House Members Parroting Lobbyist Talking Points
It’s naive to think we’ll ever be governed by angels, but norms and culture do matter for how people behave. And one of our problems in the United States is that the norms currently prevailing on Capitol Hill are not very admirable, and the culture is largely one of shamelessness and irresponsibility. Which is how you get stories like this about members of congress—from both parties—entering into the congressional record statements written by lobbyists for Genentech.
(Genentech PR photos)
Robert Pear explains that the statements “were meant to show bipartisan support for certain provisions, even though the vote on passage generally followed party lines.” Basically, the House health care bill included some stuff that’s good for Genentech. So they had one version of their preferred language that was designed for Democrats who “emphasized the bill’s potential to create jobs in health care, health information technology and clinical research on new drugs.” Republicans, on the other hand, “opposed the bill, but praised a provision that would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to approve generic versions of expensive biotechnology drugs, along the lines favored by brand-name companies like Genentech.”
In separate statements using language suggested by the lobbyists, Representatives Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Joe Wilson of South Carolina, both Republicans, said: “One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country. Unfortunately, many of the largest companies that would seek to enter the biosimilar market have made their money by outsourcing their research to foreign countries like India.”
I have no opinion on the underlying merits of this provision. But obviously the fact that congressional staff, from both parties, are comfortable copy-and-pasting emails from corporate lobbyists into official member statements is revelatory of the mindset up there. As are the statements being offered in response to Robert Pear’s article:
In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.” He said he got his statement from his staff and “did not know where they got the information from.” [...]
In recent years, Genentech’s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members, including some who filed statements in the Congressional Record. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers. But Evan L. Morris, head of Genentech’s Washington office, said, “There was no connection between the contributions and the statements.”
On Pascrell’s part, you see a kind of narrow effort to evade blame for a slightly embarrassing story. But you don’t see evidence that he, personally, is anything close to shocked and outraged that this is how his staff has been conducting itself. Similarly, Morris is just clarifying that there are no illegal bribes happening here. And obviously it’s not his responsibility to uphold a higher standard of ethical conduct by members of congress and their staff. And one way or another, this is the kind of thing you’re never going to eliminate with formal rules. It’s a question of individuals’ own sense of what’s acceptable conduct, and what will be seen by friends and colleagues as acceptable
31 Responses to “House Members Parroting Lobbyist Talking Points”
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November 15th, 2009 at 8:49 am
I work in biotech- the biosimilar thing is going to be one of the big determinants of future health care costs as far as prescription drugs. Right now when “regular” (small-molecule) drug patents expire, generics can be made by competing companies, which drives the price way down but obliterates the original company’s profits. This can be done because small molecules can be shown to be identical to each other, so the generics can be marketed without new clinical trials that would cost hundreds of millions.
Biologics (therapeutic antibodies, proteins) make up an increasing fraction of the drug market- some estimates are that they’ll be 40-50% eventually. Big players are Genentech, Genzyme, Biogen. When their patents expire, other companies can’t come into the market because it’s hard to show that proteins are exactly the same as the approved product and there are no government regulations for demonstrating “biosimilarity.” Generic companies (yes, some from India or China) have been pushing for such approval regulations and the FDA has been moving that way, which would kill the profits of biotechs but, like generics, greatly reduce overall healthcare costs.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:02 am
Sometimes I get the uncomfortable feeling I’m watching someone lose his virginity, Yglesias. Weird and a little discomfiting. Very “A Young Boy’s Journey from Milan to Minsk.”
November 15th, 2009 at 9:15 am
[bored]Yea, I’m shocked; really, I am.[sarcasm] Seriously, who’s surprised by this? Then again, maybe MattY is subtly suggesting that we might do something about it. In which case, Kudos to Matt.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Presenting somebody else’s work is cause for expulsion in college. In Congress, it’s another day at the office.
Elected officials of both parties are reading press releases from lobbyists, laundering out the author as standard practice, and don’t see the quid pro quo. PR spokesmen get PAID. At the very least that is what these Congressman are doing for the lobbyists, giving valuable PR in the form of favorable statements from a Congressperson.
Nevermind the votes on actual, you know, legislation.
Does that new outside ethics thing in the House have a phone number?
November 15th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I am not really surprised by this. I remember reading in a book called The Ambition and the Power(it was about Jim Wright’s speakership) that lobbyists would stand by the doors to the House chamber during a vote and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to let Congressmen know how they should vote.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Look, these lazy frauds were not imposed on their constituents by Martians. They are the logical result of the American people’s unwillingness to accept the responsibilities of citizenship in a constitutional democracy.
