OPENING THE WINDOW ON FOREIGN LOBBYING
By Anupama Narayanswamy and Luke Rosiak, Sunlight Foundation and Jennifer LaFleur, ProPublica
ProPublica
August 18, 2009 1:28 pm EDT
Lobbying
Bermuda Premier Ewart Brown (left) met in June with a handful
of congressman, among them, Rep. Bennie Thompson D-Miss. (L-Amy
Sussman/Getty Images for Bermuda Department of Tourism, R-Lauren
Victoria Burke) In 2008, Bermuda’s influential reinsurance industry
needed some help. Successive seasons of monster hurricanes in the
United States, where much of its client base is, had cost these
insurers of insurance companies [1] $22 billion in losses. Eager to
avoid a repeat — and unable to change the weather — the companies
and Bermuda’s government turned to something they could influence:
The U.S. Congress.
At the behest of his government’s lobbyist, Premier Ewart Brown of
Bermuda met in June with key congressmen, among them the powerful
House Ways and Means chairman, Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and two
Democrats from states in hurricane alley [2], G.K. Butterfield of
North Carolina and Bennie Thompson of Mississippi.
The sessions, Brown boasted later in Bermuda’s Royal Gazette, were
part of a "very successful trip" that included "meetings with people
who were not even on the schedule."
In fact, the success was almost immediate. On June 26, a day after
meeting with the Bermuda delegation, Thompson introduced a bill to
give businesses and homeowners in hurricane zones taxpayer-subsidized
loans for storm windows and doors — a program that could also save
untold millions for insurance companies by cutting damages in future
hurricane seasons.
How the Bermudan government wangled legislation favoring one of that
country’s most powerful businesses might be a mystery today but for
a little-known law. The Foreign Agent Registration Act, or FARA,
requires foreign governments and government-controlled groups to file
detailed lobbying disclosures — far more information than domestic
lobbyists must provide. These filings have been available on a Justice
Department Web site, but in a form that makes them cumbersome to use.
Now, a new project by the Sunlight Foundation and ProPublica [3]
has for the first time digitized one year’s worth of FARA records,
making them accessible in a searchable database that allows users to
easily follow the money and connect the dots. With the Foreign Lobbying
Influence Tracker [4], anyone can quickly learn what governments are
lobbying whom, how often and about what.
An examination of the records, which were filed in 2008 and cover
activity during that year and the latter part of 2007, show how
busy these special interests were:
– More than 280 lobbying firms collected $87 million in fees
for representing 340 foreign clients, including governments,
government-controlled organizations, political parties, separatist
groups and a handful of for-profit firms.
– Lobbyists or other officials reporting under FARA contacted members
of Congress, their staff, executive branch officials, journalists
and others more than 22,000 times.
– Several prominent former lawmakers have signed on to represent
foreign countries, among them ex-Senate leader Bob Dole (Taiwan and
Montenegro) and former House Appropriations Chairman Robert Livingston
(Turkey and others).
As with the Bermudans, the many contacts often paid off. The data
reveal multiple instances in which legislation was introduced
or blocked after foreign agents wooed members. They shaped
spending decisions on issues from foreign aid to F-22 fighters,
and they generously doled out campaign cash — nearly $2 million to
congressional campaigns, according to the data. (More on who got the
most, what lobbyists gave and who they contacted is here. [5]) The FARA
data show the deep reach that even small foreign governments can have
on Capitol Hill. The biggest spenders in foreign lobbying aren’t always
America’s closest allies or its biggest trading partners. Interests
in Dubai, Morocco and Equatorial Guinea were among the top spenders
on lobbying and public relations campaigns. Smaller, poorer countries
also weighed in on issues such as debt relief and human rights.
Then there are the advocates. FARA records offer a rare glimpse
into the methods of some of K Street’s biggest lobbying shops,
multinational law firms and solo operators — the hired guns for
foreign interests. Their ranks include several former members of
Congress and executive branch officials who’ve carved out second
careers.
