local supporters for McDonald's, and some former Bonner
executives said with egg on their faces. ``We spent a lot of
time couching an issue a certain way and then the client said
maybe we were wrong,'' an executive recalled. ``The process
lost credibility. These community leaders were led down a
path and then we had to leave them because the client had
changed their mind.''
Sometimes, the Bonner firm has to dig in its own yard for
grass roots. A former employee recalled that the firm had
tried in vain to locate people in an affluent St. Louis
suburb who would support the Smokeless Tobacco Council on an
excise tax issue. The employee, a St. Louis native, called
his sister, who was editor of her high school newspaper, and
his mother, who taught at a local junior college: They were
soon listed as ``community leaders'' opposing the tax.
Training people to be grass-roots advocates isn't easy. The
Bonner firm often provides ``talking points'' to constituents
to help them write letters. But that can backfire if the
letter writer doesn't fully understand the issue. A former
Bonner executive recalled that sometimes ``Senators would
call people and we'd patch through a call and our people
wouldn't hold up well.''
For all their high-tech wizardry, grass-roots lobbying
firms still have a big problem: Many lawmakers say they don't
buy what the firms are selling.
``When some of these grass-roots campaigns got started,
they were reasonably effective because they were new,'' said
Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif. ``I think the effectiveness
has worn off. Members and their staffs get their letters
and know they're ginned up.''
Even the more-sophisticated ``grass-tops'' techniques are
relatively easy to detect, Synar added. ``I don't think they
can get around the problem of (obvious) orchestration,'' he
said. ``Everything still comes within a 10-day period.''
Bonner bristles at such criticisms and says he makes no
effort to hide his role in grass-roots campaigns. He says
that his staff always tell constituents what client the firm
is representing. And he says he recommends that clients
inform congressional offices that they're using his firm to
drum up pressure. ``The difference between grass roots and
Astroturf is whether the person knows what he's talking about
and has a legitimate reason to be involved,'' Bonner said.
Bonner argues that critics have two sets of standards--one
for public-interest groups and another for business. ``Have
we come to a point in our democracy where it's legitimate for
environmentalists to take their message to the people but not
for industry to do the same?'' he asked.
But some observers say there's an important difference
between the two types of lobbying. Fred Wertheimer, the
president of Common Cause, notes that business, which already
has plenty of financial clout, could gain an unfair advantage
with the new grass-roots technologies in shaping public
policy and legislation. ``If you combine the institutions
with unlimited resources with those that have new
technologies, it could give new meaning to the phrase `reach
out and touch someone.' ''
____
[From the San Diego Union-Tribune, Nov. 1, 1993]
Manufacturing Opinion Public Relations Agencies Call the Tune
(By John Jacobs)
In his book, ``Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of
American Democracy,'' Washington author William Greider
describes how most people are cut out of government decisions
that affect their lives.
He describes the ``democracy for hire'' business, in which
public relations and lobbying firms, think tanks, polling
organizations and direct-mail groups manufacture and organize
expert and even ``grass roots'' opinion for decision-makers.
In his opening chapter, called ``Mock Democracy,'' Greider
writes of these organizations:
``Most are financed by corporate interests and wealthy
benefactors. The work of lobbyists and lawyers involves
delivering the material to the appropriate legislators and
administrators. Only those who have accumulated lots of money
are free to play in this version of democracy. Only those
with a strong, immediate financial stake in the political
outcomes can afford to invest this kind of money in
manipulating the government decisions.''
Greider describes the case of Jack Bonner, a young public
relations consultant in Washington with his own ``boiler
room'' operation that has 300 phone lines, a sophisticated
computer system and eager young adults calling around the
country to identify what Greider calls ``white hat'' groups
and then persuade them to adopt corporate-friendly advocacy
positions.
Bonner manufactures public opinion for big corporations for
large fees. In the 1990 debate over clean-air legislation,
for example, Bonner identified six states where senators were
wavering. He then got various groups, such as the Easter Seal
Society of South Dakota, the 1.2-million-member Georgia
Baptist Convention, and the Delaware paralyzed Veterans
Association, to lobby their respective senators to vote
against regulations that would toughen auto emission
standards.