If you don’t care (or in many cases, don’t even know) who represents you, then your representative is very unlikely to care about you.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Gee, it’s sorta like Obama cut and pasting from Duval Patrick!
And didn’t our Osama get the memo about American Presidents not bowing to kings and emperors?
How gay is that?!
November 15th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Why would Republicans want to put supportive statements in the Congressional Record? Simple. So, next year when they are campaigning, and their Democratic opponent attacks them for voting against giving more authority to the FDA, etc… the Republicans can call the Democrat a liar and claim they supported that provision, amendment, etc…. They will even run TV Ads with the quote in big letters while the announcer guy tells you how the Democrat is being dishonest and trying to deceive the public. Then in the next breath the announcer will tell you how the republican fought to save our health care system from a socialist, nazi takeover.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Matt, you miss the point. Everyone one of these representatives fears God and gay marriage, so stop nitpicking.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
American legislators have an extremely large staff size as it is. If, in addition to their huge staffs, they need to bring in lobbyists to write their speeches, you have to wonder what they and their staffs are doing all day.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:37 am
He has a point, I’m sorry to say.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:45 am
I think this statement from MattY is also worth highlighting:
the fact that congressional staff, from both parties, are comfortable copy-and-pasting emails from corporate lobbyists into official member statements is revelatory of the mindset up there.
DC is a place where newspapers regularly publish almost word-for-word pastes of think tank press releases and pass them off as news (in the case of the WaTimes, this is its mission). The job of many pundits is to repeat the daily talking points and pass them off as their own. And all over the country conservatives who like to believe themselves to “know a lot about politics” live their lives repeating what ever they saw in a recent right wing chain email or will rant about what just saw on the drudge report. The entire political culture– especially the conservative culture, believes this is acceptable behavior.
Say what you want about the fist fights on the floors of the Taiwanese and South Korean legislatures, at least they are throwing their own punches and depending on their own skills.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:49 am
OK, look. First, Members of Congress do not have a huge staff. The typical DC staff is 8, including a staff assistant and scheduler who don’t have legislative responsibilities. This means that an LA has a work load of one committee and 5 or 6 issue areas like health care, taxes, financial services, telecommunications, and transportation.
Second, I…just don’t see the outrage here. Were the staff dumb for not moving some more of the words around, so their boss wasn’t saying the same thing as everyone else? Sure. But no one is claiming that these members don’t mean what their statement says. We get sample questions for hearings from lobbyists all the time–is that different than this situation? I suppose Matt’s right that this will take a change in culture, but as part of that culture, I just don’t see that happening.
November 15th, 2009 at 9:51 am
I assume they’re bending hookers over chairs, courtesy of lobbyists.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:06 am
Gee, it’s sorta like Obama cut and pasting from Duval Patrick!
Who’s Duval Patrick?
November 15th, 2009 at 10:32 am
Anthony: Unless you’re mocking his spelling (because the name is spelled Deval) Deval Patrick is the governor of Massachusetts, and in some of Obama’s speeches he used some phrases that Deval Patrick had used. The Obama campaign’s response was that Deval Patrick and Obama are friends, and they explicitly collaborated on that.
Of course, it’s completely apples and oranges, since the problem here isn’t that congressmen are being unoriginal, but that they are specifically quoting corporate lobbyists and aren’t even trying to hide it.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:37 am
And didn’t our Osama get the memo about American Presidents not bowing to kings and emperors? How gay is that?!
Less gay than holding hands with King Saud during a romantic stroll through the garden? Say it ain’t so!
November 15th, 2009 at 10:51 am
In separate statements using language suggested by the lobbyists, Representatives Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Joe Wilson of South Carolina, both Republicans, said: “One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country. Unfortunately, many of the largest companies that would seek to enter the biosimilar market have made their money by outsourcing their research to foreign countries like India.”
You Lie! or very close to it…
November 15th, 2009 at 11:04 am
I’m not convinced the members even knew what was in the statements. The fact of the mater is, Genetech wanted this provision in the bill, and got 42 House members to cut and paste their reasoning into the Congressional Record. If the staffs were really that pressed for time, they didn’t have to submit anything – it’s not like this is a college term paper.
