[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.

                          ____________________