In order to make informed decisions, voters need accurate information about candidates. That’s why it is troubling that Maryland Del. Peter Franchot, a Democrat from Montgomery County who is running for Maryland Comptroller, does not acknowledge in his official biography nor his campaign biography that he works outside of the Maryland General Assembly.
Franchot works for one of Washington’s biggest lobbying firm, Cassidy & Associates, which, according to OpenSecrets.org, billed clients for more than $211 million for lobbying activities from 1998 to 2005. OpenSecrets.org is a nonpartisan Web site run by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Why doesn’t Franchot disclose the nature of his employment in campaign materials? Indeed, why doesn’t Cassidy & Associates list Franchot on its Web page? When The Examiner called Cassidy & Associates and asked for Franchot, we were connected to his voice mail.
Franchot told The Examiner that he is a “business consultant,” not a lobbyist. That strikes us as a distinction without practical significance. In any case, Franchot calls himself “the only Democrat” in a race that also features the incumbent Democrat, Comptroller William Donald Schaffer, and Janet Owens, Democratic Anne Arundel County Executive.
On the campaign trail, Franchot often touts his environmental and anti-gambling credentials. We doubt that he says much about some of the major accomplishments Cassidy & Associates cites about itself:
» When the president of the United States rescinds funding for a multibillion dollar defense system, the contractor retains Cassidy & Associates to plan and implement a public affairs program that reaches targeted audiences nationwide from Seattle to Boston, Miami to Minneapolis … and the decision is reversed.
» A leading U.S. chemical company seeks to develop a major new business sector by marketing its product to the federal government … and does it.
Did we mention that Cassidy clients have included Wal-Mart, scourge of Democrats, and the Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana, which hired the firm in 2005 for gambling and casino-related work?
Franchot declined to provide The Examiner with a list of clients for whom he works. But he said he specializes “in helping urban hospitals not in Maryland understand how they can connect to communities.”
We wonder if Franchot had anything to do with lobbying for any of the 1,800-plus Labor-HHS appropriations bill earmarks revealed yesterday by The Examiner, hundreds of which are for hospitals and other medical clinics and institutions.
Why should anybody care about these matters? It matters in Maryland because the state comptroller exercises power second only to the state’s governor and has a key role in awarding of millions of dollars worth of state contracts and other business.
Here’s a partial list of the official boards and panels on which the comptroller sits: Board of Public Works; the Board of Revenue Estimates; the Maryland Agricultural Land Preservation Foundation; the Banking Board; the Capital Debt Affordability Committee; the Maryland Food Center Authority, the Maryland Industrial Development Financing Authority and the Board of Trustees for Maryland State Retirement and Pension System.
It matters elsewhere because Franchot appears to be like politicians everywhere who haven’t yet figured out that in the age of the Internet voters and the media — old and new — have access to immense resources to shine light in the dark corners of politics and government. Sooner or later, though, we’re confident the Franchots everywhere will get the message.
