Participation by the Dead

In chapter 8, we discuss political participation. A couple of CQ articles point out that dead people can participate, too. No, it's not a Halloween joke. In some states, an absentee ballot counts even if the person who cast it dies before election day. And some people leave money in their wills to campaign, parties, and political action committees.

The House Health Bill

(Photo by Jesse Blumenthal)

From The Politico:

It runs more pages than War and Peace, has nearly five times as many words as the Torah, and its tables of contents alone run far longer than this story. The House health care bill unveiled Thursday clocks in at 1,990 pages and about 400,000 words. With an estimated 10-year cost of $894 billion, that comes out to about $2.24 million per word.

Lobbying

In chapter 9, we discuss ways in which interest groups try to influence lawmakers. Most analyses emphasize PAC contributions. And although campaign money is part of the story, influence also depends on grassroots support. We cite AARP, which has never made any campaign contributions but wields power because it has millions of members who will write their lawmakers. The Hill offers the example of the American Petroleum Institute, which helped set up "Energy Citizen" rallies against global-warming legislation. And individual firms come into play, too:

“The oil and gas sector writ large is just not loved up on the Hill. But our employees are, especially the ones at the plants out in the states,” said Stephen Brown, a lobbyist with Tesoro Corp., a large oil refiner.

Tesoro’s corporate offices are in Texas, but its refineries are located in Alaska, California, Hawaii, Utah and North Dakota, a state that could play an outsized role in the climate debate as home to two Democratic senators who have expressed unease with the cap-and-trade bill.

Tesoro CEO Bruce Smith toured the company’s refineries this summer to talk about the House climate bill, noting that the free allowances the industry would receive don’t come close to covering its emissions. Refiners say the climate bill could force many domestic companies out of business.

The company has also set up a website, www.ActTesoro.com, where employees can see whom they should call, send an e-mail or write a letter. ... Brown said Tesoro employees have been eager to participate in the new grassroots campaign. At some plants as many as 80 percent of the workers have used the new site.

“They get that if there is a negative impact on our sector it will have a negative impact on their jobs,” Brown said.

Of course, campaign money remains in the news, as The Hill reports:

Dozens of lobbyists were invited to a Democratic National Committee (DNC) fundraiser Tuesday night with a Cabinet member even though President Barack Obama has sworn off taking money from lobbyists.

A DNC official said it was a mistake that lobbyists were invited to a small gathering with Lisa Jackson, Obama’s administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The official said a review of attendees indicates that no lobbyists attended the event.

The invitation, which was obtained by The Hill, was sent to lobbying firms, however. And it invited employees to join Jackson and DNC national finance chairwoman Jane Stetson at the Georgetown home of Frank Loy, a former State Department official in the Clinton administration.

Public Knowledge

Chapter 8 of our book discusses what the public does and does not know about politics. The Pew Research Center has some new survey information:

America's Standing

A recurring feature in the text is "International Perspectives." A recent report by the American Political Science Association sheds light on this subject. Among other things, it finds:

Not surprisingly, perhaps, one of President Obama’s central foreign policy objectives has been to “restore American standing.” To date, Obama appears to enjoy broad confidence around the globe. Favorable foreign attitudes towards the United States have risen sharply. At the same time there are strong indications of continuing, deep global dissatisfaction with U.S. economic and military policies. This suggests that U.S. standing remains a significant political issue. The disjuncture between confidence in Obama and discontent with U.S. policies is a potentially troubling fault line for the
United States and the Obama presidency.

The the task force members who wrote the report, two offered a partial dissent:

[T]his report makes too much of the recent decline of U.S. standing, implicitly indicting the administration of George W. Bush and endorsing President Obama’s rhetoric to “restore” that standing. This point of view is certainly popular and defensible—one could even say confirmed by the elections. But we would have preferred a disclaimer much earlier in the report warning the reader to be aware that political bias affects perceptions of standing. The academic community, unbalanced as it is between self-identified Republicans and Democrats, is not immune to such bias.

A Comprative Perspective from Uganda

Our book has a regular boxed feature comparing the United States and other nations. In this vein, Ugandan journalist Rodney Muhumuza has some thoughtful reflections after a lengthy American stay:

Asked to say something about politics in Uganda — and it happened often — my typical response would be something close to this: “I was born in 1981, five years before Yoweri Museveni came to power after a guerrilla war. He is the only president I have known, and I am a grown man.” Probed further, I might add: “I love my country very much. But I am still waiting for the day we will have a peaceful transfer of power.”

It was the kind of routine that was delivered with devastating steadiness. Four days before I left America, an American economist named Duncan Chaplin interviewed me for a radio station that broadcasts online for a Kenyan audience. Everything seemed to go well until he asked me to compare the Ugandan and American political situations. I did not know what to say. “There is nothing to compare,” I said, by which time he had realised that it was not a particularly good question. My point had been made.

The United States settled this issue in 1801. John Adams had lost a tough, nasty presidential election to Thomas Jefferson. He was bitter about his defeat, but when the hour came, he packed his bags and went home. It never occurred to him to do otherwise.

Podesta Power

Chapter 9 of the book has a photo essay on the Podesta family. An item in today's Politico gives a hint of the family's wide-ranging influence:

Spotted Friday night at lobbyist Tony Podesta’s 65th birthday party inside the National Museum of Women in the Arts museum: wife Heather Podesta; brother, head of Center for American Progress and former co-chair of Obama’s transition team John Podesta; Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with husband Paul Pelosi; Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.); Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.) and husband Sidney Harman; Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.); Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.); Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.); actress from television’s “thirtysomething” Polly Draper and her husband, jazz pianist Michael Wolff; Beth Dozoretz; Charlie Cook; Meredith Harman; Marlene Malek; Project on Government Oversight’s Adam Zagorin; The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney and Tara Palmeri; NMPA’s David Israelite; and Lisa Tseng.

An August Washington Post profile of Heather Podesta provided more background:

"This is a very good time to be a Democratic lobbyist . . . it's incredibly exciting to be able to engage with Democrats and really see things happen," Podesta says one afternoon at her office in one of those cool, restored red-brick buildings on E Street. "It's always a good time to be Heather Podesta."

There are more than 12,500 registered lobbyists -- about 23 for every member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics -- and some are getting richer while others stagnate or even dip a bit because of all of this pesky recession talk. But those who operate at the confluence of this summer's big three legislative streams are happiest of all.

Podesta is right there in the eddy, an It Girl in a new generation of young, highly connected, built-for-the-Obama-era lobbyists. She gets an undeniable boost from a famous name -- she is the sister-in-law of John Podesta, the insider's insider who was Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff and Obama's transition director, and the wife of über-lobbyist Tony Podesta. Heather and Tony run his-and-hers lobbying shops. His grew a staggering 57 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period the year before, taking in $11.8 million, fourth-highest among major lobbying firms. (Full disclosure: Tony Podesta has long represented The Washington Post, which paid him $10,000 in 2009 and $80,000 the year before, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.) Her six-person shop grew even faster, rocketing 65 percent to $3.4 million.