``These citizen organizations,'' Greider writes, ``were
persuaded to take a stand by Bonner & Associates, which
informed them, consistent with the auto industry's political
propaganda, that tougher fuel standards would make it
impossible to manufacture any vehicles larger than a Ford
Escort or a Honda Civic.''
A more grotesque example of manufacturing opinion happened
during the weeks leading up to the Persian Gulf War, when a
young Kuwaiti girl testified to Congress that barbaric Iraqi
soldiers yanked hundreds of Kuwaiti babies off incubators,
leaving them to die on hospital floors. The sensational
testimony galvanized American opinion against Iraq, and seven
senators cited it as a factor in their vote to go to war.
It later came out that the girl's testimony was organized
by the Washington public relations firm of Hill and Knowlton,
which represented the Kuwaiti government-financed Citizens
for a Free Kuwait; that the girl was in fact the daughter of
the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States, and that the
alleged atrocities probably did not happen.
There is nothing illegal about such practices; American
government is organized around the clash of competing
interest groups. That competition, however, should at least
take place on a level playing field, where the players are
known and identified and the opinions legitimate, rather than
fabricated or simply purchased.
If anything, the kind of groups Greider was writing about
have become even more adept in the past few years. And
nowhere is this more evident than in the corporate-sponsored
opposition to President Clinton's health reform proposals.
The Health Insurance Association of America, which opposes
the reforms, has already prepared its battle plan or campaign
action kit. It includes organizing ``SWAT'' teams to show up
and oppose the reforms at open meetings that members of
Congress conduct with their constituents.
The coalition of insurance groups opposes the health plan
because it could limit earnings by capping health insurance
premiums. And it isn't stopping with SWAT teams. As part of
its multimillion-dollar campaign against the reforms, the
trade group is also sponsoring 30-second TV ads, complete
with a fictional couple, Harry and Louise, describing over
the breakfast table what's wrong with Clinton's plan.
It's bad enough that TV spots have almost entirely debased
elections in this country. Candidates spend most of their
time hitting up rich people and corporate/labor political
action committees for campaign money to pay for air time,
which they then use to oversimplify their own positions or
sharply distort those of their opponents.
The idea that this kind of deliberate distortion should now
extend to public policy--especially policy as complicated and
directly relevant to people's lives as health care--is a
little frightening.
Clinton, to be sure, is not without his own resources. No
one can saturate the media with a particular message like the
president of the United States can.
Even so, the fact that the nation's wealthiest corporate
interests are now busier than ever manipulating and
manufacturing public opinion reaffirms Greider's original
point and raises troubling questions about how ordinary
citizens without such resources can be heard.
____
[From the New York Times, Nov. 1, 1993]
Cultivating the Grass Roots To Reap Legislative Benefits
(By Joel Brinkley)
At first glance, the letters looked innocent enough, just a
few dozen pieces of mail among the 1,000 or more that most
members of Congress receive every week. But as Sean
Cavanaugh, a Congressional aide, read through them, it almost
seemed as if vipers were slithering out of the envelopes.
Most of the letters were handwritten, some with the
trembling script of the elderly, and they cried out with fear
and despair: If Congress approved an obscure proposed change
in Medicare policy, ``then my husband will die.''
The aide said he was sickened. After he had read several of
the letters, realized that all were the same.
lobbyists at work
``They were just rote language,'' he said. It was as if
someone had advised the writers just what to say. That
convinced Mr. Cavanaugh that his boss, Representative
Benjamin L. Cardin, was the target of an industry-driven
lobbying campaign. And when Mr. Cardin, a Maryland Democrat,
had a look, he decided ``it was a really nasty, terribly
misguided campaign,'' because the proposed change would
actually have little effect on patients.
But the most striking thing about the letters, the
Congressman said, was that ``I never heard from the people
who were really behind them.''
His experience is not at all unusual because these days
that is how lobbyists work. Gone is the time when back-
slapping, cigar-chomping influence peddlers were the main
instruments of Washington lobbying:
``The high-profile access merchant has virtually
disappeared,'' said Mark Cowan, who until last month was head
of the Jefferson Group, a prominent lobbying firm.
