Congress Dances To Billionaire Fiddlers

Congressional debate on most legislation is often mingled with information provided by lobbyists - hardly a news flash to folks who follow politics. Still, a few recent examples show the members of Congress from both parties make sure that the info they include in the record of their debate shine a bright light on a dark reality - they represent the will and demands of lobbyists and not of the residents of their districts.

Steve Benen at Washington Monthly points to a report that 42 members of Congress, 22 Republicans and 20 Democrats, made sure that words written by lobbyists for Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche, and given to congressmen which were then offered in the recent House "debate" on health care reforms.

"Now, don't necessarily expect tomorrow's "Daily Show" to have a segment featuring dozens of lawmakers repeating the identical lobbyist-written words over and over again. That's not quite how this worked.

The Congressional Record includes the transcript of what lawmakers said on the House floor, but members are also able to submit written statements that "revise and extend" their remarks. It's here where lawmakers submitted Genentech's preferred statements for the record. As Karen Tumulty noted, it lets the "lobbyists' paymasters" know that "they are getting good return on their investment."

What's noteworthy here is that it's "unusual for so many revisions and extensions to match up word for word. It is even more unusual to find clear evidence that the statements originated with lobbyists."

Note to congressional offices: if you're going to copy and paste someone else's homework, make more of an effort to pretend otherwise.

Asked about the statements, a lobbyist close to Genentech told the NYT's Robert Pear, "This happens all the time."

In another post by Benen, he cites an email from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is funding a report aimed at derailing passage of the health reform legislation by claiming economic disaster if such legislation is passed - even though the CoC already has the conclusions of their "study" ready to go to members of the Senate.

"... the Chamber's memo already points to the agreed-upon conclusion of the economic review that does not yet exist. From its email: "The economist will then circulate a sign-on letter to hundreds of other economists saying that the bill will kill jobs and hurt the economy. We will then be able to use this open letter to produce advertisements, and as a powerful lobbying and grass-roots document."

The Chamber's James Gelfand, who wrote the memo, said the proposal for the trumped-up economic study was "suggested by our Congressional allies." It was unclear as to who those "allies" are, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that congressional Republicans asked the Chamber of Commerce to help kill health care reform with this spurious study.

It's not exactly a plan that screams "credible, independent analysis."

If this seems vaguely familiar, it was only a month ago that a dubious study by America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) was released, in the hopes of derailing the health care reform effort. It wasn't long before it was exposed as something of a political sham.

White House Deputy Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said the email is "proof positive that the opponents of health reform will not let the facts get in the way of their efforts to defend to the status quo that has been so profitable for the insurance companies."

(According the always dubious "reporting" at FOX, the US Chamber boasts 3 million members -- but the truth FOX ignored was that really their membership is closer to 360,000. But once the falsehood gets played up by FOX, most faithful viewers get another bogus talking point that President Obama is one of them there evil Socialists. Given that the US Chamber is one of the largest lobbying groups in Washington, they hold a huge amount of authority - none of it based on the demands of the average voter in elections.)

And lobbying influence is growing and growing - Open Secrets website notes there are currently some 13,000-plus active lobbyists in Washington, which means your Congressman or Senator will be speaking to and communicating with hundreds if not thousands of them daily. I'd say about 1,000 voters would need to contact that elected official each day on any one issue to counter the influence of lobbyists. And not just email or call them, they'd need to actually speak face-to-face and that just isn't happening.

Open Secrets also notes that so far in 2009 over $2.5 billion has been spent on lobbying Congress - and that's separate dollars from those supplied by campaign contributions. Here's a graphic on the recent trends via Open Secrets:

Total Lobbying Spending

1998 $1.44 Billion 1999 $1.44 Billion 2000 $1.56 Billion 2001 $1.64 Billion 2002 $1.82 Billion 2003 $2.05 Billion 2004 $2.18 Billion 2005 $2.43 Billion 2006 $2.62 Billion 2007 $2.86 Billion 2008 $3.30 Billion 2009 $2.50 Billion

Number of Lobbyists*

1998 10,641 1999 13,233 2000 12,702 2001 12,046 2002 12,324 2003 13,134 2004 13,364 2005 14,329 2006 14,659 2007 15,131 2008 14,808 2009 13,428

*The number of unique, registered lobbyists who have actively lobbied.

It's worth noting the massive power that providing or withholding information on issues vital to the average person can have literal life and death consequences.

Just last week at RoaneViews, they pointed to an EPA report kept secret for 7 years on the health risks to people who live near coal ash storage sites, such as the one operated by TVA in Kingston which broke apart and spent billions of gallons of toxic waste into the landscape. The report included the estimation that those living near such sites have a 1 in 50 chance of developing cancer. But that kind of public information would be bad news for the coal-fired energy business, so it was kept quiet. Now that hearings and legislation are underway to create actual standards for how such dangerous sites are constructed and monitored, the information is provided to the public.

Thankfully, more and more accurate information is available online on how Congress works and who they are working for -- but it's a monumental task to counter the effects of billions of dollars and armies of lobbyists whose goals are not driven by how best to serve the public. Too often, the public is distracted by the dog and pony show known as The Media while the real work and the real influence lives large.