Fascinating database and story: How health lobbyists influenced reform bill

[Daniel Schuman]

Analysis of how health lobbyists influenced the legislation, according to Chicago Tribune, Medill, and  CRP,

At least 166 former aides from the nine congressional leadership offices and five committees involved in shaping health overhaul legislation -- along with at least 13 former lawmakers -- registered to represent at least 338 health care clients since the beginning of last year, according to the analysis.

Their health care clients spent $635 million on lobbying over the past two years, the study shows.

The total of insider lobbyists jumps to 278 when non-health-care firms that reported lobbying on health issues are added in, the analysis found.

* * * * *
The lineup of insiders working for clients with health care interests includes at least 14 former aides to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and at least 13 former aides to Montana Democratic Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Finance Committee and a key overseer of the health care overhaul.

* * * * *
The largest insider lobbying cadre belongs to the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, which employs at least 26 former congressional members and staffers, according to Medill/CRP research.

Two other drug interests, biotech firm Amgen Inc. and the Biotechnology Industry Organization trade group, with at least 24 and 16 insiders respectively, ranked second and fourth among reported hiring over the past two years of lawmakers' former staffers and members of committees considered in the analysis.

* * * * *
Health care lobbyists increase their effectiveness by strategically targeting their campaign contributions or the donations of the interests they represent, Edgar said.

Health industry contributions to congressional candidates have more than doubled so far this decade, rising to $127 million in the 2008 election cycle from $56 million in the 2000 election, with disproportionate sums going to the party in power and to members of committees that oversee health care, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Here's the article: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-health-lobbyists_bddec20,0,4862599.story

Here's the database: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/chi-091218-lobbyingdatabase-html,0,4298069.htmlpage




Daniel Schuman
Policy Counsel | Sunlight Foundation
Twitter: danielschuman | 202-713-5795

[Micah Sifry]

$635million in lobbying is a huge number. Is it possible to unpack
what that buys? (and do they include ad buys in that?)

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[Daniel Schuman]

The CRP data available from the Tribune is downloadable, but doesn't include that level of detail. (For example, I'm curious about the hourly rates for the lobbyists -- I want to know their annual salaries.) Perhaps someone with expertise on the opensecrets database can answer Micah's question?

Daniel

Daniel Schuman
Policy Counsel | Sunlight Foundation
Twitter: danielschuman | 202-713-5795

[Bill Allison]

The sad answer is you can't answer that question. One can infer from information on the filing whether they're using an LDA definition of lobbying (which limits lobbying to contacting a fairly wide range of federal officials a certain number of times, plus spending 20 percent of one's time on lobbying), the IRS definition (which includes state level political and grassroots lobbying expenditures) or the nonprofit definition whether it's possible that their numbers include expenditures on advertising and the like, but there's no easy way to break it down.

One of my new year's resolutions is to continue the research on these questions I started in these posts:

http://realtime.sunlightprojects.org/?s=seiu

I think it's possible, using data from FollowTheMoney.org and IRS 527 filings to figure out roughly how much an organization like the Chamber of Commerce is actually spending on federal lobbying, but as a lobbying source of mine once told me, these numbers are really meaningless. There's tremendous latitude in how much one reports--some inflate their numbers through the roof, others shrink them to make them as small as possible. They're really squishy numbers, in other words -- I'm inclined to look for other measures -- revolving door presence, for example -- as being far better predictors of influence.

Best,
Bill

Bill Allison
Editorial Director
Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group
202-742-1520 ext. 224
Twitter: bill_allison

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