Over the last several years, lobbyists have been turning
away from the direct approach in favor of ``grass roots''
strategies. The goal is to persuade ordinary voters to serve
as their advocates, and the letters that arrived in Mr.
Cardin's office last summer were one example.
Using the technologies of this electronic age, lobbyists
can now quickly reach and recruit thousands of Americans.
Many lawmakers say lobbyists have grown so skillful that
their tactics have changed the way Congress works.
``Unfortunately it has caused Congress to govern more by
fear and an intense desire for simple, easy answers,'' said
Representative Steve Gunderson, Republican of Wisconsin.
``Once that grass-roots constituency has been activated, it's
impossible ever to explain how proposals might have been
changed,'' or to correct incorrect perceptions. ``So we are
forced to take complicated issues and simplify them so we can
defend our positions.''
Not every member thinks it is fair to blame the lobbyists
for this. Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, calls
that ``a cop-out.''
``Congress has the responsibility to stand up to that,'' he
says. Blaming lobbyists ``is an excuse for a lack of
political will.''
technology--quick satellites, reams of faxes
No matter who is correct, most everyone agrees that the
rudimentary grass-roots campaigns of just a few years ago--
fill-in-the-blank post cards, and forms torn out of the
newspaper--have grown far more sophisticated and effective.
``The genie is really out of the bottle now,'' said Richard
Viguerie, whose direct-mail campaigns for conservative causes
started the grass-roots movement in 1965. ``It's out, and it
ain't ever going back--no matter how hard Congress tries.''
To mobilize their members, many trade groups have installed
banks of computerized fax machines that can send faxes
automatically around the country overnight, instructing each
member to ask his employees, customers or others to write or
call their congressmen.
The National Association of Manufacturers started a
campaign like that last summer that virtually smothered
Congress in letters and phone calls opposing President
Clinton's proposed energy tax, and as a result the plan was
withdrawn.
Other lobbyists now run carefully targeted television
advertisements pitching one side of an argument. That
approach was used only rarely before now because of the
tremendous cost. But once one industry decides it is willing
to spend the money, others find they have little choice.
Many of these advertisements end with a toll-free phone
number that viewers can call if they find the pitch
convincing. New tele-marketing companies answer these calls,
and transfer the callers directly to the offices of the
appropriate congressmen.
television appeals
The American trucking Association's approach has jumped
beyond the fax machine. Until now, the truckers have
mobilized their members by sending out hundreds of faxes. The
problem was, ``some of our members were inundated with so
many faxes that they didn't always read them,'' said Sandy
Lynch, an association official.
So this month the truckers began using a new satellite
network connecting the Washington headquarters to affiliates
in every state. Now, with little notice, Thomas Donohue,
president of the association, can appear on television
monitors in affiliate offices nationwide and rally his
members to action.
To be sure, direct lobbying is not extinct. Washington
still has its share of lobbyists from the old school. And
many lobbyists still effectively lubricate the system with
campaign donations, speaking fees, expense-paid trips and
other gifts for lawmakers or their aides.
But even some of the old-style lobbyists are being drawn
into the grass-roots movement--like it or not. Thomas H.
Boggs, Jr. is considered one of Washington's most influential
lobbyists. When lawmakers and others talk about lobbyists of
the old school, his name comes up first.
He notes that most Washington lobbying involves issues that
are small and technical, though lots of money might be
involved. For that, Mr. Boggs says, direct lobbying continues
to be effective.
``Where these grass-roots campaigns have been used a lot
are the big public policy debates,'' he said. Even then, Mr.
Boggs said he still prefers not to use grass-roots strategies
``because the costs are really high.''
Nonetheless, more and more often now, he finds he has
little choice. ``In many cases we do it as a defensive
measure, '' because the other side starts it first.
tactics nebulizers: a strategy evolves
Even with the change in strategy, many of the fundamental
concerns about lobbyists remain the same. Speaking of his
profession, one of the city's senior lobbyists, Jerry
Jasinowski of the National Association of Manufacturers,
warned of one problem: ``Look out for companies or
individuals or trade associations that get a small provision
into law to serve the interests of a narrow group. That is
dangerous.''
