Amid President Obama’s saber rattling at Wall Street’s “army of lobbyists,” and his lieutenants’ vilification of these hired guns, it’s easy to forget that the administration is talking about actual people, who have faces, and names — names like Gephardt, Breaux and Podesta.
Similarly to his imaginary war against health care “special interests” last year, the president portrays his push for financial regulation as a battle against intransigent Wall Street lobbyists. And as with health care “reform,” we can expect that any financial “reform” to pass both chambers will have the stamp of approval of the industry’s biggest players — in part because the big guys’ lobbyists are the president’s friends, donors and former employees.
The president chastised Wall Street lobbyists last month as he unveiled a general framework of financial regulations: “I welcome constructive input from folks in the financial sector. But what we’ve seen so far, in recent weeks, is an army of industry lobbyists from Wall Street descending on Capitol Hill to try and block basic and common-sense rules of the road that would protect our economy and the American people.”
Obama finished with some pugnacious rhetoric to rally the troops: “So if these folks want a fight, it’s a fight I’m ready to have.” But who are “these folks” who Obama neglected to name? If he had, it might have poked a hole in the populist image he is painting.
Wall Street’s “army of lobbyists” includes former Obama administration officials, many of his donors, former Democratic lawmakers, former top staff of the current key Capitol Hill Democrats, and the Democratic super-lobbyists who have ready access to this White House.
The industry’s main Washington lobby is the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, run by Chairman Thomas Nides, a Democratic revolving-door veteran. Nides gave the maximum to Obama in both the 2008 primary and general election, plus $2,000 to Obama’s Senate campaign, and in recent elections he gave $2,000 to Joe Biden and $5,000 to now-White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
The American Bankers Association retains the Democrat-heavy firm Glover Park Group, which just hired Grant Leslie away from Obama’s Agriculture Department.
At Goldman Sachs, the nation’s largest investment bank, four of the five in-house lobbyists were Democratic Capitol Hill staffers — the remaining one gave $1,000 to Hillary Clinton last election. One new addition to this shop last year was Michael Paese, recently the top staffer for Rep. Barney Frank’s Financial Services Committee. Paese gave Obama $500 in 2008.
JP Morgan’s influence division is more bipartisan, but there are still plenty of bona fide Democrats there, such as Senate Banking Committee alumnae Naomi Camper and Katherine Childress.
General Electric is another finance giant, and it is a leading player in the lobbying scene (GE was No. 2 in lobbying spending in 2009, and No. 1 over the last decade). To lobby on financial regulation, GE retains the Raben Group, perhaps the leading K Street advocate of liberal causes — the Human Rights Campaign, NAACP, Center for Reproductive Rights and ACORN are all Raben clients. Founder Robert Raben was counsel to Frank and assistant attorney general under Bill Clinton.
Bank of America’s K Street platoon includes the Podesta Group, whose co-founder John Podesta was director of Obama’s transition team. Podesta Group lobbyists for Bank of America include Tony Podesta (who visited the White House six times in Obama’s first eight months) and Oscar Ramirez, an alumnus of the Obama administration.
Goldman Sachs retains plenty of Obama allies, including: former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt; Harold Ford Sr. (father of the former representative and Obama supporter); and super-lobbyist Steve Elmendorf, Gephardt’s former chief of staff, who visited the White House at least six times last year.
Of course, many Republicans also work at this intersection of K Street and Wall Street, too, and nobody can honestly deny that the GOP was susceptible to the pleadings of Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. But Obama, who raised $14.9 million from Wall Street including $1 million from Goldman Sachs — the most ever, by a long shot, on both counts, according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics — somehow convinces the media and his base that he’s as pure as the driven snow.
This year may see a Capitol Hill war on financial regulation, but when you inspect the troops, it looks like the big banks and the White House will be wearing the same uniform.
Timothy P. Carney, The Examiner‘s lobbying editor, can be reached at [email protected]. He writes an op-ed column that appears on Friday