The impact of the lobbying detailed in the FARA forms can be difficult
to fully measure. From territorial disputes to foreign and military
aid requests to trade matters, many of the issues that populate the
reports are narrow. As such, they seldom resonate above the din of
debates on health care, taxes and other domestic issues that dominate
in Washington.But this much is clear from the records: In a substantial
number of instances, countries that played the lobbying game often
got just what they wanted.
$4.2 million to dispute a single word
Robert Livingston, a former Republican congressman from Louisiana,
runs one of the most powerful firrms representing foreign
agents. He is shown here shortly after announcing his intent to
resign as Speaker-Elect of the House on Dec. 19, 1998. (WILLIAM
PHILPOTT/AFP/Getty Images)Perhaps no player in the field shows the
influence of foreign agents as much as Robert Livingston, the powerful
ex-appropriations chairman who was in line to be House Speaker before
a scandal derailed him. His firm, Livingston Group [6], reported the
highest number of contacts with government officials, and Livingston
was the second-biggest political giver among lobbyists for foreign
agents, listing more than $99,000 in campaign contributions, most
of which went to members of Congress. His clients — including the
governments of Azerbaijan, Egypt, Libya and the Republic of Congo
and the Bank of the Netherlands Antilles — showered his firm with
$5 million in fees, the third-highest total among all firms that
reported during the period.
TurkeyAlso among them was one country with a longstanding image
problem: Turkey.
>From 1915 to 1923, as many as 1.5 million Armenians perished, many at
the hands of the Ottoman government, but a precise description of the
events has been an extraordinarilysensitive subject in Turkey. The
issue also has risen regularly in Congress, thanks in part to
American-Armenian groups that have pushed for government affirmation
[7] that the killings amounted to genocide.
In October 2007, with elderly Armenian survivors from the era in
attendance, the House Committee on Foreign Affairsapproved a resolution
[8] that would do just that. The next step would be a vote before
the entire House, something Turkey wanted desperately to avoid. On
more than any other issue, Turkey, which has a U.S.-led war in Iraq
on its border, is seeking help in a longstanding effort to join the
European Union.
The genocide question split U.S. leaders. All eight living former
secretaries of state at the time sent a letter warning Congress
that offending Turkey could have serious diplomatic consequences for
the United States. Both Barack Obama and his chief opponent for the
Democratic presidential nomination, Hillary Rodham Clinton, were in
the Senate; Clinton backed a resolution recognizing the genocide,
and Obama made it a campaign pledge.
Turkey’s lobbyists made contact with the executive branch 100 times in
a coordinated effort to persuade congressional leaders to squash the
resolution. The Livingston Group worked Congress. The firm’s lobbyists
contacted the office of Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., author of the
resolution, four times on Oct. 4 to arrange a meeting with Turkish
Ambassador Nabi Sensoy. A few weeks later, Sensoy was withdrawn in
protest of the House’s consideration of the measure.
Turkey didn’t lobby just Congress — the country hired foreign agents
to promote the cause with people outside the administration, too. Noam
Neusner, who served as a speechwriter for President George W. Bush,
worked the powerful Jewish lobby, meeting with an array of groups
including the influential American Israeli Public Affairs Committee
[9] a combined 96 times to persuade them to oppose the resolution,
FARA records show. Turkey was the first Muslim country to recognize
Israel, and relations have been generally positive; but in the end,
AIPAC supported the resolution.
On Oct. 26, 2007, some sponsors of the resolution backed off a full
floor vote, and the legislation never advanced. FARA records quantify
the effort Turkey’s lobbyists put into the issue: 673 contacts in a
single month, and more than 2,200 in the filings overall — the most
of any country.
In all, records show, Turkey spent $4.2 million to mobilize its
lobbyists to influence a resolution that hinged on the single word —
genocide. Some $1.9 million of that went to DLA Piper [10], a top-50
U.S. law firm that operates globally and has taken on such high-profile
cases as the defense of imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San
Suu Kyi in Myanmar. The dispute demonstrates the power of labels —
and the lengths to which a country will go to protect its world image.