There could hardly be a more striking illustration than the
six-year legislative history of Medicare payment policies for
two obscure pieces of medical equipment, nebulizers and
aspirators. Together they cost the Federal Government about
$120 million last year--much of it wasted, in the
Government's view.
This was the equipment the patients were writing about in
the letters to Mr. Cardin. And the story behind them also
illustrates the evolution of lobbying strategy, from direct
lobbying to grass-roots campaigns.
Nebulizers administer medicine in aerosal form, usually
through a mask. Aspirators are small pumps that suck out the
fluid that accumulates in the lungs of patients on
respirators. And for more than 20 years, Medicare offered
indefinite reimbursement for patients who rented them. The
problem was that many patients used them for years, so the
Government ended up spending so much on rent that the devices
could have been purchased many times over.
In 1987, Congress tried to solve this by establishing a
list of equipment that could be rented for only 12 months,
after which it had to be purchased. At the time, Thomas
Antone was president of the National Association of Medical
Equipment Suppliers, the trade group representing the
companies that rent and maintain the equipment.
``Senators and congressmen don't know much about this,''
Mr. Antone observed. And as he recalled, he and the
Congressional aides agreed that the new regulation ought to
include an exception for equipment that needed frequent or
substantial service. That equipment would continue to be
rented.
When the bill went to a Senate-House conference committee,
Mr. Antone recalls, some conferees decided they wanted the
bill's language to include a couple of specific examples of
equipment that might require frequent service. And when the
bill left the committee, the conferees had cited nebulizers
and aspirators.
Mr. Antone says he does not know how that happened. But
Charles Spalding, chief of the Medical Services Payments
branch at the Health Care Finance Administration, said, ``The
industry proposed it.''
Since that time, however, the Government has learned that
the devices generally need little if any significant service.
And yet, Mr. Spalding said, ``some folks with chronic
conditions have to pay $30 or $40 a month more or less
indefinitely'' in copayments to rent a nebulizer or
aspirator, even through ``a common purchase price for one is
$200 to $250.''
Last year the Government spent $120 million reimbursing
Medicare patients for the rental of just these two devices.
But this summer, Congress set out to remove both of them from
the frequent servicing category.
``constant stream'' of faxes
While the change was still being debated, Deobrah
Harnsberger, a lobbyist with the equipment suppliers group,
said the industry's position was that aspirators should not
be removed from the rental list. Some nebulizers could be
moved, she added, while some others should not.
And to make that point, she said, ``we are using grass
roots as part and parcel of what we are doing. A constant
stream of faxes and phone calls is going from here to our
members.''
In the end, the trade group won a partial victory. Congress
left it up to the Health and Human Resources Department to
decide whether nebulizers and aspirators should be rented or
purchased--giving the industry another opportunity to make
its case.
At the same time, Corine Parver, president of the lobbying
group, disavows the letters to Mr. Cardin.
``We don't engage in that kind of lobbying'' using
patients, she said, suggesting that it was probably the work
of an overzealous affiliate of the trade group who took
grass-roots lobbying to an unethical extreme.
the change--``super-lobbyists'' on the bandwagon
Some lobbyists can point to the moment when their
profession began taking its new path: March 3, 1986. That's
the day Time magazine published a photo on its cover of the
lobbyist and former Reagan aide Michael Deaver in the
backseat of his limousine talking on the phone. The headline
asked: ``Who's this man calling?''
Right away the photo sparked new convulsions of concern
about high-power ``super-lobbyists.''
``That was the line of demarcation,'' Mr. Cowan says now.
Unfavorable publicity along with changing social and
political attitudes and stricter conflict-of-interest laws
began making it more difficult for high-profile lobbyists
like Mr. Deaver to be effective. And at about the same time,
lobbyists began to notice that labor unions and so-called
public interest groups, like Ralph Nader's Public Citizen,
were using a different approach.
