"I am running to tell the lobbyists in Washington that their days of setting the agenda are over. They have not funded my campaign. They won't work in my White House."
Candidate Barack Obama
Today, after the election, the Elect has now chosen lobbyists to be a part of the Obama administration.
The Elect has 150 staff members being assigned to government agencies between now and Inauguration Day that are former lobbyists and some who were registered as recently as lobbyists this year. A great deal more are executives and partners at firms that pay lobbyists, and former government officials who work as consultants or advisers to those seeking influence.
Henry Rivera, a former Democratic commissioner on the Federal Communication Commission who was involved in planning for the agency’s transition, has dropped out of that role because he had represented clients on communications policy in the last year.
Instead, Rivera is now on the team handling science, technology, space and the arts since the Elect's rules permit people who have lobbied in one area to join an Obama transition team in another. Jim Kohlenberger will assist, he is an executive director of an advocacy group for Internet companies.
Some appointees work in areas where they have recently lobbied.
An Interior Department appointee is Keith Harper, who lobbied earlier this year for Native American tribes.
A Consumer Products Safety Commission is Pamela Gilbert, a former executive director of the agency who recently lobbied for a consumer advocacy group. She has lobbied for the company Barr Laboratories, for an investor group, and for an antitrust enforcement group.
In the Justice Department and civil rights areas is Theodore Shaw, a litigator for an arm of the N.A.A.C.P.
David J. Hayes, part of the areas of energy and natural resources, is the chairman of the environmental practice at the law and lobbying firm Latham & Watkins. He was personally registered as a lobbyist as recently as 2006, for clients including San Diego Gas and Electric.
Sally Katzen, another member of the supervisory group, was registered last year to lobby for the pharmaceutical company Amgen on Medicare reimbursements.
Louisa Terrell, a third member, is on leave from the public policy office of the Internet company Yahoo!
Tom Wheeler, a fourth member, is on leave from a firm that invests in technology companies and before 2004 lobbied for the cable television and wireless industries.
John L. White, a former Clinton official charged with overseeing the new Defense Department, is a partner in a firm that invests in defense contractors.
Michael Warren, charged with overseeing Treasury, is chief operating officer of a firm that lobbies for clients including the U.S.-India Business Council.
Warren became chief operating officer of Stonebridge and has now become a major contributor to the transition in the pivotal areas of the Treasury Department and economic policy. Although not a registered lobbyist, Mr. Warren helped manage Stonebridge while it lobbied the government for clients including the U.S.-India Business Council within the last year as well as Dynergy International, Airbus, and Conoco in earlier years.
Several of the officials have ties to the Fannie Mae, the government-backed mortgage firm whose implosion this fall contributed to the financial meltdown.
These officials include: Thomas Donilon, overseeing the State Department, is a partner in the law and lobbying firm O’Melveny and Myers who until three years ago lobbied for Fannie Mae. Wendy R. Sherman, also reviewing the State Department, once headed Fannie Mae’s charitable foundation. And James Johnson, a former top officer of Fannie Mae, is on the economics and international trade team, charged with reviewing the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Christopher Lu, the transition’s executive director may have a conflict in that his wife, Kathryn Thomson, is a lawyer who represents corporate clients dealing with federal environmental regulations, while his older brother, Curtis Lu, is a top lawyer for Fannie Mae.
The vast majority of the lobbyists that the Elect picked are second-tier officials of the Clinton administration, who left during Bush's administration to work in the private sector, usually exploiting the connections they developed in the Clinton years.
Some of these officials cuurently are employed at firms that do business with the agencies they are examining. John O. Brennan, a former Central Intelligence Agency official, is president and chief executive of the Analysis Corporation, an intelligence contractor.
On the NASA review board, Lori Garver is now president of a strategic consulting company, Capital Space LLC, and previously worked for the aerospace company DFI International.
Among the officials charged with reviewing the Securities and Exchange Commission, likely to be scrutinized amid the financial meltdown, is Mozelle Thompson, who runs a legal and policy consulting business for publicly traded companies including Facebook.com.
The Elect has also chosen Jami Miscik, now reviewing American intelligence agencies, was the head of intelligence analysis at the CIA during its biggest mistake: about Iraq’s WMD. Thereafter she become a senior official managing risks in emerging markets for the investment bank Lehman Brothers, until its collapse this fall.
It is business as usual in Washington where the rhetoric never meets the reality.
