11-03-2001
LOBBYING: Quinn Gillespie's Down, and Up, Ride
For Quinn Gillespie & Associates, this year has brought the worst of
times and the best of times.
In January, lawyer John M. "Jack" Quinn, who co-founded the
high-profile lobbying firm nearly two years ago, was embroiled in a
controversy of international scope. Quinn helped fugitive financier Marc
Rich win a White House pardon just days before President Clinton left
office.
But even as the controversy was raging and as Quinn found himself the
subject of unflattering news stories, his lobbying shop kept adding to a
lucrative roster of clients, aided by the strong ties of the firm's other
co-founder, Ed Gillespie, to the Bush White House and the Republican
congressional leadership.
Today, Quinn Gillespie is in the top tier of K Street firms. Its lobbying
fee income during the first six months of 2001 was almost $5.1 million-42
percent higher than the same period in 2000. For the first time, the firm
broke into the list of the 10 top lobbying firms in Washington, ranking
tenth in National Journal's midyear 2001 survey. Quinn Gillespie clients
forked over an average of $162,000-a higher average than any other top-10
firm's.
"This growth has been faster than we expected," Gillespie said
in an interview.
Clients were happy to sign with the firm despite the negative publicity
earlier this year. "We followed the Rich controversy, but we weren't
concerned about it affecting us," said an executive at one company
that hired Quinn Gillespie. This executive said that Quinn Gillespie is
"probably second" to GOP lobbyist Haley Barbour and his firm
Barbour Griffith & Rogers "in terms of the number of people who
have good contacts now, as opposed to good contacts 20 years
ago."
Gillespie credits the expansion to a sustained hiring spree: The firm has
grown from nine employees at its founding in January 2000 to almost 30
today. The staff includes such seasoned insiders as Marti Thomas, a former
assistant secretary for legislative affairs and public liaison at the
Treasury Department, and former executive floor assistant to House
Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt, D-Mo.; Marc Lampkin, a senior aide on
the George W. Bush presidential campaign and a former aide to Rep. John A.
Boehner, R-Ohio, as well as to the late Sen. Paul D. Coverdell, R-Ga.; and
Kyle Simmons, who was the deputy political director of the Bush campaign
and the chief of staff to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
At the beginning of this year, Quinn Gillespie was hardly assured of flush
times. Quinn's representation of Rich became a hot potato as soon as the
details of Rich's fugitive background became widely known. Rich fled the
United States to Switzerland in 1983 after being charged with avoiding
almost $50 million in federal taxes by using sham oil transactions. He was
also charged with breaking a Carter Administration trade embargo by
illegally buying more than $200 million in oil from Iran.
Many assailed Quinn, 52, a former White House counsel to President
Clinton, for using his ties to Clinton to win a pardon for Rich. Although
Quinn was not charged with any illegalities, his reputation took a hit,
and Republicans and Democrats lambasted Clinton for granting the pardon.
Quinn also had to give hours of testimony to congressional
committees.
Most lobbyists say Quinn represented his client with aplomb, but many add
that his decision to seek a pardon led to an unacceptable level of
collateral damage.
One lobbyist-who acknowledges that most of his colleagues "have
calmed down a lot more than I have about this"-argues that Quinn
violated two cardinal rules when he contacted the White House to gain a
pardon for Rich. "You never lobby a friend or former client and ask
him or her to do something that you have good reason to believe will
injure him," this lobbyist said. Moreover, he said, "a lobbyist
has an obligation to warn a friend and former client that there is a good
chance that they will be hit by a political Mack truck."
In his first extensive interview about his feelings on the Rich case,
Quinn revealed the level of anguish that his actions caused.
"It was an experience that was difficult and, frankly, personally
quite painful," he told National Journal, partly because "it was
something that my children, my wife, my partner, and a lot of other people
found to be distressing. It distracted me for a couple of months, no
doubt. But my family and my clients stood by me, and to be perfectly
honest, [the Rich case] is something that's in the past and which, at the
end of day, did not hurt this firm."
Since the furor has died down, Quinn added, he has frequently thought
about whether he should have acted differently.
"As a lawyer and a professional, I believe that I did what I should
have done-made a good case," he said. "As a father and a husband
and a partner and a friend-and, frankly, someone who continues to care
about the reputation of people like President Clinton-I would never want
to consciously put any of those people in harm's way. As stressful as that
time was for me, nothing was more painful than the fact that others had to
share in that stress."
The fact that many lobbyists stood by Quinn, at least privately, probably
helped him and the firm recover quickly.
Among Democratic lobbyists, "probably 75 percent think Quinn did the
right thing," said Art Roberts, a lobbyist with the firm Jefferson
Government Relations. "I think after Quinn did such a good job in the
congressional hearings, there was a drop-off" in outrage.
One Democratic lobbyist acknowledged that Quinn probably made "a
mistake in judgment." But he added: "Do I think that Rich
deserved aggressive advocacy? Absolutely. Everyone is entitled to that.