These groups generally did not have super-lobbyists. So
when they wanted to influence policy, they used what they
called their ``grass-roots'' networks. This meant getting
their members around the country to tell Washington how they
felt.
In the mid-1980's, one lobbyist, Jack Bonner, said he and
others in his field began to see ``that certain groups were
doing this very well--unions, environmental groups, consumer
groups--while business was doing it rather poorly.'' Fewer
than 5 percent of the Fortune 500 companies were using grass-
roots lobbying, Mr. Bonner found. So he and others adopted
the practice and began trying to improve on it.
The difference was that corporate lobbyists had more money
to throw behind the effort. And with the added resources,
they were able to take advantage of the latest technology. As
their strategies grow ever more elaborate, some of the
original grass-roots lobbyists worry that they can no longer
keep up.
``These developing technologies--like computerized grass
roots--combined with enormous resources, are overwhelming the
system,'' complained Fred Wertheimer, head of Common Cause,
one of the first organizations to use modern grass-roots
lobbying. ``It gives these organizations special advantage.
And it's gotten to the point where the Government is no
longer capable of dealing with it.''
defense lobbyists' version of a white knight
Most lobbyists will quickly acknowledge that their
profession still has an unsavory reputation. The public
``thinks we are a small group, in Gucci shoes, somehow
controlling issues in a way that is at variance with the
public interest,'' Mr. Jasinowki said.
Most lobbyists are not likely to describe themselves as
altruistic servants of the public good. But they say the
public is unfairly disdainful of them.
``The average person forgets that they have lobbyists
too,'' said Richard H. Kimberly, president of the American
League of Lobbyists church. Well, churches lobby. Maybe they
are retired. Well, the retired people have a lobby. But
instead, when people think of lobbyists they think of
organizations like the N.R.A.,'' the National Rifle
Association.
Fair enough, but do any of the corporate and commercial
lobbyists that are so often the target of complaint actually
perform work they are proud of? Mr. Kimberly said he would
try to find a lobbyist who was working on a campaign that the
public might admire.
Ten days later, he said he was having a hard time finding
anyone willing to step forward. But he did point to Casey
Dinges, the lobbyist for the American Society of Civil
Engineers.
Mr. Dinges said his organization discovered last fall that
the Department of Housing and Urban Development was about to
propose a new standard for the construction of mobile homes.
After Hurricane Andrew destroyed thousands of trailers in
South Florida in August 1992, the Government decided the
building standards were inadequate. So Mr. Dinges's
organization drafted a detailed new standard and lobbied the
Government to adopt it.
``Just because someone lives in a mobile home, why can't
they be safe?'' Mr. Dinges asked. Besides, he said, when
inadequate building standards cause problems, ``our members
are the ones who have to clean the stuff up.''
HUD decided to adopt the engineers' standard; a senior
Federal official said the department considered it ``rigorous
and complete.'' But as soon as HUD announced its decision,
one lobbyist's proud victory became another's desperate
battle.
And so the grassroots came into play. The Manufactured
Housing Institute, representing mobile home manufacturers,
unleashed a furious lobbying campaign to defeat the
engineers' proposal. The lobby argued that the engineers'
standard would raise trailer prices in some areas by as much
as 36 percent. Bruce Savage, spokesman for the group, said:
``It may be nice to have a `safe' home. But if no one is
buying the, what's the point?''
When the department asked for public comment on the
proposed new standard this summer, the manufacturers
``contacted all our members on our grassroots network,'' Mr.
Savage said. HUD was flooded with a thousand letters of
complaints.
The department will not make its final ruling until later
this autumn, and so the lobbying continues. But for now, the
engineers' proposal is still on the table.
presidents on lobbyists: no love lost
``There are two methods of curing the mischiefs of faction,
one by removing its causes, two by controlling its effects.
By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether
amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are
united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of
interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the
permanent and aggregate interests of the community.''--James
Madison, in the Federalist Papers of the 1780's.
``The host of contractors, speculators, stockjobbers and
lobby members which haunt the halls of Congress, all
deserious to get their arm into the public treasury, are
sufficient to alarm every friend of his country. Their
progress must be stopped.''--James Buchanan, writing to
Franklin Pierce in 1852, before either man had served as
President.
