DAVID KIRKPATRICK
– Con l’ascesa al Congresso Americano dei Democratici ci sono state alcune “vittime” nel mondo delle lobby,
o ad es. Richard Hunt, repubblicano, industria della sicurezza; Marc Racicot, presidente della American Insurance Association ed ex presidente del partito Repubblicano; Frank L. Bowman, ammiraglio a riposto, filo-repubblicano, a capo della lobby del nucleare (2006, $1,5mn.).
– Al cambio della guardia si aggiunge la crisi finanziario-economica, che rende più difficile ai Repubblicani la transizione: società e associazioni d’affari tagliano i propri bilanci di lobby, e con l’ascesa Democratica, sono i lobbisti Repubblicani i più vulnerabili.
– Società e gruppi di interesse stanno gareggiando per prendersi i Democratici; i regolamenti etici approvati di recente dal Congresso limitano la possibilità di membri uscenti del Congresso di fare opera di lobby.
o Ad es. la Securities and Financial Markets Association ha ristrutturato a seguito di una fusione, ed ha licenziato decine di persone, tra cui il maggior lobbista repubblicano, Hunt, che guadagnava circa $650mila/anno;
o é stato assunto a dirigere l’associazione, l’ex aiutante di un deputato Democratico presidente di una commissione Finanza della Camera; Hunt se ne andato e ha creato una sua società.
o il presidente dell’American Insurance Association, Rancicot, si è dimesso perché la perdita di valore delle entrature del suo partito non giustificava più il suo compenso – $1,8mn nel 2006.
– John Podesta, fratello di Tony Podesta, fondatore di una delle maggiori società di lobby, ex funzionario dell’Amministrazione Clinton e fondatore del Center for American Progress, dirige la squadra di transizione del neo-presidente Obama.
– Tony Podesta ha però dichiarato che la sua società è divenuta del tutto bipartisan durante l’ascesa repubblicana, e quest’anno ha messo al soldo più Repubblicani che Democratici. («Il mercato sta sopravvalutando i democratici e sottovalutando i Repubblicani»)
– I salari iniziali per ex funzionari: un vice-segretario che abbandonava 3 anni fa’ l’Amministrazione Bush, con i Repubblicani che controllavano Camera, Senato e Casa Bianca, poteva incassare $600mila-$1mn. per il suo lavoro di lobby; oggi la stessa persona potrebbe attendersi solo la metà.
– Per i Democratici: 3 anni fa un direttore di staff di una commissione di Camera o Senato poteva guadagnare $130mila/anno, passando alle lobby poteva raggiungere circa $250mila; oggi $500mila-$800mila.
o C’è una questione di domanda-offerta, si cercano Democratici con incarichi importanti, e la competizione si fa più forte per i Repubblicani.
o Molti gruppi affaristici e società di lobby repubblicani non hanno atteso fino alle elezioni del 4 novembre:
o la società Barbour, Griffith e Roger, ad es., era quasi un sinonimo di potere repubblicano (con Reagan e Bush I); Barbour è anche divenuto presidente del partito Repubbl. ed ora è governatore del Mississippi. Ad elezione avvenuta ha modificato il proprio nome con la sigla BGR Group, e ha cominciato a prendere al soldo più Democratici. Ha anche raccolto fondi per la campagna democratica del senatore Warner (Virginia),
o il giorno delle elezioni ha acquisito la società Democratica di Westin Rinehart, diretto da un ex funzionario dell’Amministrazione Clinton, Morris Reid.
– Un esponente di società di lobby: ci sarà sempre domanda di lobbisti repubblicani, perché i Democratici non hanno sempre il coraggio di premere per obiettivi dell’industria, che vanno contro il proprio partito, come la revoca di regolamenti ambientalisti.
