Last week, Eric Lipton of The New York Times exposed the hell out the latest way corporate America evades accountability.
In a deeply researched piece, the reporter explained how state attorneys general are influenced by friendly lobbyists and lawyers, often in one-on-one encounters during lavish getaways on the premier conference circuit. There, highly paid emissaries from big companies have wooed state prosecutors away from bringing or continuing litigation against the companies they represent.
From the front-page investigative report, “Lobbyists, Bearing Gifts, Pursue Attorneys General”:
A result is that the routine lobbying and deal-making occur largely out of view. But the extent of the cause and effect is laid bare in The Times’s review of more than 6,000 emails obtained through open records laws in more than two dozen states, interviews with dozens of participants in cases and attendance at several conferences where corporate representatives had easy access to attorneys general.
Often, the corporate representative is a former colleague.
Lipton names names and details specific instances in which an attorney general reversed course on litigation after being personally lobbied, from Missouri’s Democratic attorney general Chris Koster to Florida’s Republican AG Pam Bondi, both of whom came off looking pretty dinged up by the piece. As AGs in 30 other states investigated 5-Hour Energy for allegations of deceptive advertising, Kostner halted his state’s inquiry after company lobbyists “courted the attorney general at dinners and conferences and with thousands of dollars in campaign contributions.” A law firm called Dickstein Shapiro successfully urged Bondi not to pursue investigations against several companies; Lipton reports that the firm’s lawyers also “helped arrange a cover article for Ms. Bondi in a magazine called InsideCounsel, which is distributed to corporate lawyers, and invited her, as it did Mr. Koster, to appear at an event in Washington that included the firm’s clients.”
The story hasn’t stopped there. Since the bombshell dropped on Oct. 28, media outlets around the country from public radio to TV to print have picked up on the Times’ article. Much of the coverage has been aggregation linking back to the Times, but some local outlets have advanced the story, gotten relative principals on the record about it, or added more local context. Here’s a sampling from coast to coast:
Missouri
St. Louis Public Radio bit a chunk off the story to examine the political ramifications for Koster, a former-Republican-turned-Democrat, who is “seen as the state’s strongest 2016 candidate for governor.” Despite a statement from the AG disputing how the Times characterized him, Republicans there are now seeing “a chink in what’s supposed to be the invincible armor of Chris Koster,” said a local political science professor. St. Louis Public Radio’s Jo Mannies also puts the controversy in the context of Missouri’s campaign finance laws, which allow unlimited donations. Koster, Mannies points out, cast early votes for knocking down limits. Meanwhile, the state’s House Speaker is setting up a committee to investigate the AG.
Florida
At the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting, Ashley Lopez synthesized the Times investigation with some prior reporting by the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald on Bondi’s work with the Republican Attorneys General Association. That group plays a star role in the Times piece as an entity that facilitates direct access to state attorneys general, and receives heavy financial support from corporate interests. Bondi herself, the Times reported, recently took “nearly $25,000 worth of airfare, hotels and meals” from the RAGA, and “That money came indirectly from corporate donors.”
Meanwhile the Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald itself followed up on the NYT, writing:
Cases involving Dickstein Shapiro clients that fizzled in Florida include Accretive Health, a Chicago-based hospital bill collection company shut down in Minnesota for six years because of abusive collection practices; Bridgepoint Education, a for-profit online school that Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller said had engaged in “unconscionable” sales practices; Herbalife, which had been investigated by federal and state authorities; and online reservation companies, including Travelocity and Priceline, on allegations that they were improperly withholding taxes on hotel rooms booked in the state.
Since 2011, Dickstein Shapiro has contributed $122,060 to the Republican Attorneys General Association, a super PAC that contributed $750,000 to Bondi’s re-election bid. She sits on RAGA’s executive committee.
Dickstein’s partners and a client, ETC Capital, have also directly given $24,750 to Bondi’s campaign.
Notably, Michael Van Sickler of the papers’ joint bureau also looked into whether any of the law firm’s partners were registered to lobby in Florida. They weren’t, he reported, “meaning their advocacy may have violated state law.” But no one would be prosecuted unless someone were to file a sworn complaint.
Two days later, Van Sickler reported that someone had done just that.
Washington
Oh, God. The Economist estimated recently that there are something like 300,000 laws, rules, mandates, regulations, etc., that a business of any size has to confront in the areas of health, insurance, wages, zoning, safety, sales practices, etc., at the federal, state, and local levels, all told. Any reasonably energetic shyster, whether employed by the government or a private chaser, can find 'violations' if they look around, just as readers of this piece probably violated several traffic rules driving to work this morning. But left-wing journalists are nothing if not zealous, so they obsess about corporations getting away with something. Those corporations, of course, are forced to hire lawyers - gee, as it turns out, a disproportionate percentage of the politically-active turn out to be lawyers, mostly Democrats, what a coincidence - to negotiate the thicket. The politician/shyster types have used the regulatory mess to run a nice little shakedown racket, using the power to prosecute based on often-very ambiguous language. Every time you read one of those 'Citibank settled with the government for $10 billion in exchange for the government dropping charges . . . ' stories, that's what is really going on. The regulatory State is the Church, and the chattering classes of journalists, academics, political activists, and of course our friends the lawyers - they are its priesthood.
