DOSSIER DEMOCRATS
Republican staffers on such federal agencies as the Federal
Communications Commission and the Securities and Exchange
Commission are concerned about a growing trend they fear is giving
Democrats and far-left careerists information to be used for
political gain.
According to an outside consultant working for phone giant SBC,
the amount of information being collected by federal agencies for
the approval of its merger with AT&T is far and away the most
proprietary information they have ever had to surrender to the
government.
“There something else going on here,” says the consultant. “The
type of material they are asking for, about deployment of
resources, customer ethnic background, that isn’t the type of
material the FCC has looked at in the past. It’s almost like the
career staff there is taking advantage of a situation to get at
material they otherwise might not be able to request.”
It isn’t that some of this data isn’t useful to a professional
staff attempting to approve a merger of two large companies that
serve a diverse set of consumers, says the consultant. It’s the
amount of material the FCC is asking for. “This is the kind of
material that could be used by professional staff for studies in
any number of areas that could be embarrassing to companies,
industries and individuals,” says the consultant.
More so than even in some of the critical Cabinet-level
departments, such as State, Justice and Defense, Republican
appointees to commissions have been shocked at the influence of
professional staff working at such places as the FCC, SEC, even the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
For example, professional staff at the SEC regularly bulldozed
outgoing chairman William Donaldson. Instead of
blocking policy that might prove harmful to investors or Wall
Street through the commission, Donaldson allowed staff — largely
Democratic — to sidestep the commission and implement policy
changes through rule-making procedures that didn’t require a
vote.
Donaldson’s seeming disdain for getting into political fights
with staff was one reason he was pushed out of his job earlier than
he preferred, and will be replaced by Rep. Christopher
Cox, a well-known control freak, who won’t allow staff to
slip anything by him.
“These federal commissions are just as political as anything
else in Washington,” says a GOP lawyer, who has done work before
the Federal Election Commission. “The staff can under some
circumstances ask for just about anything it needs from companies
and individuals. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are overly
zealous commission staff culling documents for ammo against
Republicans to be used down the road.”
PAVED WITH BAD INTENTIONS
The past couple of weeks haven’t been good ones for the White
House, at least in its dealings with outside groups.
Ten days ago, according to White House sources and individuals
who attended the meeting, White House Chief of Staff Andy
Card called a meeting with interested parties (mostly
supporters) on the highway bill, which has been held up for close
to two years in negotiations.
President Bush is on record as saying it will veto the larded
legislation in its current form, which is reaching upwards of $300
billion in taxpayer-funded pork projects.
Republicans in both the House and the Senate had made attempts
throughout the process to hold down the road appropriations, but,
particularly in the Senate, amendments and sweet heart deals moved
at a decent clip.
Upon hearing from Card that the President remained committed to
a veto, members of Americans for Transportation Mobility (ATM), a
coalition of more than 50 interest groups and companies, did not
take the news well. “They pretty much told Card a veto wasn’t going
to matter, and dared him to let the President do it,” says an
attendee at the meeting. “There are other bills the President
should have vetoed before this one, and he didn’t. If he wants to
be embarrassed and have that veto overridden, let him try.”
The consensus on Capitol Hill is that the highway bill almost
certainly has the votes to override a Presidential veto. Couple
that defeat with the White House’s ongoing challenges on Social
Security reform, Iraq policy, and political appointments, and you
have all the makings of a very ugly few months.
“President Bush doesn’t need a veto fight right now,” says a
Capitol Hill lobbyist. “He’s going to have a tough go on the
Central American Free Trade Agreement [CAFTA], and Social Security
is stalled out. His people need to tell him to swallow hard and
sign the highway bill.”
No sooner had Card been slapped around by the black-top folks,
than the black-robe folks jumped on him over White House
deliberations on potential Supreme Court nominees. Card was told by
mostly conservative legal types that nomination of, say, Attorney
General Alberto Gonzales, to the Supreme Court
would be unacceptable, particularly if that nomination was to fill
a slot left vacant by a conservative.
The outreach efforts to conservatives is viewed as a positive
step for a White House, but perhaps a little too late. “You look at
something like the highway bill, and their legislative people
should have been all over this months, years ago, working with us,”
says a lobbyist working for a corporate ATM member. “They can’t
just pull us in at the last minute and say that it’s their way or
nothing. In this case, they were doomed to fail, and, frankly, they
seemed surprised by what they heard from us, which was surprising
to us. They should have known we wouldn’t roll over.”