Jack has been in the trenches for the party, for Vice President [Al] Gore
and President Clinton for years. For people to make a judgment about one
decision in an otherwise incredibly fine career is just
unfair."
For his part, Gillespie said the Rich affair "never" threatened
his partnership with Quinn. "For the rest of us, it was hard because
of our affection for Jack," Gillespie added. "When you've been
around this town long enough, you get your turn in the barrel, and this
time, Jack did. All you could say is, `How are you doing?' Eventually,
people realized that Jack was Johnnie Cochran, not O.J."
Quinn emphasized that Rich was not a client of Quinn Gillespie, but rather
a holdover client from his days as a partner at the law firm Arnold &
Porter. Rich remains a personal client to this day, Quinn said, but one
who does not require much of his attention.
The most immediate danger during the crisis was that Quinn Gillespie's
clients would run rather than wait for the controversy to die down.
Lobbyists who appear toxic tend to lose clients. "We're supposed to
be unseen," one lobbyist said. "If you become the issue, your
clients aren't going to want to have you around."
But that didn't happen to Quinn Gillespie. "The great thing was that
we got a number of calls saying, `Hang in there,' " Gillespie said. A
lobbyist at another firm lauded Quinn and Gillespie for going "out of
their way to make sure their clients stayed calm."
"For the first 72 hours, Ed was sort of bummed out," one
Republican lobbyist said. "But he just works so darn hard. People
kept their confidence in him and continued to believe he was a rising
star."
During the past few months, the number of new clients has actually
increased. The firm has signed Stand Up for Steel, a coalition of
companies seeking federal protections on trade; Coca-Cola Co.; the energy
company Enron Corp.; Silverstein Properties, the real estate company that
holds a 99-year lease on the World Trade Center; Northwestern Mutual Life
Insurance Co.; the National Association of Realtors; the British Columbia
Hydro and Power Authority; and the International Dairy Foods
Association.
They joined a roster that includes other blue-chip clients: the American
Hospital Association; Cisco Systems Inc.; DaimlerChrysler Corp.; DirecTV
Inc.; the Health Insurance Association of America; the Recording Industry
Association of America; SBC Communications Inc.; and Viacom International
Inc.
Officials at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Institute for Legal Reform
said they had no qualms about Quinn Gillespie. The institute wanted to
hire Bruce Andrews, a Quinn Gillespie specialist on class-action reform
issues. "We didn't view Bruce as being toxic at all," said Matt
Webb, the institute's director of legal reform policy. "And we've
been very happy with Bruce's work."
No doubt, Gillespie's influence at the White House and among GOP leaders
has helped. The 40-year-old Gillespie has one of the best Republican
resumes in town. As a top aide to Rep. Dick Armey, R-Texas, for more than
a decade, he helped spearhead the 1994 Contract With America. During the
1996 elections, Gillespie was the Republican National Committee's director
of communications and congressional affairs. He then joined the private
sector, becoming the president and CEO of Policy Impact Communications, a
firm affiliated with former RNC Chairman Barbour. Perhaps Gillespie's best
preparation for securing clients was his job as the program chairman for
the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, and then as a senior
adviser to the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign.
Recognizing his insider status, The New Republic in July featured a
Gillespie profile on its cover, calling him "the most powerful Bushie
you've never heard of." Among Washington insiders, at least, the
headline got its share of chuckles, since they know Gillespie quite
well.
Quinn Gillespie "is very hot right now, mostly because of
Eddie," said one Republican lobbyist. "The stars aligned
perfectly-right as Jack hit his crisis, Ed's stock was rapidly
rising."
The lobbyist added that during the Rich controversy, Gillespie appeared to
be rock-solid about sticking with Quinn, despite plenty of ribbing from
his Republican friends. Gillespie "probably could have done
better" financially if he had picked a different Democratic partner
when the controversy erupted, the lobbyist said. "But his conscience
told him to stay loyal to his friend. And in the end, everything turned
out fine."
The firm has been active in recent months on spectrum wireless issues for
Verizon and DirecTV, as well as on Securities and Exchange Commission
issues for the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers and for the
electronic stock-trading company Instinet. On behalf of DaimlerChrysler,
Quinn Gillespie has lobbied Congress to change vehicular fuel efficiency
standards. It helped get the Bush Administration to support the
steelmakers' cause, but suffered a blow when the Commerce Department
issued a
trade ruling that hurt its client, the British Columbia Lumber Trade
Council.
Since September 11, the firm has turned away some potential clients,
worrying that their causes could be too hard to pitch in a wartime
environment. Indeed, the new atmosphere is sure to slow the firm's rate of
growth, Gillespie said.
The current growth rate "is neither sustainable nor desirable,"
he said, adding that 10 percent growth is "a reasonable goal for next
year." Quinn Gillespie has about the right number of people, he said,
and public relations work offers the greatest potential for growth.
"I think this town could be in for tough times," he concluded.
"It's conceivable that any firm will consider itself lucky if it
manages to hold its own."
Louis Jacobson
National Journal