November 15th, 2009 at 11:35 am
My impression was that this was actually the main way that lobbyists influenced power – by handing language and research to overworked staff so it made it in to the end bill. So if the culture changed, that would actually be a huge blow to lobbying.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
My problem with this is the politicians should schedule those commercial breaks in their speeches so we can skip them easier.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
@Roadrunner – Boo fucking hoo. Any Congresspeople or staff complaining about the workload should buy a clue.
From a House FAQ:
If you can’t find somebody to stop you from making a whore of yourself to lobbyists for a million dollars, maybe you should reexamine how you staff your office.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Wonder if any politicians’ careers will be ruined for having plagiarized lobbyist talking points?
Funny that Joe Wilson can get all worked up over “lies” but not over actual plagiarism.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
It’s not a matter of “somebody” for $1 million, it’s “20 somebodies” for $1 million–most of whom don’t work on legislation. The majority of congressional staff work in the district offices, and they handle the (very important) jobs of community outreach and casework. Again, an office usually has five or six people who work legislation, paid about $50,000 a year.
And I still don’t see this as “whoring for lobbyists”. Did people change their votes because of the biosimilars issue? Apparently not, since many of the members who submitted statements still voted against the bill. These members submitted statements for the record in support of a local industry. Happens all the time, and I’m not sure why it matters so much that the statements were written by lobbyists, not staff. Would you be as upset if the same sentiments were written by staff, in support of the same local businesses?
And why do they submit statements for the record? It’s a way of placating your boss when he can’t get time on the floor. “Sorry, committee staff says they don’t have anymore time, but we can submit something for the record. How about something on the importance of the biotech industry to the district?”
November 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
That you don’t, as an ostensible “liberal” pundit, have an opinion on this matter is indicative of the thinking on capitol hill. Companies like genentech and organization like BIO are merely trying to protect their profits by needlessly extending patent exclusivity. When I worked on the Hill, I encountered this subject and discovered how cowed members were in spite of the clear public benfits of generic expansion. Matt, you should know about this issue. It only takes a rudimentary understanding of patent history to know that the claims of biologic producers are nearly identicalto the old arguments against generic medication, When single molecule drugs were set to expire and generic competition was ushered in, pharmaceutical companies made the exact same claims that the products could not be replicated and required further exclusivity for public safety concern. It’s nonsense meant to pad profits and ultimately results in necessary medications being out of reach.
As to the issue of why this absurd problem (copying and pasting etc):
The most clear problem is the permanent campaign and lack of public financing. Handing over cash for favors has a name: bribery. But another, less obvious and apparently misunderstood problem, is the staff. The staffs in congressional offices are pathetically understaffed and lacking expertise. Many offices have 25 year olds with no professional expertise seeking to understand an issue beyond their comprehension. Lobbyists fill this vacuum very easy. Additionally, even if we wanted to increase staff size, many older and more experienced hands would decline because the salaries are so low to not merit serious consideration.
November 15th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
@Roadrunner – “Would you be as upset if the same sentiments were written by staff, in support of the same local businesses?”
It’s not the job of House members to do PR or get favors for individual companies, full stop. That’s why government procurement is so uberscrewed and why military planes end up having parts made in 40 plus states, it’s all about Mom, apple pie, and getting ’sentiments in support of local business’ to override best practices.
I have zero problem with a Rep from the Detroit area making general statements in favor of the automobile industry. I’d have a huge problem wit the same Rep reading from a script written by Ford or the UAW. It’s not the same thing and I’m baffled as to why I have to explain it. It’s not like these Reps. are saying ‘What’s good for Genentech is good for my district’. That would be OK. It’s an unelected Genentech lobbyist laundering a statement on healthcare policy through a stupid and/or amoral shill and calling it ‘governing’.
You can fast forward through the ads on your DVR but apparently you can’t do it on C-Span during a floor debate in the House. And you don’t see what’s wrong with that?
November 15th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Congress needs to be educated on issues they vote on, especially scientific ones. Kickbacks and campaign contributions aside, I suspect that they often fall for the PR because they aren’t grounded in the topic. They’re easy marks.
November 15th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orzag and Larry Summers channel Denny Shelton circa 2007 on health care reform. They did appoint one of Denny’s board members as White House Health Czar. It’s more than lobbyists sharing talking points. For-profit health care CEO’s are in on the act.
November 15th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
[...] Matthew Yglesias [...]
November 15th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Anthony: Unless you’re mocking his spelling (because the name is spelled Deval) Deval Patrick is the governor of Massachusetts
I was mocking his spelling.
November 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
Sick of the stupid stereotype and how everybody is hellbent on keeping it going.