Sen. Dodd Brings Lobbyists To Tears, Takes Their Money

WASHINGTON — Facing the toughest re-election fight of his nearly 30 years in the Senate, Sen. Christopher Dodd boasts about snubbing lobbyists.

Yet even as he touts his independence, the embattled Connecticut Democrat is still cashing lobbyist campaign checks and rubbing shoulders with them at fundraisers and party gatherings.

Dodd, perhaps the most vulnerable Senate Democrat in 2010, has driven home his message in fundraising pitches and campaign videos.

"The lobbyists can't get meetings with Chris," Dodd's campaign manager Jay Howser said in a recent e-mail to supporters. "He won't return their phone calls ... Chris just isn't giving them the time of day."

The videos even suggest Dodd has been so hard on lobbyists that he's made them cry.

But the tough talk hasn't stopped Dodd from raking in tens of thousands of dollars in lobbyist campaign contributions this year. It hasn't prevented Dodd from letting lobbyists host his fundraising events. Or kept Dodd from schmoozing with lobbyists at places like Martha's Vineyard, a favorite summer getaway spot for the rich and famous off the Massachusetts coast.

A few days after Howser's e-mail, Dodd trekked to Martha's Vineyard for a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee weekend retreat where about 30 senators joined major party donors, including lobbyists.

Dodd's leading role in the Senate's big health care reform fight has made him a popular target for the many lobbyists working for hospitals, doctors, drug companies, insurers and other medical industry groups with major stakes in the outcome.

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Dodd was tapped by ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education Labor and Pensions Committee, to take over the panel in his absence as it tackled the sweeping health care overhaul.

Dodd led the committee in recent weeks as it hammered out a bill to expand insurance coverage to all Americans, becoming the first congressional panel to approve a health care reform plan.

More than a dozen health care lobbyists wrote him checks in the weeks before the panel began drafting its bill, Dodd's fundraising report for the second quarter that ended June 30 shows. Some of K Street's most prominent lobbyists ponied up.

The Glover Park Group's Joel Johnson and Susan Brophy each gave $1,000. The prominent firm with Democratic ties represents Pfizer Inc., WellPoint Inc., the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association and United Health Care Services, Inc.

Richard Tarplin, a former Dodd aide who is a health care lobbyist, gave $2,500.

Christopher R. O'Neill, the son of the late former House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill Jr., gave $1,000. O'Neill's firm lobbies for the American Hospital Association, which paid them $50,000 during the second quarter. The firm also got $150,000 during the quarter from Partners HealthCare.

Anthony Podesta, one of Washington's best-known Democratic lobbyists, contributed $500. The Alliance for Quality Nursing Home Care paid Podesta's firm, the Podesta Group, $120,000 for the quarter.

Podesta's wife, Heather Podesta, hosted a $1,000 per person fundraiser in March for Dodd at the Podestas' home in the affluent Woodley Park neighborhood of Washington. Her firm, Heather Podesta + Partners, was paid $50,000 this year by HealthSouth Corp., one of the country's largest health care service providers.

Two lobbyists for U.S. Oncology, a leading oncology services company, hosted a $1,500 per person Dodd fundraiser in June. The event was sandwiched between a health panel session chaired by Dodd and a later White House event attended by Dodd.

All told, Dodd has collected $436,062 from lobbyists since 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that tracks money in politics.

Republicans have accused Dodd of publicly denouncing the same lobbyists he cozies up to privately for cash.

"Voters can see through Dodd's nonsensical doublespeak, especially when he's collecting millions of dollars from the same people who he claims to make cry," said National Republican Senatorial Committee spokeswoman Amber Wilkerson.

Howser said Dodd is simply highlighting complaints by lobbyists – made anonymously in a few news stories – about how Dodd is giving them the cold shoulder.

"The big point that everybody's missing is why are (lobbyists) mad at him," Howser said. "They're mad at him because he's cracking down."

Dodd's popularity has tumbled in the wake of the financial meltdown and his failed 2008 presidential bid. He provoked a home-state backlash after temporarily moving his family to Iowa before his poor showing in the caucuses there.

Dodd has been criticized for collecting Wall Street contributions while chairing the Senate banking panel. He's also come under fire for his role in writing a bill that protected bonuses for executives at bailed-out insurer American International Group Inc. and for allegations he got favorable treatment on two mortgages with Countrywide Financial Corp.

A recent poll showed Dodd running 9 points behind former GOP congressman Rob Simmons.

Comments

[VDHL]

Take their money then screw them. I love that idea. I think they all should do it until lobbyists are simply illegal, which is long overdue.

[starkcr31]

Why is this guy still in office? He's a big part of why the housing crisis happened.

[christopherflynn]

Dodd's a Dudd....

[vippy]

The only way we can get our message across is to vote all incumbents out of office. Never mind what party affiliation, keep them there for 4 years and off they go again. Bet they will pay attention to us!

[Antonio518]

Why cant Congress pass a law that says that all money from lobyists goes into a general fund to run the government? Thus money from a pharmaceutical company could go into education, for example. After, it's their patriotic duty if they have money to donate to the general well-being. Or havent they ever heard of patriotism?

[KriTiKiT]

taken the money and running... i like the karmatic value

[Agent420]

A piece of crap.

[Agent420]

My favorite definitions to the word crap as seen in the famous post above.

5. crap : pertaining to or related to any mainstreem corprate music made in the last few years

6. crap : The only word in the English language with a silent 'C' at the beginning. (Alternate spelling: rap) as in: I can't believe you're listening to this crap.

[KriTiKiT]

why because he took there blood money and now he is ignoring them... I think that is awesome

[KriTiKiT]

i would do the same thing, take the money from the lobbyist then ignoring them... thats the art of politics..­. get in remember what they said and bust there buts with it... its like total Irony

[KriTiKiT]

what lobbying group do you work for?