It's disgusting. Journalists urge restrictions on the the rights on mon-journalists, and non-'media' companies, as alluded to in the 'Missouri' piece of this worthless article, but scream and snivel at any idea of restrictions on their own companiies' right to influence politics using company resourcces, as well as their own - as if the First Amendment only applies to the rights of the chattering classes. BS reigns.
#1 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 7 Nov 2014 at 12:42 PM
300,000 laws may be involved, but the vast majority of laws are being crafted by the businesses they purport to regulate. The number and complexity are intended to benefit the large corporations and obfuscate responsibility in the public eye.
Regulatory and tax laws are not restrictive, but are roadmaps intended to give ways around the public good.
#2 Posted by max berry, CJR on Sat 8 Nov 2014 at 10:26 AM
Max, you have perhaps unintentionally identified the problem. If you are going to regulate banks, let us say, well, for the regs to have teeth or relevance they have to address how banking actually works. Nobody knows how banks work like a working banker - certainly not a greenish government lawyer. So the regulators end up having to call in industry people to help write the rules. Usually from the ranks of the big boys, it goes without saying. Naturally, those rules aren't going to seriously harm the status of 'my' business. Usually they disadvantage smaller competitors or start-ups. the way the broadcast networks used to FCC to fight cable television for decades. A lot of the 'complaints' to regulators are from one corporation seeking to use government power to disadvantage another, often dressed up in 'liberal' language, rather than from consumers righteously seeking selfless DC advocates to fight big bad businesses.
You want to get 'corporations' and 'money' out of politics? Get 'politics' out of 'corporations' and 'money'. The increase in corporate campaign spending has exactly tracked the reach of regulatory agencies. The case of the grouper fish being thrown back in the water, which is (so help me) before the Supreme Court right now, was a result, so help me again, of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which was supposed to end any new 'Enrons' from happening. Of course, if you worship the state, no excesses by its officers are going to raise protest - except when they affect you and your own company. I was startled recently to hear a lawyer acquaintance who works for a bank, a lawyer of stalwart Kennedy-Democrat pedigree, mention casually that Dodd-Frank had 'gone too far'. You have to see them in practice to know how stupid a lot of regulations are, when you know the topic personally, but that doesn't stop mechanical 'if it moves, tax it and regulate it, except for me' writing by the press, which thinks only it has constitutional rights. My, do you think politicians ever trim their views to get good media coverage? Do joournalists reward politicians with good coverage in exchange for access? Is that corrupt? Tell me how it is different.
#3 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 10 Nov 2014 at 02:55 PM
This is a very important subject matter. Are the US Attorneys AND the Attorney Generals both subject to "pressure" from politicians and business people?
The answer, unfortunately, is probably "yes." And what can we, the people, do about this? Not much, of course, because the laws that we live under are made by the special interests who have the expertise and the money to influence Congress to promulgate and pass laws that favor their interests. Even if the Congress makes bad laws that work against the best interests of the people, we appear to be stuck with those laws. WE, the people, are held to the letter of the law but the law, itself, has set a different standard for themselves in enforcing the law by, of course, the matter of "discretion."
I am upset with The Attorney General of Missouri because I never received even a courtesy answer from the AG about my complaint sent to his office about a unilateral Do Not Resuscitate Code Status that was covertly placed in my husband's hospital chart ----that I believe was a blatant violation of Missouri law. I wrote an Email letter to the Governor of Missouri recently asking him to ask the Attorney General (See Wesley Smith Article -Comments --"Unilateral non-resuscitation at Mass. General Hospital) why he hasn't answered my complaints and inquiry as to whether or not the unilateral hospital DNR Code Status is a violation of Missouri Law?. No answer, of course!
Just how can I, an old woman, with no political clout, compel either the AG or the Governor to answer me? If I go to the Legislature, they will tell me there is already a law concerning DNR Code Status, etc.. and will they contact the AG and the Governor and compel them to respond to me? Probably not.
The so called Free Press is also subject to influence and doesn't keep us as free as possible because they never print "bad news" that might get in the way of the free Press making money for itself.
#4 Posted by Carol J. Eblen, CJR on Tue 11 Nov 2014 at 08:13 PM
Mark Richard had entirely the wrong answer.
Correct answer? Get the corporate campaign money out of politics with public campaign financing.
#5 Posted by SocraticGadfly, CJR on Wed 12 Nov 2014 at 03:24 PM
Well, dream on, Socrates. News organizations are corporations, in case you had not made the connection, and all the Supreme Court has said is that non-media corporations have the same First Amendment rights as do media corporations - an angle CJR has averted its eyes from considering. The NY Times spends corporate money to endorse candidates and influence politics, as does every 'media corporation'. And
I'll add that western European countries, and an idealized Canada, have the kinds of restrictions on political speech desired by un-Socratically naive American 'reformers' - and they have campaign-funding scandals worse than anything alleged in the US. Sarkozy just got picked up on one some weeks ago, and Kohl's career was ended by one. Pass laws, ban, regulate, control - that's all the Left is, anymore. Unless the issue is abortion. Beyond that, I can't see anything the Left believes should be out of central State control.
#6 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Thu 13 Nov 2014 at 12:49 PM