– Panetta, rappresentante Democratico della California, capo staff con Bill Clinton: non mi sorprenderebbe che anche i democratici incoraggiassero società e gruppi di interesse a prendersi sul libro paga dei Democratici al posto di Rep. «perché il gioco si chiama denaro, e di fatto essi dipendono ancora largamente dai lobbisti per il denaro che serve per promuovere le loro campagne.
– Richard Hunt, a top Republican lobbyist for the securities industry, was among the first to go, just a week after the election. Marc Racicot, the president of the American Insurance Association and former Republican Party chairman, resigned a few days later. So did Frank L. Bowman, the retired admiral and Republican-leaning chief of the nuclear energy lobby, citing “this period of dramatic change in Congress and the White House.”
– All were casualties of a broad shake-up of the lobbying world set off by the Democratic ascendance in Congress and at the White House. Republican lobbyists are feeling the demand for their services plummet as struggling businesses slash their lobbying budgets, the outgoing Bush administration hemorrhages résumés, and their party retreats to its lowest ebb of power since the election of President Jimmy Carter 32 years ago.
– “This is rather unique — much more difficult for Republicans than in past transitions,” said Eric Vautour, a former Reagan administration official who recruits former officials for lobbying jobs.
– After eight years of the so-called K Street Project — the effort by Republican lawmakers and operatives to pressure companies, trade associations and lobbying firms to hire their fellow Republicans — the tasseled loafer is on the other foot. Companies and interest groups are competing to snap up Democrats. And scarcity has added to their value because so many well-connected Democrats are angling for jobs in the Obama administration, which has promised ethics rules that may block lobbyists from certain jobs. Meanwhile, recently passed Congressional ethics rules restrict the ability of departing Congressional staff members to lobby as well.
“The Democratic market is kind of frozen, while the Republican market is about to be engorged” with former Bush staff members, said Tony Podesta, founder of the Podesta Group, a major lobbying firm.
– The starting salaries for former officials tell the story. An assistant department secretary leaving the Bush administration three years ago, with Republicans in control of the House, Senate and White House, might fetch as much $600,000 to $1 million a year in the influence business, recruiters and lobbyists said. But the same person might now expect less than half as much.
“Don’t be the last guy off the train,” said Peter Metzger, vice chairman of the recruiting firm CT Partners, recalling his advice to government officials considering other work in Washington.
– But for Democrats, the bidding is fierce. Three years ago, a Democratic staff director for an important House or Senate committee might have earned about $130,000 a year on Capitol Hill, and jumped to K Street for an annual salary of about $250,000. Now, the same person might command as much as $500,000 to $800,000 a year, several recruiters said.
– “There is a supply-and-demand issue with finding enough Democrats who have had senior-level positions,” said Nels Olson, of the recruiting firm Korn/Ferry International. “It is certainly a difficult time for Republicans.”
For an industry that prefers to talk about selling policy expertise and sophisticated arguments, the turnabout is a stark reminder that what clients want are personal connections. “People who need to get something done know what the price of a drink is,” Mr. Metzger said. “This may sound terribly Washington, but access trumps expertise.”
W. Henson Moore III, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana and deputy secretary in the Energy Department who recently retired as head of a trade group, put it bluntly: “Republicans are going to be to some extent almost irrelevant in the next two years.”
– Many trade groups and Republican lobbying firms did not wait until the election on Nov. 4. The lobbying firm of Barbour, Griffith and Rogers, for example, was once almost synonymous with Republican power. Its three name partners were all well-known White House officials under President Ronald Reagan and the first President George Bush. One, Haley Barbour, went on to become Republican Party chairman and is now the governor of Mississippi.
– But in the aftermath of the Democratic victory in the 2006 elections, the firm’s partners decided to shorten the name to the less evocative “BGR Group,” and started to hire more Democrats. Last month, the firm even held a fund-raiser for the Democratic campaign of Senator-elect Mark Warner of Virginia. And on Election Day, it acquired the Democratic firm of Westin Rinehart, headed by a former Clinton administration official, Morris L. Reid.
