THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2010
KLMNO POLITICS THE NATION & Chamber of Commerce losing battles against Obama
MAJOR MONEY BEING SPENT
Lobby hasn’t been able to stop key legislation
by Dan Eggen
and Michael D. Shear Over the past year, the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $3 million a week in oppo- sition to President Obama’s ma- jor agenda items, breaking all previous lobbying records and placing a political bet on the Re- publican Party. But so far, it’s not clear how well the gamble has paid off. The Chamber’s formidable lob- bying prowess — about $150 mil- lion spent since Obama took of- fice — did not stop passage of the administration’s two signature achievements: the health-care overhaul and the Wall Street re- form bill the president signed into law Wednesday. The nation’s largest business group has lost battles over, among other things, student-loan legislation, credit- card reforms and a landmark measure that expands workers’ rights to sue for equal pay. The business lobby, which vows to spend $75 million or more on November’s midterm election cycle, has also struggled to pick winners in this year’s pri- maries. More than half a dozen Chamber-backed GOP candi- dates have gone down to defeat. But the Chamber has had suc- cess in blocking other pieces of Democratic legislation or, in the case of health-care reform and fi- nancial regulation, shaping the final bills to the group’s liking. Thomas J. Collamore, the
Chamber’s senior vice president of communications, highlighted the group’s efforts against a pro- union “card check” bill, cap-and- trade climate legislation and a proposed public insurance op- tion. “The Chamber’s playing a crit-
this administration has taken ev- ery single day to meet our shared objectives.” The administration, stung by
what it considers unfair criti- cism, has pushed back against the anti-business allegations and reached out to other groups, such as the Business Roundtable. But the feud also helps the White House distance itself from corpo- rate interests, blunting com- plaints from the left that the ad- ministration is too cozy with big business. The Chamber’s strategy, mean- while, has been to link itself even more closely to the Republican Party, which could pay off if the GOP wins control of the House in the fall.
JOSHUA ROBERTS/BLOOMBERG NEWS Chamber President Thomas J. Donohue opposes many of the Obama administration’s economic policies.
ical role as the leading advocate for the business community in Washington,” he said in a state- ment. In addition to victories on union and environmental legisla- tion, the Chamber has helped stall White House-backed legisla- tion in the Senate that would re- quire greater disclosure of politi- cal spending by corporations. “They have in fact sought to de- fend and act from the principles which they believe in,” said Dirk Van Dongen, president of the Na- tional Association of Wholesaler- Distributors and a longtime GOP lobbyist. “I think that’s gutsy — win, lose or draw. . . . My gosh, we are not here to wind up in the Rose Garden as trees and shrubs for signing ceremonies of legisla- tion that we oppose.” While the Chamber historically
has favored Republicans, it also has sought accommodation with Democrats in the past. But the group’s relationship with the Obama administration has been increasingly tense. The Cham- ber’s president and chief exec-
utive, Thomas J. Donohue, has railed against many of the admin- istration’s economic policies, and the group has nearly doubled its lobbying and political budget since 2008. Deputy White House commu-
nications director Jen Psaki said the Obama administration still hopes to work with the group on matters on which they agree. But she added: “It is no secret that the primary focus of the Chamber of Commerce is raising money for Republican candidates.” The relationship between the administration and the Chamber was not always so fraught. The business group broke with, and angered, Republican leaders at the start of Obama’s term by backing the $787 billion stimulus package. Relations quickly soured as the White House forged ahead with health-care reform, credit-card regulations and other Democrat- ic proposals that were anathema to the Chamber. The group emerged as one of the leading combatants in the battle over
health-care legislation; several major insurers contributed up to $20 million to the Chamber for anti-reform advertising. The group spent about $1 mil- lion on ads in support of the spe- cial Senate election of Repub- lican Scott Brown in Massachu- setts and announced plans to spend $50 million — now $75million — on the midterm elections. The vast majority of the group’s spending is expected to favor Republicans. And last week, the Chamber
castigated White House eco- nomic policies in an open letter that said: “Instead of continuing their partnership with the busi- ness community and embracing proven ideas for job creation, they vilified industries while em- barking on an ill-advised course of government expansion, major tax increases, massive deficits and job-destroying regulations.” Within hours, White House
Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and senior adviser Valerie Jarrett fired back at “rhetoric that fails to acknowledge the important steps
But the strategy has also re- vealed a rift between the Cham- ber and some business leaders who favor a more moderate course. Margot Dorfman, chief executive of the U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce — an un- related group that supported the Wall Street bill and other admin- istration initiatives — said the larger group “is championing the corporate giants” that provide a significant portion of its funding. “We’re interested in what’s
good for small business, and many times that’s not what’s good for big business,” Dorfman said. The national Chamber has suf- fered a series of high-profile de- fections over its opposition to cli- mate-change legislation. Nike an- nounced last fall that it was leaving the Chamber’s board be- cause of the issue, while Apple, Pacific Gas and Electric, and sev- eral other major companies quit the group altogether.
Despite such disagreements,
the Chamber remains one of the most powerful lobbying forces in Washington. “The bottom line is, they’ve still got juice,” said Jim Manley, spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). “They still have major influence on Capitol Hill.”
eggend@washpost.com shearm@washpost.com
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report.
DIGEST NEW YORK
Street gang linked to Brooklyn arson cases Members of a violent faction of
the Latin Kings street gang burned two Brooklyn homes dur- ing a feud with a 19-year-old gangster who defied leadership, authorities said Wednesday. Eighteen alleged members of the “Borough Park Homicide Squad” were charged with arson, conspiracy and other counts, offi- cials with the New York Police Department and the Brooklyn district attorney’s office said. Prosecutors allege that the trouble began when Juan Kuang clashed with gang leaders and was stripped of his membership, adding that Kuang struck back by stabbing the brother of a ranking member, Roger Vado. In retaliation, the gang used
Molotov cocktails to firebomb homes where Kuang’s mother and girlfriend were living in late February and early March, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said. One of the buildings was de- stroyed, but people inside both locations managed to escape without injuries.
— Associated Press HEALTH
ACL therapy works as well as surgery
Most people who have a com- mon knee injury fare just as well with intense physical therapy as they do with ligament surgery, ac- cording to a study that compared the two techniques. Researchers said that a focus on rehabilitation first could pre- vent more than half of the opera- tions done to repair a tear in the anterior cruciate ligament. Such tears are the most common type of knee ligament injury, often af- fecting athletes. About 200,000 ACL reconstructions are done in the United States each year at a cost of billions of dollars. The new study was published
Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
— Reuters
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