GOP builds presence on lobbyist row

3 Jul 2005 // A decade of Republican control of Congress and five years of the Bush presidency have had a dramatic impact on K Street, a nondescript canyon of downtown office buildings where many big lobbying firms have their offices.

Once a Democratic stronghold, this so-called fourth branch of government is tilting Republican, in part as a result of the K Street Project, a longtime effort by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Senate Republican Conference Chairman Rick Santorum and GOP strategist Grover Norquist to pressure lobbying firms to hire more Republicans.

Now, with scandal brewing around some of these lobbyists, most notably Jack Abramoff, the longtime friend of DeLay and Norquist, the K Street Project — along with the growth of the lobbying industry in general — is getting a closer look from political watchdogs.

They are troubled by what they say they see: a merging of ideology and policy that, with backing in the hundreds of millions of dollars, is producing a political machine for the Republican Party rarely, if ever, seen in American politics.

"It's reminiscent of the old Chicago-style political machines," said Roberta Baskin, executive director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonpartisan organization in Washington that has tried to police the capital's ethics since 1989.

"It's so bold, and in its partisanship, it is quite different from the bipartisan way K Street usually operated before," said Burdett Loomis, an author and co-editor of two books on the lobbying industry, "The Sound of Money" and "Interest Group Politics."

A longtime tradition

Lobbying is nearly as old as the American republic itself. It takes place under the First Amendment guarantee of the right "to petition the government for a redress of grievances."

It is unlikely, though, that the framers of the Constitution ever envisioned the K Street of today: a $2.1 billion industry of mostly corporate interests. Since President Bush's election in 2000, its ranks have doubled to at least 34,750 registered lobbyists with starting salaries of about $300,000 a year, according to figures recently compiled by author and Washington Post reporter Jeff Birnbaum.

"It is a natural phenomenon, actually," Loomis said. "Interests exist because society and legislators need them. There is, of course, the political tension over when a 'special interest' becomes 'my interest,' when, say, the Medicare prescription drug benefits is the work of the pharmaceutical industry or the AARP."

DeLay and Norquist, aided by Abramoff, launched the K Street Project following the Newt Gingrich-led Republican takeover of the House in 1994. DeLay's message to K Street, as relayed through the Washington Post, was: "If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by our rules" — rules that included hiring Republicans.

The most public attempt so far to enforce those rules came last year when the Motion Picture Association of America, ignoring GOP warnings against hiring a Democrat, hired former Clinton Cabinet member Dan Glickman as its new head. The response in the House was to remove some $1.5 billion in motion picture industry tax cuts from a pending bill. Glickman then hired a former aide to House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

Project goes public

Santorum joined the K Street effort after his election to the Senate from Pennsylvania in 1994 and soon was hosting Tuesday morning meetings on Capitol Hill to review the project. Santorum spokesman Robert Traynham confirmed last week that those private meetings continue, even though the project went public in June with a Web site that tracks the political affiliations of people being hired by lobbying firms.

But the K Street Project organizers are no longer interested in simply political parity with Democrats on K Street. They want the Democrats out.

"We believe there should be just as many Democrats representing corporate interests as there are Republicans representing organized labor —which is zero," said Norquist spokesman Chris Butler.

Where K Street was once largely nonideological, critics say the K Street Project is turning it into a critically important power center for the Republican Party, a political machine that not only helps to write the laws but provides huge amounts of money to promote the GOP agenda.

For example, the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan organization that tracks money in politics, found finance and credit card companies contributed more than $8.2 million during the 2004 election, 64 percent to Republicans.

Their "payback," the center said, was a law passed by the GOP-led Congress this spring making it more difficult for people to escape from debt by filing for bankruptcy protection.

Industry pockets deep

Similarly, the energy industry contributed $50.6 million during the 2004 election, 75 percent of which went to Republicans, according to the center. Now Congress is considering comprehensive energy legislation that includes the GOP priority of opening the Arctic wilderness to oil and gas exploration.

"There's nothing illegal, nothing wrong with lobbying," said the center's spokesman, Steve Weiss. "But what you have now are deep-pocketed interests crowding out other interests promoting broader policy initiatives. It's not a level playing field."

In response, Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz said, "This is a president and this is a party that has promoted policies that benefit the American people, whether it's initiatives to stop frivolous lawsuits or passing an energy bill that will lower costs for the first time in a generation."

But critics say it is worse than just a playing field that favors Republicans.

"The K Street Project would more aptly be called the Bribery and Extortion Project'," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. "Trade associations and lobbyists know that if they want legislation, regulatory relief or government contracts, they must buy them."