“To go bipartisan, we rebranded the business,” Ed Rogers said Friday, speaking by telephone from a business trip to Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “Lobbying is like a slow-motion jury trial. First you need to find out who the jury is and then meet with each of them one by one. So the more Democratic officeholders there are, the more you need effective, smart Democrats.”
– In 2005, at the apogee of Republican power, the Motion Picture Association of America recruited John Feehery from a top job with former Representative J. Dennis Hastert, the Illinois Republican who was then speaker of the House.
o But when the Democratic takeover the next year devalued Mr. Feehery’s Republican connections, he lost his defense against internal personality conflicts, people involved in the association’s lobbying say, and within weeks he was out the door.
– A spokesman for the association declined to comment on the departure. So did Mr. Feehery, who now runs his own lobbying shop. But he said Republican lobbyists would always be in demand because Democrats lack the stomach to push for industry goals that go against their party, like rolling back environmental regulations.
“At the end of the day,” Mr. Feehery said, “Democrats don’t like to ask for the order” — the client’s objective.
– All acknowledge, however, that the current anxiety among K Street Republicans is unusually feverish because it coincides with the economic crisis.
– Companies and trade associations across town are cutting back on their lobbying budgets, and amid the Democratic ascent, it is the Republican lobbyists who are the most vulnerable.
– The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, reorganizing its staffs after the merger of two industry trade groups, recently laid off dozens of people, including its top Republican lobbyist, Mr. Hunt. He had earned about $650,000 a year in salary and benefits, according to a 2005 filing with the Internal Revenue Service.
– (Michael Pease, a former top aide to Representative Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Finance Committee, was hired in October to head the association’s lobbying efforts, while Mr. Hunt leases space from the association to start his own firm.)
– Officials of the American Insurance Association said its president, Mr. Racicot, the former Republican Party chairman and former governor of Montana, decided to step down in part because he concluded that the declining value of his party connections no longer justified his own compensation — $1.8 million in 2006, according to filings.
“One fortunate thing for us is that a lot of our issues are not so partisan,” said Blain K. Rethmeier, a spokesman for the association. (A former Republican aide in the Senate and the White House, Mr. Rethmeier said he was “getting inundated now with résumés from people leaving the administration with the clock ticking down.”)
– Mr. Bowman, who retired from the Nuclear Energy Institute, made about $1.5 million in salary and benefits in 2006, according to its filings. J. Scott Peterson, a spokesman for the institute, said the group was “looking at the opportunity of the changing landscape to plug in a new head at the top of our organization” and the search committee will be looking at Democrats.
“That would certainly, I gather, be a strength,” Mr. Peterson said.
– Lobbying firms known for Democratic ties are experiencing a swift uptick in business. Mr. Podesta said his firm had signed up about a dozen new clients in the last few weeks.
“Some of them are just calling and saying, ‘We are clueless, we don’t know much about the people who run the Congress and we know even less about the people who will run the White House, so help us,’ ” he said.
– His brother, John Podesta, a former Clinton administration official and founder of the Center for American Progress, is heading President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team. But Tony Podesta said that only “very unsophisticated” clients would consider his firm just for that reason, noting that John Podesta will leave in a few months at the end of the transition and that the firm does not lobby him in any event.
– What is more, Tony Podesta said his firm had grown fully bipartisan during the Republican ascendance, even hiring more Republicans than Democrats so far this year. “I think the market overvalues Democrats and undervalues Republicans right now,” he said.
– Some have begun to wonder if elected Democrats, flush with a level of power the Republicans experienced a few years ago, would now emulate the K Street Project by encouraging corporations and trade groups to hire fellow Democrats instead of Republicans.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if they do,” said Leon E. Panetta, a former Democratic representative from California and chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, “because the name of the game is money, and the fact is they still largely depend on lobbyists for the money to bulk up their campaigns.”