12-21-2002

LOBBYING: K Street for December 21, 2002

Calio and Aides Go for the Gold


A cadre of talented lobbyists is walking out the door of the White House
along with Nicholas E. Calio, head of the Office of Legislative Affairs.
All are seeking new fortunes on K Street. Calio was pulling down a high
six-figure income or more as a private lobbyist when he was persuaded two
years ago to take the job of chief White House lobbyist. President Bush
reportedly wanted him to stay, but Calio chose to return to the private
sector as a senior vice president at Citigroup. Top Calio aides are also
departing: Brian Conklin has joined Washington Council Ernst & Young;
Dirksen Lehman is moving to Clark & Weinstock; and Jack Howard has
been talking to a few firms, including the OB-C Group and Wexler &
Walker Public Policy Associates. Calio is joining the powerful management
committee at Citigroup, which has been under intensive scrutiny by federal
and state regulators and is likely to be hit with huge fines. He will also
oversee the firm's government affairs in Washington, in the states, and
overseas. One source familiar with Calio's compensation deal called it a
"king's ransom. God bless him."


Lobbying sources say that Citigroup's hiring of Calio, a Republican, was
partly driven by the firm's need to have a better political balance in
Washington. "The administration perceives us as too Democratic,"
said one Citigroup source, noting that Robert Rubin, President Clinton's
Treasury secretary, chairs the firm's executive committee. Another
lobbyist described Calio as a "brilliant strategist," noting
that his hiring "scratches an immediate itch politically" for
Citigroup, notwithstanding that well-known Republican Roger Levy has been
running its Washington office. Investigators have been looking into
allegations that stock analysts at Citigroup and several other Wall Street
giants conducted faulty stock research and misled investors. -Peter H.
Stone


Eizenstat Helps to Defrost Frozen Funds


As deputy Treasury secretary during the Clinton administration, Stuart
Eizenstat fought proposals to allow terrorism victims to tap the frozen
assets of state sponsors of terrorism held by the United States. Now, as a
partner at Covington & Burling, Eizenstat is representing victims'
families that are seeking those assets. At the end of the congressional
session, Eizenstat and firm special counsel David M. Marchick persuaded
Congress to include two provisions in the terrorism insurance bill: One
would allow the family of Ira Weinstein, an American killed in a 1996 bus
bombing in Jerusalem, to receive a yet-to-be-determined portion of the $33
million that Weinstein won earlier this year in a court case against the
Iranian government; the second would allow the family of Yaron Ungar, who
was killed in a drive-by shooting in Israel in 1996, to sue Hamas and seek
compensation from the approximately $7 million in Hamas assets that have
been frozen by Treasury.


Eizenstat insists he hasn't changed his views on frozen assets; he
believes that the funds are best kept locked up so they can be used as
diplomatic bargaining chips, as the United States has done with Iran and
Vietnam. But Eizenstat says that the Ungar case is different, because the
Ungar family is not seeking the assets of a government, but of a Middle
East terrorist group. "I don't see the United States ever needing to
normalize relations with Hamas," he says. Meanwhile, the Weinstein
family should receive compensation, says Eizenstat, because other victims
of the 1996 bombing have already been paid. -Shawn Zeller


They've Got a Lot Riding on Lott


A lot of folks on K Street have plenty riding on the outcome of the
January 6 meeting at which Senate Republicans may decide the political
fate of Republican Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. The Livingston Group, the
Washington lobbying firm headed by former Rep. Bob Livingston, R-La., just
hired the senator's son, Chester Lott Jr., who operated Domino's Pizza
franchises in Kentucky before turning to lobbying. Washington's lobbying
community is also flush with former Lott aides, among them Carl Biersack,
a director of government affairs at Barbour Griffith & Rogers; Michael
Boland, the senior vice president for legislative affairs at Verizon
Communications; David Crane, a senior vice president at the Washington
Group; John Green, a partner at the Federalist Group; James Hecht, a
partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Alison McSlarrow, the
president of McSlarrow Consulting; Ryan Peebles, the manager of Senate
affairs at the National Federation of Independent Business; Randall
Scheunemann of Orion Strategies and Scheunemann and Associates; John F.
Scruggs, the vice president of government relations at Philip Morris Cos.;
and C. Stevens Seale, who joined Cassidy & Associates last month.
-Shawn Zeller


TV Folks Tune Into Media Fight


The Caucus for Television Producers, Writers & Directors has been
around for a quarter-century as an advocacy group for the creative side of
the television industry, but the group recently got serious about its
Washington presence by retaining Margaret Ann Cone as an outside lobbyist.
The caucus-founded by a group that included such Hollywood legends as
Norman Lear and Aaron Spelling-retained Cone primarily to make its voice
heard on the issue of media ownership. Both the Senate and the Federal
Communications Commission are expected to debate a potential tightening of
rules that govern how extensive a single company's ownership of media
outlets can be. Generally speaking, the fight pits writers, directors,
artists, unions, and consumer groups against diversified entertainment
companies such as Fox News Corp. and Walt Disney Co. The caucus "is
deeply concerned about having programming decided by two or three big
corporations," said Cone, who has previously represented the Actors'
Equity Association, the Writers Guild of America, the Artists Coalition,
and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. -Louis
Jacobson




National Journal