In fact, what McCain admits to doing on Iseman’s behalf can be thought of as the regulatory equivalent of an earmark. Here’s the potential trouble for McCain: intervening with the FCC to force a vote on a lobbyist’s behalf is a lot like a self-dealing lawmaker earmarking money on a lobbyist’s behalf. From the standpoint of the client, then, the McCain-Iseman relationship was not a failure, as McCain implies, but a clear success: Iseman’s job was to get the Paxson deal moving again by bringing about a vote on his cable licenses, which she did with McCain’s eager assistance. Instead, they are hired chiefly to influence the small details of pending deals and to get things moving again when a client’s deal has stalled. In reality, lobbyists almost never persuade (or even try to persuade) lawmakers to change a position outright. Leaving aside the question of bias, this defense shouldn’t get McCain off the hook because it relies on the faulty conception of what lobbyists do. McCain got a pass on the Paxson Communications affair (Iseman’s client) largely because he voted against Paxson and therefore, he claimed, couldn’t have been biased by his relationship with Iseman. Lobbyists tend to be thought of as shady characters in expensive suits who persuade congressmen, through vaguely illicit means, to vote for this or against that. One reason McCain so easily slipped the noose after the Times article is the broad misunderstanding, including among many journalists, of how Washington lobbying really works. It’s also a big reason for McCain’s popularity-waging a lonely battle against wasteful “pork” spending by self-dealing lawmakers and shady lobbyists suits his image as a principled reformer. The prevalence of earmarks is a big reason why the number of lobbyists has exploded during the Bush years. McCain has long been a vocal opponent of earmarks, the practice of congressmen intervening in legislation, often surreptitiously, to direct money to favored projects. Understood in their proper context, they add up to something quite different than the champion reformer McCain touts himself as being. But the particulars of the business relationship McCain described as a defense of this relationship could still cause him trouble. Most media coverage focused on The New York Times’ implication of a sexual affair between McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. In an embarrassing turn for the campaign, news reports invoked the Keating scandal, once again raising questions about intervening for a patron.With all the recent focus on earmarks and disclosure in the presidential campaign, it’s worth returning for a moment to the lobbyist scandal John McCain survived en route to becoming the Republican nominee. He sent two letters to the commission, drawing a rare rebuke for interference from its chairman. McCain's staff information for drafting a letter urging a swift decision. Iseman acknowledged in an e-mail message to The Times that she had sent to Mr. McCain's staff to send a letter to the commission to help Paxson, now Ion Media Networks, on another matter. And he twice tried to advance legislation that would permit a company to control television stations in overlapping markets, an important issue for Paxson. Iseman represented several businesses seeking such a program. He introduced a bill to create tax incentives for minority ownership of stations Ms. McCain wrote letters in 19 to the Federal Communications Commission urging it to uphold marketing agreements allowing a television company to control two stations in the same city, a crucial issue for Glencairn Ltd., one of Ms.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |