|
It may be July, but lobbyists are already thinking about January.
As the legislative calendar ticks away, time is running out for several of Congress’s priorities this year. But that doesn’t mean K Street is resting. Lobbyists are laying the groundwork for 2009: prepping clients, searching out talent with expertise in areas that are likely to dominate the agenda next year and identifying likely members of a new administration’s transition team.
Obviously, what happens next year depends on who gets elected. But lobbyists say a few things are certain. A new president will enter with an ambitious legislative agenda, and Congress will continue its work on large, complicated bills — like climate change — that it only started to tackle this year. Each measure’s success will depend, lobbyists say, on their ability to navigate a tough spending environment and continued scrutiny on earmarks.
Lobbyists working on a new Highway Bill, another major piece of legislation that Congress will take up next year, are preparing for a tough road ahead.
“The fact of the matter is we cannot currently fund our maintenance projects right now,” said Mike Falencki, chief operating officer and vice president of policy at the Keelen Group . “The pressure is on this upcoming Highway Bill to generate some kind of revenue.”
Clients of Falencki’s firm — such as the American Council of Engineering Companies , the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades , and the Building and Construction Trades Department of the AFL-CIO — stand to benefit from the bill because it will finance job-creating construction projects nationwide. For every billion dollars appropriated under the Highway Bill, more than 47,000 American jobs are created, according to research by the Transportation Department.
But falling gas tax receipts are projected to leave a $14 billion shortfall in fiscal year 2009 for highway funds. It’s a gap that keeps lawmaker and lobbyist up at night. Keelen Group lobbyists are working on policy recommendations, such as public-private partnerships, to generate additional revenue in hopes of keeping their clients from getting caught in a big budget squeeze.
“We have to work on ways with the committee staff to get over the bad taste that private-public partnerships just equal toll roads,” said Falencki. “No matter where the money source is coming from, we need projects to get built.”
Falencki’s firm is also preparing for a future in which Democrats have firmer control of Congress. That could be good news for his clients. Falencki expects a Democratic Congress to require government contracts to have union protections, as in the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires that jobs pay a prevailing wage.
Much of the preparation for 2009 is in planning to defend what has already become law. Several lobbyists said their firms have begun reviewing regulations passed by the Bush administration that might be changed or voided by a new White House.
“Your defensive list is longer than your offensive list. People at first are trying to figure out what bad might happen to them,” said Joel Jankowsky, a senior partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld . “Of all the big items, you try to observe what the new administration will act on and in what sequence.”
Lobbyists are also trying to predict how Congress might look. Even if, as expected, Democrats retain their majorities in the House and Senate, the leadership of prominent committees could shift.
“You don’t know who is going to be sitting in those seats,” Jankowsky said. “The substantive elements are not going to change, but the people are going to change.”
For example, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), as the chairman of a House Judiciary subcommittee, signed off on a patent reform bill this Congress. But Berman also took over the Foreign Affairs Committee after the death of its chairman, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif.).
It isn’t clear whether Berman will be able to maintain both chairmanships in the next Congress. The decision is a big one for Jankowsky and other lobbyists who represent manufacturers that had concerns with the patent bill, which stalled this year despite Berman’s support.
Beyond specific bills, many lobbyists expect the mood in Washington to shift fundamentally due to a new Congress and a new administration.
Lane Bailey, worldwide director of public affairs for GolinHarris , believes the selection of Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as their parties’ presidential candidates foreshadows a cultural shift as well.
“They are demanding change. They are running on change,” said Bailey. “That’s what we will exactly see. That will become more of the culture, part of the DNA that will be a sweeping change of the institutions.”
Bailey distributed a five-point strategy to his team that emphasizes transparency and ethics when working with their clients. Bailey expects new ethics regulations from Congress and a McCain or an Obama administration, even though lawmakers updated lobbying laws already this year.
GolinHarris also expects a big legislative push on climate change and healthcare reform, and has begun hiring new lobbyists with expertise in both areas.
Patty First, a principal at the Raben Group , is starting to prepare by focusing on her clients, asking them what they want from a new administration. The liberal nonprofit groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law that First represents are likely to be particularly focused on new Supreme Court nominees.
“They have to be preparing those priorities now. Preparing those priorities in October or September will be too late, because the transition teams will already be forming,” said First.
First will potentially help her clients identify members of those transition teams for either a McCain or an Obama administration.
“There is going to be such massive turnover, even if it’s McCain. It’s much more of an intensive process,” First said. |
