DC’s lobbying industry is practically another branch of the government. Lobbyists, who tend to reside on the city’s infamous K Street, shape legislation, dictate policies, influence the legislative calendar, and raise critical campaign contributions for their allies.
When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, Newt Gingrich helped implement the “K Street Project” — a concerted effort on the part of the GOP majority to quickly take control of Washington’s lobbying apparatus through intimidation, hardball political tactics, and even private threats when necessary.
(In one infamous example, Gingrich and Tom DeLay intentionally blocked a vote on an intellectual property bill in the House in 1998 because the Electronics Industry Association announced it intended to hire a new director — who happened to be a Democrat. Gingrich and DeLay told the group, hire a Republican or we won’t pass your bill.)
It looked for a long while like the project was a major success. The Washington Post reported about a year ago that Republicans are “reaping big financial rewards” by using the K Street project to “oust Democrats from top lobbying jobs in Washington.”
[V]irtually every major company or trade association looking for new top-level representation is hiring or seeking to hire a prominent Republican politician or staffer, according to Republicans and Democrats tracking the situation.
At times, the GOP has used all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. In one blatant example, Services Committee Chairman Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) pressured the Investment Company Institute (ICI), a consortium of mutual fund companies, to fire their chief lobbyist because she was a Democrat. Oxley’s staff suggested to industry officials that a congressional probe of the mutual fund industry might ease up if ICI complied.
Industries, firms, and associations played along because they felt like they had little choice. Republicans, particularly after 2000, were running the show. And if the GOP was going to be in the majority for the indefinite future, it was in K Street’s interests to cooperate now or face retribution later.
That is, until Republicans suddenly didn’t look so strong anymore. Now, with GOP prospects souring, the “K Street Project” no longer packs the same punch — and Dems are getting jobs again.
The Washington Post’s Jeffrey Birnbaum, who knows more about DC’s lobbying industry than anyone, noted today, “After a long hiring drought, Democrats are coming back into vogue on K Street.”
The latest sign came yesterday when the Motion Picture Association of America chose a Democrat — former Kansas congressman and agriculture secretary Dan Glickman — to succeed its president of 38 years, Jack Valenti.
The recent selection of Glickman and several other Democrats for prominent lobbying jobs indicates a waning of the vaunted power of the “K Street Project,” whose goal was to transform Washington’s persuasion industry into a Republican bastion. It’s also a tip-off that people who make their livings watching government and politics are keeping close tabs on the horse race that is election 2004.
Author and lobbying scholar Michael D. Watkins likens the recent uptick in Democratic employment to a military tactic called “forward placement of supplies.” Lobbying managers, anticipating a possible switch in partisan leadership, are simply planning accordingly, he said. “It’s also a market indicator of what’s going to happen in the election,” Watkins added. “People are looking at the tea leaves, and maybe they’re beginning to hire from both parties just in case there’s a Kerry administration.”
K Street often doesn’t care who wins; they just want access and influence with the victor. Two years ago, there was no point in even considering Dems for key lobbying jobs. But it’s increasingly likely that Dems will win back the White House in November and stand a pretty good chance of winning a majority in the Senate.
In other words, K Street just isn’t scared of the GOP anymore.
This spring the Republican-leaning Business Roundtable ignored well-publicized entreaties by GOP activists and hired a former aide to a Democratic senator to lead its efforts on two of its highest priorities: corporate governance and tort reform. “He was the perfect fit,” said Johanna Schneider, spokeswoman for the organization of big-company chief executives.
The Equipment Leasing Association, which represents more than 850 corporations, also disregarded public pressure by prominent GOPers to hire only Republicans and in February named a former Democratic staffer from the Senate. Of his new hire’s partisan leaning, Michael J. Fleming, the association’s longtime president, said, “I can’t say it made much difference.”
The choices are part of a broad pattern. According to a review of job listings in Influence.biz, a lobbying newsletter, more than 40 percent of lobbyists with identifiable party backgrounds hired in the past six months have been Democrats. During the same period a year earlier, Democrats constituted only 30 percent of those hired.
[…]
“Everybody is very conscious of the fact that the Democratic outlook is better than it was seven or eight months ago,” [Fleming] added.