Debtors’ rights and human rights Turkey was just one of Livingston
Group’s successes.
Congo Although it is among the countries that rely most heavily on
humanitarian aid, the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) [11] turned to
the firm for help getting protection from hostile creditors.
The impoverished country’s problem involved so-called "vulture funds"
— investment vehicles that buy up defaulted debt from Third World
countries at bargain prices and then use court systems, principally
in the United States and Britain, to try to force debtor countries
to make good on the entire obligation. The Republic of Congo was
sued for $120 million by one such fund, Kensington International,
which acquired the debt for only $1.8 million. (The case has since
been settled.) The Livingston Group, along with two other firms,
reported having 36 contacts with Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and her
staff, including four meetings, one of which Waters attended, exploring
legislative actions to limit the ability of vulture funds to sue. The
effort paid off in June, when Waters introduced [12] the "Stop VULTURE
Funds Act." Among other things, the act would make it illegal to use
U.S. courts to sue poor countries for payments it defines as usurious.
The bill also had the backing of other developing countries, human
rights groups and African states facing similar lawsuits, including
Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the much bigger next door
neighbor to the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville), where the annual per
capita income is only about $4,000 a year. According to FARA documents,
the Republic of Congo (Brazzaville) spent close to $600,000 to pay
for U.S. lobbying on vulture funds and other issues in 2008.
The republic wasn’t the only poor African country with cash to buy
K Street’s help.
Ethiopia has a per capita GDP of only $800 and received $467 million
in U.S. aid in 2007, according to the latest figures available. FARA
records show that Ethiopia spent $2.3 million securing the services of
three firms, including DLA Piper, to defend its access to U.S. money.
The focus of Ethiopia’s lobbying was not on the amount of aid it was
to receive, but whether it would come with obligations to improve its
human rights record. The Bush administration saw Ethiopia as a key
ally in the war on terror; members of the House, led by Rep. Donald
Payne, D-N.J., the chairman of the House subcommittee on Africa and
Global Health, wanted to use the financial support that came with
that designation to prod Ethiopia toward democratic reforms.
Payne, joined by 85 co-sponsors [13], introduced a bill to do
just that. Ethiopia’s lobbyists had 138 contacts with congressional
offices to oppose the bill. Although the House passed it, the lobbying
offensive worked in the Senate, where the measure stalled.
A fight over independence
Morroco The Western Sahara [14] is an inhospitable patch of desert
about the size of Colorado on Africa’s Atlantic coast, with a
population of about 400,000, a GDP of only $900 million, and an economy
based on nomadic herding, fishing and phosphorous mining. It is also
one of the last colonies in the world — Morocco [15] annexed it a few
years after Spain granted it independence in 1975 — and the subject
of 34 U.N. Security Council resolutions on the territory since 1999.
In late 2007 and 2008, the desert region was a top priority for
Morocco’s hired lobbyists. At issue was Western Sahara’s autonomy,
but the story also shows how, in a foreign lobbying arms race, the
side with the biggest arsenal can come out on top.
The government of Morocco sought the support of Congress in
this lengthy territorial dispute. The region has long demanded
independence. An indigenous insurgent group, the Polisario Front [16],
waged a guerrilla war against the Moroccan military until the United
Nations brokered a cease-fire in 1991.
Part of the terms of that deal included holding a referendum to
determine the territory’s final status, but no vote has been held. In
2007, Morocco issued a proposal to grant Western Sahara autonomy
within sovereign Morocco. The U.S. initially welcomed the proposal,
and direct talks began between Morocco and the Polisario with the
involvement of Algeria, which supports self-determination for the
Sahrawi tribes from the area.
Toby Moffett, a lobbyist for Morocco who served as a Democratic
congressman from Connecticut in the 1970s and ’80s, wrote an op-ed
for the April 8, 2007, edition of The Los Angeles Times,explaininghow
he presented Morocco’s position to an unnamed member of Congress:
"Morocco has a good story to tell," he wrote. "It believes that the
long-standing dispute with Algeria and the rebel Polisario group over
the Western Sahara must be resolved.