``I think that the public ought to know the extraordinary
exertions being made by the lobby in Washington'' for a
pending tariff bill. Washington is so full of lobbyists that
``a brick couldn't be thrown without hitting one. It is of
serious interest to the country that the people at large
should have no lobby and be voiceless in these matters, while
great bodies of astute men seek to create an artificial
opinion and to overcome the interests of the public for their
private profit. It is thoroughly worth the while of the
people of this country to take knowledge of this matter. Only
public opinion can check and destroy it.''--Woodrow Wilson,
speaking at a news conference in 1913.
``By virtue of their wealth and freedom from regulation,
some lobbies can threaten to or actually unleash almost
unlimited television and direct-mail assaults on
uncooperative legislators. At the same time they can legally
reward those who do their bidding.The lobbies are a growing
menace to our system of government.''--Jimmy Carter, from his
memoir, ``Keeping Faith.''
``Within minutes of the time I conclude my address to
Congress Wednesday night, the special interests will be out
in force. Those who profited from the status quo will oppose
changes we seek--the budget cuts, the revenue increases, the
new investment priorities. Every step of the way they'll
oppose it. Many have already lined the corridors of power
with high-priced lobbyists.''
____
[From the Washington Post, Aug. 23, 1994]
Capital Notebook: A Man Who Fertilizes the Grass Roots
(By Guy Gugliotta)
Most people think grass-roots politics is terminally
wholesome, with regular folks down on the farm uniting around
a common goal and making their wishes known to elected
officials: ``Either you support nerve gas for gophers,
lunkhead, or you can kiss your political career goodbye!''
Nerve gas doesn't have a large base of support, but if it
did, the experts could find it, or at least work something
up. Some people these days don't even know they're part of a
``grass-roots political movement'' until somebody tells them.
One of the best ``somebodys'' in the business is Bonner &
Associates, which bills itself as ``the premier grass-roots
organizing firm in Washington'' and has 10 years of
experience to prove it.
Bonner has 200 ``temporary grass-roots organizers'' right
now and they're hiring, because health care is on the floor
of Congress and there is no more important grass-roots issue
in America.
Here's how it works. Interest groups hire Bonner to drum up
grass-roots support for their views and help make them known
to members of the Senate and House when a critical vote is
coming up.
Bonner locates key local leaders and organizations around
the country, explains the issue to them, and, if their views
coincide with those of Bonner's clients, asks people to call
their representatives in Washington and tell them what they
think.
``But only in their own words,'' said Bonner & Associates
founder Jack Bonner. Unlike some competitors, Bonner does not
write a script and does not monitor the calls. Often,
however, Bonner's clients will provide an 800 number for the
new grass-roots supporters to telephone, and Bonner reroutes
the calls to the relevant congressional office.
The technique works on the principle that nothing can make
lawmakers quake like outraged constituents, even carefully
chosen ones. A few dozen well-timed calls on the day of an
important vote could tip fence-sitters in the right
direction.
But you have to be good at it, because Congress has become
hip to such ploys. Thus, when 2,000 nasty telegrams arrive
with the same message, it's usually because lobbyists are
paying the freight and writing the words. And when 200
callers suddenly bombard a radio talk show host gave them the
number.
Then there are the grotesque gaffes, like the one last week
when a voter called a senator's office and asked the
receptionist: ``Do you know what I'm supposed to tell you? It
was something to do with voting.''
Polite inquiries established that the call was about health
care. Did the caller have an opinion?
``Not really. I don't know how I feel yet,'' the caller
confessed. ``I told that lady that when she called, but she
said she was going to transfer me anyway, and you answered
the phone.''
Oops.
There are those who might think that all this is the
ultimate in Washington smoke and mirrors, a clever way for
lobbyists and special interests to insert themselves between
the public and their elected officials. Congress, which
already bears a close resemblance to Oz, drifts further from
reality.
