Harper’s Magazine
March 10 2009
Dick Gephardt, Labor and Lobbying
By Ken Silverstein
I posted an item last week about former House Majority Leader Richard
Gephardt, who had been very pro-labor during his long tenure in
Congress. I noted that he’s now a lobbyist at the Gephardt Group and
that he had recently signed up to represent the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce, which is a leading opponent of the Employee Free Choice Act,
`which is the top legislative priority of Gephardt’s old friends in
the labor movement.’
Catherine Goode of the Gephardt Group emailed to say that the firm had
been `working for NBC and the Chamber’s coalition’a coalition that
includes labor’for intellectual property enforcement and protection
for over a year. Our work is not by any means anti-labor’they’re a
member of the coalition.’
It’s called the Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy and you
can read more (including membership list) here. Last year the
coalition worked on a bill that was signed into law’Prioritizing
Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 (aka
`Pro IP bill), passed by UC in the Senate and under Suspension in the
House. There were a zillion labor groups favoring the bill.
Fair enough. The item suggested that Gephardt might be working against
the interests of labor and that looks not to be the case.
I still think Gephardt’s post-congressional career looks uncomfortably
like that of Tom Daschle’s. (Among his current clients is Goldman
Sachs; according to the disclosure form he’s offering a hand on TARP.)
A 2007 account in CQ noted:
In 2003, Richard A. Gephardt cosponsored a resolution that put the
`Armenian genocide’ in company with the Holocaust and mass deaths in
Cambodia and Rwanda. In 2000, the Missouri lawmaker backed a similar
measure, and in a letter to then-Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.,
Gephardt said he was `committed to obtaining official U.S. government
recognition of the Armenian genocide.’
Now Gephardt is a foreign agent lobbying on behalf of Turkey, and he’s
got a different view of the world. He’s working to stymie the latest
version of an Armenian genocide resolution.
For a broader look at Gephardt’s lobbying efforts, check out this
article from the Washington Post.
Most people know that life after Congress can be very lucrative, and
it certainly has been for Gephardt, 66, who just built a house in
Sonoma County, Calif. But few people know what that work entails. In
Gephardt’s case, it involves an astonishing array of projects. He has
brokered labor settlements, cleared the way for corporate
acquisitions, represented a foreign country and pushed for
cutting-edge health programs ‘ only some of which fit the stereotype
of lobbying, the former lawmaker and his new colleagues say.
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