Michael Winship: Lobbyists retreat but never surrender

George Washington’s birthday is approaching and with it will come the attendant mythology; hatchet and cherry tree, wooden teeth, throwing a silver dollar across the Potomac River.

Of course, as the old joke goes, a dollar went a lot further then. Today, if you tried to hurl a silver dollar across the Potomac, chances are some member of Congress would snatch it in flight like one of those nature film grizzly bears grabbing a salmon in mid-leap.

And more likely, the person doing the throwing would be a lobbyist, tossing coins in the air to keep the playful legislator’s attention. The other day, the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics reported that more than 15,600 companies spent at least $3.2 billion on federal lobbying last year. Five hundred thirty-five members of the House and Senate, more than 13,000 registered lobbyists in D.C. — you do the math.

This week, White House Special Counsel Norm Eisen blogged about President Obama’s plans to further crack down on lobbyists by updating the Lobbying Disclosure Act and getting Congress to mandate “low-dollar limits on the contributions lobbyists may bundle or make to candidates for federal office.”

Good luck with that, Norm. As we’ve seen, lobbyists are brilliantly devious at figuring out ways into the inner sanctums, and whoever’s behind the door tends to welcome them with open arms, as long as they’ve arrived with the secret password — “Cash.”

Example: last weekend, both Democratic and Republican members of Congress held retreats. Guess who else was there?

The House Republican Caucus chose to stay near Washington at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel. Among those addressing the Caucus were President Obama.

The meeting was organized by the Congressional Institute, which describes itself as “a not-for-profit corporation dedicated to helping Members of Congress better serve their constituents and helping their constituents better understand the operations of the national legislature.”

The reality, as the Center for Media and Democracy’s SourceWatch Web site reports, is that the Congressional Institute is “funded by corporate contributions and run by top Republican lobbyists.” A list of the Congressional Institute’s financial contributors reads like a Who’s Who of corporate America: among them have been General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner, UPS, Merck and tobacco giant Altria.

Lee Fang, a researcher for the progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund, paid a visit on the Republicans at their Baltimore hotel. In the time before Congressional Institute representatives told him to scram or face arrest, he found out quite a lot.

The Institute’s chairman Dan Meyer was on his way to the retreat. As a lobbyist his clients include Goldman Sachs, BP, HealthNet and AHIP, the health insurance industry trade group that fought tooth and nail against the public option in the health care fight.

Also in attendance, according to Fang, was Institute board member Michael Johnson. A lobbyist at the OB-C Group, Johnson “touts himself as a ‘Republican heavyweight’ whose firm represents the BlueCross BlueShield Association, JPMorgan Chase, and the health insurance giant WellPoint.”

Meanwhile, Democrats chose to bask in sunnier climes, and some select lobbyists decided to grab their towels and Jamba Juice and enjoy the balmy weather with them. A dozen senators headlined the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s winter retreat at a Ritz Carlton resort in Miami Beach, a cozy little hideaway with 375 guest rooms, “sumptuous” marble baths, a spa and a $2 million dollar art collection.

Riding in the wake of the senators’ surf were 108 lobbyists — special guests who shared meals, receptions and “informal conversations” with the legislators.

According to the Web site Politico.com, among those attending were “top lobbying officials for many of the industries Democrats regularly attack: Represented were the American Bankers Association, the tobacco company Altria, the oil company Marathon, several drug manufacturers, the defense contractor Lockheed, and most of the large independent lobbying firms.”

The price of admittance wasn’t released but the maximum contribution to the DSCC for similar events is $30,000 a head.

Hearing all this makes me think we should stage a national intervention and ship the entire 111th Congress off to a different kind of retreat, a sort of political rehab facility. They would be kept isolated from lobbyists and special interests for as many weeks as it takes for them to be weaned from money and pork and made to pay attention to the needs of their constituents — and the nation.

Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program “Bill Moyers Journal," which airs Friday night on PBS.

The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer and not necessarily those of the newspaper.