Bonner acknowledged that his ``organizers'' are fishing for
grass-roots views compatible with those of the lobbying
groups, but he likened his firm to a lawyer or doctor: ``You
have a patient, you cure them,'' he said. ``Each issue
presents us with a new situation.''
Right now, he said, Bonner & Associates has about 12
clients, including a coalition of insurance companies
interested in health care, and a group of pharmaceutical
firms and health management organizations. Fees, Bonner said,
are ``modest'' and based on how difficult or complicated the
issue is.
Bonner & Associates does not have any ``ideological or
political bent,'' Bonner said, but the company doesn't do
political campaigns or fund-raising. In short, if you've got
the money and need some ``regular people'' to flog your
issue, Bonner will find them for you.
But, as Bonner points out, his organizers aren't talking
to voters who couldn't care less about something. Retired
people, farmers, small businessmen and countless other
groups have a vested interest in health care and need to
know what the debate is about.
``I see it as the triumph of democracy,'' Bonner said. ``In
a democracy, the more groups taking their message to the
people outside the Beltway, and the more people taking their
message to Congress, the better off the system is.''
But is he getting the grass roots, or just the grass? The
answer, as Bob Dylan put it, could be ``blowin' in the
wind.''
____
[From the Los Angeles Times, Sept. 18, 1994]
Headline: High-Tech Lobbying Dials Wrong Number
(By Jim Drinkard)
Steve Raby, Sen. Howell Heflin's top aide, was surprised
when a letter signed with his own name arrived in the office
strongly objecting to President Clinton's health care plan.
The letter--and a nearly identical one a week later--was
generated by the Health Care Leadership Council, a business
coalition that aired radio spots urging listeners to call a
toll-free number to be put in touch with their members of
Congress on health care.
Raby had called the number, but had not given permission
for any letter to be sent to his boss, and Alabama Democrat.
``I said, `I disagree with your message,' '' he recalled
telling the operator.
Jack Bonner, whose lobbying firm ran the campaign for the
council, said such incidents are rare. ``You're going to have
a few mistakes happen. It's not intentional, and it's against
all written and oral policies,'' he said.
But the episode raises questions about the dangers inherent
in high-tech lobbying and its opportunities for abuse.
``It's a way for special interests to appear to be coming
from the grass-roots,'' said Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), who
said his office has also received technology-generated mail
misrepresenting constituent's feelings. The discrepancy was
discovered when his office wrote back to North Dakotans
acknowledging their letters. ``We've had letters back from
people unaware of the fact that something has been sent in
their name, and saying, `In fact, I don't feel that way,' ''
Dorgan said.
One danger, said Dorgan, is that the advertising or phone
call that prompts people to contact their lawmakers may not
fully disclose who is paying for the lobbying effort.
``The person probably has no idea, (for example) that
they're calling on behalf of a pharmaceutical manufacturer,''
he said. ``The economic interest is not disclosed. It could
be a way for a big pharmaceutical company to use a low-income
senior citizen to do (its) bidding in an unwitting way.''
Bonner disagrees, saying his services only facilitate
democracy.
``Democracy, lawmaking, politicking is never a clear-cut,
clean, pristine process,'' he said. ``But it is infinitely
better than any group that has a legislative interest . . .
take their message outside the Beltway to the people.''
His job, Bonner said, is to make it easier for those who
agree with his clients to communicate their support to
Washington.
Those who answer the phones at the Capitol say many callers
know little more than what they have just seen or heard in a
television or radio spot, words chosen less to educate than
to fan the flames of fear or anger.
``We like to flesh out some reasons so we can tell the
congressman, to know what people are thinking,'' said Trish
Riley, an aide to Rep. Tim Holden (D-Pa.). But when asked why
they hold their opinions the callers often say, ` ``I'm not
sure. I just don't want you to vote for it,' '' she said.
``People are real confused. They don't want to leave their
name and number. They just want to get off the phone.''
Dorgan told of one caller to his office who began the
conversation, ``Do you know what I'm supposed to tell you? It
has something to do with voting.'' The North Dakota small
businessman then added, ``Something to do with the health
plan, I think.''