[pogo]

Ain't it odd how judges, who only (theoretically) interpret and apply law, must (theoretically) recuse themselves if faced with a potential conflict of interest in a case they are hearing, while legislators, who actually make law, are allowed to openly rake in bribes? What Mikeeee is saying is really at the root of America's current decay, and is the reason representative democracy can't work-at least, not until we recognize that corporations have hi-jacked it.

[Okieborn]

I am tired of the lies and deceit from Repubs. or Democrats !!!!

[marsha1951]

Unfortunately Okieborn, we are from a state that is red to the bone. I think we need a new political affilation other than the dems, repubs and independents in our country. None of these people actually hear our voices. They work for us, and most politicians need to be fired!

[katmeyster]

We desperately need public financing of campaigns. Good people (I'm not sure about Dodd) should not have to make the decision between public service and bribery from lobbyists. I'm sure the rationale is, "well I can't serve the people unless I'm in office, but I can't get in office without these large campaign donations.­" Maybe they think they can make policy and legislative decision forgetting who put them in office -- who they go to lunch and cocktails with -- who their staff talks to every day. But they can't. And we shouldn't let them. Think of how many billions of dollars we would save if all that pork was not written into every bill in Congress -- it would be so much cheaper to just give them the money to run.

[Jazzman323]

Why isn't Sen. Dodd in jail??

[Agent420]

Good question.

[samuelberg]

He's acting within the confines of the law. Ya know, the one that permits Obama to sleep with all of his lobbyists and Wall Street cronies and rent-to-own a $20 million, 29 acre compound. So much for humbly serving the public. Slick William has reaped the most money since he left office than any other president in history.

[KriTiKiT]

agent 420 you sound like a lobbyist sympathizer

[PunKinPai]

For what? This is not only legal, but par for the course in American politics. Politicians aren't going to give it up, either, because the only way to get elected is to rake in more dough than your opponent. It's laughable to have any Republican criticize Dodd for this when they've turned it into a fine art.

[Mikeeee]

Capitalist corporations have not always dominated the world or, for that matter, American society.

The American Civil War was, in part, fought to abolish slavery. With the abolition of slavery, wage-labor was instituted, which is what the Northern corporations and banking interests wanted as the economic basis for their relationship to workers. The slaves were freed and so were the corporations.

Toward the end of the Civil War, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wrote, in a letter to Col. William F. Elkins on November 21, 1864, "I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the (Civil) war, corporations have been enthroned, and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed. I feel, at this moment, more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless­."

[Mikeeee]

Twenty-two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court, almost inadvertently, laid the legal groundwork for the protection of corporations by the Constitution.

Ever since a 1886 Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, corporations have enjoyed equal status under the law with real persons, with every Constitutional right, privilege and protection that a person has. Indeed, not only did the Supreme Court decision grant corporations the same rights as living persons under the Fourteenth Amendment, the legal status of person-hood of corporations has since become the cornerstone of corporate law in America.

Corporations are persons? How can that be, you ask? Corporations are not conceived in the belly of a woman, are born, grow, become old and die as persons do. True! And, in fact, corporations are the only "persons" who, potentially, are immortal!

And, get this: if corporations are persons but owned by share holders as their property, then the share holders, by legal definition, are in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits slavery (i.e., a person or persons owning another person as property).

[Mikeeee]

Here's how it came about.

In its affirming judgment of the case, the Court upheld the arguments of the defendants. One of "The special grounds of defense by each of the defendants" (the railroad corporations) was: "(2) That the provisions of the constitution and laws of California, in respect to the assessment for taxation of the property of railway corporatio­ns..., are in violation of the fourteenth amendment of the constituti­on..., in so far as they require the assessment of their property at its full money value, without making deduction, as in the case of railroads operated in one county, and of other corporations, and of natural persons, for the value of the mortgages covering the property assessed; thus imposing upon the defendant unequal burdens, and to that extent denying to it the equal protection of the laws."

This stipulation wasn't even argued by the Court. According to the official case record, Supreme Court Justice Morrison Remick Waite simply pronounced before the beginning of argument in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company that

QUOTE
The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does.

The court reporter duly entered into the summary record of the Court's findings that

QUOTE

[Agent420]

Excellent post and it has earned you the dubious honor of having me as a fan.

Even corporate God, John Maynard Keynes did not believe in corporations. He thought that companies should rise up to produce a product and be the best they can at producing that product. When the product was no longer required the company should dissolve and the people move on.
When a project that is too large for a single company to complete, the organization should be formed for the project, much as is done today. Example: The project to put a man on the moon. The organization should have no permanence, once the project is done, the people move on.

It all comes down to this: Corporations are evil.

[KriTiKiT]

they took our money now your busting him for stealing it back and pushing health care you suck

[Suggie]

Corporations are inanimate objects. They are neither evil nor good.

[totaldisbelief]

if the Dems are smart they'll find another "more palatable" new Dem to put on the primary and not concede the election to the GOP. Dodd is a lost cause, way too visible on the financial /banking issues that have sunk us and the GOP will rip him badly in ads.

[totaldisbelief]

Too little too late...we know the game you play.

[Dots]

If more in congress took the money and gave the cold shoulder, maybe the lobbyists would go away.
Campaign reform has to be the next big item on the agenda.

[MNinWI]

I am not sure how that can be done-they sure are not going to change it, are they? You're right of course. We also need, as stated earlier, to get rid of corp personhood, Thom Hartmann has been talking about this for a long time. I once did a mini-class on this subject. It really has done so much damage to America. We need a strong push back on this-it has gone on too long. Americans have accepted too much abuse over the years in the name of capitalism.