Esos lobbies de moda
Además de la entrada de Abramof en prisión acusado de un delito de tráfico de influencias y de interesantes análisis que señalan la corrupción como el elemento más determinante de las recientes elecciones Usa. El NYT analiza como el cambio de poder ya está teniendo consecuencias en la práctica de los lobbies.
November 15, 2006
As Guard Changes in Congress, Lobbyists Scramble
By JEFF ZELENYWASHINGTON, Nov. 14 — Republicans do not cede control of Congress for nearly two months, but money, power and influence are already beginning to change hands. The political economy, at least here in the capital, is humming for Democrats.
Democratic lobbyists are fielding calls from pharmaceutical companies, the oil and gas industry and military companies, all of which had grown accustomed to patronizing Republicans, as the environment in Washington abruptly shifts.
Take, for example, Vic Fazio, a California Democrat who rose through the ranks of Congress and reveled in the majority for all but 4 of his 20 years in office. In his second career as a lobbyist, Mr. Fazio did not experience the pleasures of Democratic rule — until now. Suddenly he is in demand.
For Mr. Fazio, who is close to Representative Nancy Pelosi, the California Democrat who is set to become House speaker, the power switch is, quite simply, good for business. Companies are scrambling to fortify lobbying teams with well-connected Democrats.
While Mr. Fazio declined to divulge his still-evolving list of prospective new clients at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, he said he intended to bring in Democratic reinforcements to cover the load. “I’ll just have more to do and have a little more help to do it,” he said.
The Republican Party lost its grip on Congress and is now bracing to lose its hold over K Street, the bustling corridor that has become synonymous with the lobbying industry. The so-called K Street Project, an effort engineered by Republicans to dominate the trade, is unraveling, and Democrats say they intend to pass sweeping reforms rather than reverse the project for their benefit.
Democrats say the changing of the guard provides a raft of opportunities, second only to winning the presidency.
Former members of Congress who left Washington have placed confidential calls to headhunters, wondering whether firms are hiring. (They are.) Former staff members have fielded inquiries from lobbying shops that have an urgent need for people with current contacts and old relationships with Democratic leaders. One prominent lobbyist said a former Senate aide was offered a starting salary of $500,000.
Though this is the moment Democrats have been craving — winning a majority so they can help shape politics and policy — some senior aides are now tempted to leave Capitol Hill to become lobbyists and potentially quadruple their salaries. At the same time, some Republicans began receiving materials on unemployment benefits this week as the party sheds thousands of jobs, relinquishing staff committee assignments and leadership posts in both chambers for the first time in 12 years.
“If you’re a Democrat, it’s a good time to be looking for work,” said David Urban, a Republican who is the managing director of American Continental Group, a bipartisan lobbying firm. “For Republicans, there is a little bit of panic that sets in when people realize they have to move out of their office into a cubicle.”
At the offices of Tongour Simpson Holsclaw, a Republican firm, an unusual number of Democrats have been calling in recent days. The phones began ringing after the company’s founder was quoted in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper, saying it was “a seller’s market for Democratic staffers.” It was, said Mike Tongour, as though he had placed a giant help-wanted ad.
“Several Democrats said, ‘I hear you are interested in expanding your firm,’ ” Mr. Tongour said, recalling his post-election conversations with several senior Democratic aides. “You got the sense that they are going to be asking for premiums.”
Even though most firms are bipartisan, the shift in the balance of power has resulted in a shift of responsibilities between Republicans and Democrats.
“I’ve told my Democratic partners it’s time for them to buy some suits,” said Wayne Berman, a well connected Republican lobbyist. “I went out and bought two new fishing rods and looked into yoga classes.”
He was joking, sort of.
Even before Election Day, the pharmaceutical industry hired Democrats to bolster its public relations efforts, hoping to ease the blow if Republicans lost their majority and Democrats followed through on pledges to let the government negotiate prescription drug prices.
“You literally have to create war games to plan for worst-case scenarios,” said Ken Johnson, the vice president for government affairs at the leading trade association for drug companies. “We’ve got a lot of friends on the Democratic side, but clearly we need some more.”
Acquiring those friends, however, may not be easy.
Steve Elmendorf, a longtime senior adviser to former Representative Richard A. Gephardt who began working as a lobbyist at Bryan Cave Strategies in 2005, said Democrats in the House and the Senate would operate differently.
“The Republicans’ view of lobbying is we give people money, we buy them lunch and then go up and tell them what to do,” said Mr. Elmendorf, whose client roster included Shell Oil and Ford before the election and has grown since then. “We go in and make public policy arguments. The business community is going to have to reorient their view.”
As Democrats prepare for January, implications of a change in power extend across Washington.
Lawyers say they expect their business to increase if House Democrats follow through on their pledge to investigate the Bush administration. Real estate agents paid careful attention to the election results, too, sending welcome packets to newly elected Democrats.
“Because both the House and the Senate went to the Democrats, there will be a new wave and new energy,” said Michael Rankin, managing partner of the Washington office of Sotheby’s International Realty. “A lot of people from around the country will be coming to Washington.”
Ivan Adler, who oversees lobbyist headhunting in the Washington office of the McCormick Group, an executive search firm, said he had received calls from former members of Congress and others outside Washington “inquiring what the job market is like in the new Democratic world.” Mr. Adler declined to name them, citing confidentiality requirements, but he conceded that not all would make good lobbyists.
“They are all popcorn in the pan — some pop and some don’t,” Mr. Adler said. “Hopefully you pick ones that would pop.”
Though the supply and demand of lobbyists is shifting, well-connected Republicans have hardly been put out of work, particularly given the narrow majority in the Senate. Many lobbying firms, recoiling from a year of controversy and scandal, sell continuity as the most valued asset.
“As we move into a new Congress, people are wiser and they learn to distrust quick fixes,” said Nick Allard, a Democratic lobbyist at Patton Boggs, the city’s largest firm. “That’s one reason why the lobbying scandal fell apart like a political Ponzi scheme: it oversold the notion of political access.”
Two days after the election, when it first became clear that the levers of power were shifting, a team of lobbyists at Patton Boggs prepared an analysis of what its clients could expect from a Democratic takeover.
To place the change of power in perspective and to lighten the mood, they opened with the timeless tale from Dr. Seuss: “If I ran the zoo.”
Jim Rutenberg contributed reporting.