Asked if he wanted to voice an opinion on health care to
Dorgan, the man replied, ``Not really. I don't know how I
feel yet. I told that lady that when she called, but she said
she was going to transfer me anyway.''
The practice of selectivity putting through only the
callers who agree with the lobbying client angered at least
one lawmaker, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.). ``I want people to
call and give me their honest-to-goodness thoughts,'' Skelton
said. ``These people are blocking out some and letting others
go through.'' Bonner said it would be absurd for a lobbying
group to pay to deliver their opponents' views. ``I know of
no 800 line used for an advocacy purpose where people are put
through on the other side'' of the issue, he said.
Baptist Joint Committee,
Washington, DC, September 29, 1994.
Hon. John Bryant,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Bryant: The Baptist Joint Committee serves the
below-listed Baptist bodies on public policy issues
surrounding religious liberty and the separation of church
and state.
We have reviewed the church-state ramifications of H.R.
823, the Lobby Disclosure Act of 1994. I understand that the
statutory exemptions are those reflected in my March 23, 1994
letter to you. We think that Section 103(9)(B) and Section
103(10)(B) adequately protect the free exercise rights of
churches and religious organizations.
This language has been examined and approved by a number of
religious organizations and their church-state experts,
including from the Jewish community, mainline protestants and
the United States Catholic Conference.
I am, therefore, puzzled by Mr. Gingrich' letter
questioning this legislation on the basis of the effect that
it would have on religious organizations. I think he is
plainly wrong.
We very much appreciate your willingness to accommodate
religious liberty concerns in this legislation and appreciate
the cooperation of your staff.
Yours very truly,
J. Brent Walker,
General Counsel
____
Religious Action Center
of Reform Judaism
Washington, DC, Sept. 28, 1994.
Hon. John Bryant,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC
Dear Representative Bryant: On behalf of the Union of
American Hebrew Congregations, representing the largest
segment of American Jewry, I want to express my appreciation,
once again, for your efforts in securing provisions within
the Lobby Disclosure Act of 1994 that protect religious
freedom for all Americans. The exemption of religious
organizations from ``lobbying activities'' (section 103 (9)
(B)) and from ``lobbying contacts'' (section 103 (10) (B))
appropriately protects the religious activities of religious
institutions in America at both the local and national level.
These exemptions were supported by the broadest range of
religious denominations and faith groups, including the
Jewish community, mainline protestant denominations, the
Baptist Joint Public Affairs Committee, and the United States
Catholic Conference.
It is therefore with astonishment that I read today
Representative Newt Gingrich's letter attacking the Lobby
Disclosure bill on the basis that religious organizations
would have to register and report their expenditures. As the
senior Jewish representative in Washington, and as an
attorney who teaches church-state law at Georgetown
University Law School, let me assure you that nothing could
be further from the truth. The commitment that the House and
Senate have shown to protecting religious freedom in this
bill represents the highest values enshrined in the
Constitution, and is deeply appreciated by the entire
religious community.
Sincerely,
Rabbi David Saperstein.
____
U.S. Catholic Conference,
Office of Government Liaison,
Washington, DC, September 29, 1994.
Hon. John Bryant,
House of Representatives,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing concerning provisions in S.
349, the ``Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1994'', that address
how certain church institutions would be affected by the
lobbying registration and reporting requirements of this
legislation. The United States Catholic Conference (``USCC'')
staff, together with our colleagues in other denominations,
were given opportunities to review and discuss these
provisions during consideration of this bill in your
Committee.
It is our understanding that those church organizations
which fit the definition contained in Sections 103(9)(B) and
103(10)(B)(xviii) of the Act will be exempt from registering
and reporting any legislative activities involving
communications with their own membership. Furthermore, any
lobbying contacts with government officials implicating the
free exercise of religion would also be exempt from these
requirements. We understand that Congress intends these
provisions to create broad exemptions from the registration
and reporting requirements of the Act for qualified church
institutions.
We appreciate the opportunity to share our views with you
on this important legislation.
Sincerely,
Frank J. Monahan,
Director.
Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair. I yield the floor.
I note the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. DOLE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________