"We tell the congresswoman and her staff that the region is becoming a
possible Al Qaeda training area," he wrote. "Algeria and the Polisario
recently hired lobbyists, too, so we’ll have our hands full."
Indeed, records show the Algerian government’s lobbyists
had 36 contacts with members of Congress and staff promoting
self-determination for the people of Western Sahara. The Algerians
paid a modest $416,000 in lobbying fees.
By comparison, lobbyists for the government of Morocco had 305 contacts
with members of Congress and their staff. Morocco paid $3.4 million
in lobbying expenses — putting it among the top foreign government
spenders for FARA filings in the period.
The intense campaign won converts. A bipartisan group of some 173
House members signed on to a statement supporting Morocco’s offer
of autonomy for the region without formal independence. President
Bush also expressed support [17] for Morocco’s plan in summer of
2008. And this April, 229 representatives sent a letter to President
Obama urging him to back Morocco.
Until Obama reversed Bush’s stance [18] last month, Morocco’s
investment worked.
Powerful industry gets a bill Issues involving human rights and
sovereignty are a minority in the FARA reports. By far most of the
foreign lobbying involves matters of trade, taxes, tourism, aid or
other economic matters.
So it was when Bermuda pitched beneficial legislation for its
reinsurance industry. The Association of Bermuda Insurers and
Reinsurers [19] includes 23 companies that together covered 30 percent
of the losses from hurricanes Katrina, Wilma and Rita in 2005. They
make money selling policies to regular insurance companies to cover
losses in catastrophic events. Together, they collect $61 billion in
global premiums, according to the association.
The Bermudan government has long supported the industry with favorable
regulatory and tax laws. When it sought further assistance from
U.S. taxpayers, FARA reports show, it turned to Darlene Richeson
[20], a former in-house lobbyist for Verizon.
Bermuda hired Richeson’s firm in January 2007 to "develop a long term
strategic plan on behalf of Bermuda focusing on the U.S. Congress
and Administration" that would "ensure that all key Committees are
penetrated and educated on issues pertinent to Bermuda’s long term
future, such as legislation regarding tax laws," according to the
disclosure her firm filed.
Part of her strategic plan was executed over two and a half days in
June 2008.
Richeson arranged a series of meetings for Bermudan Premier Brown
and the U.S. Consul General, Gregory Slayton, with members of
Congress, including Sen. Thomas Carper, D-Del., and Democrat Rangel,
chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means panel. They also met with
Reps. Thompson and Butterfield, both of whom had received modest
campaign contributions from Richeson.
In an interview with the Royal Gazette, Brown raved. "I feel even
better about the way Bermuda is perceived and the sensitivity to our
needs," he said, expressly thanking Slayton and Bermuda’s lobbyists
for setting up the contacts.
One day after a meeting with Richeson and the Bermudan delegation,
on June 26, Thompson introduced a bill [21] in the House, later
co-sponsored by Butterfield, to give homeowners and business owners in
areas susceptible to hurricanes, floods and other natural disasters tax
credits and other financial assistance to help reduce damages. Richeson
has contributed to both members’ campaigns.
Richeson declined to comment about the lobbying drive. Thompson’s
office did respond to requests for comment.
Butterfield’s communications director, Ken Willis, described
the legislation as "fiscally sound" and said that Butterfield’s
co-sponsorship had nothing to do with the meeting with Richeson. "While
he does meet with Richeson from time to time," Willis wrote in an
e-mail, "it was not what persuaded him to co-sponsor the bill. His
interest in Bermuda stems from his father being born there."
Though the hazard mitigation bill didn’t pass, members are still
pushing it. Carper — who also met with Richeson and the Bermuda
delegation that June — proposed an amendment to the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act, the $787 billion stimulus bill, that called
for hazard mitigation.
Although the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers backed the
amendment – as did other insurers and some environmental groups [22]
— it ultimately failed. In the House, Thompson reintroduced his bill
[23] this year. Further action is pending.