The day after this month’s Republican presidential debate, a top lobbyist opined in The Washington Post that Donald Trump was “wearing thin” and “a blackmailer” who is “all about himself.”
That lobbyist, Ed Rogers, and his colleagues have reason to hope that’s true. Their firm, BGR Group, has ties to current or former Republican governors who make up eight of the other 16 candidates. Traditionally a GOP firm, BGR even has built a bridge to Democratic front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.
BGR, founded by former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, was once the epitome of the partisan lobbying shop, in which political and governmental veterans worked their party pals in officialdom to keep abreast of — and influence — decisions, all on behalf of clients.
In recent years it has morphed into a multi-pronged political powerhouse that raises money for numerous candidates in the same race, embeds its members in their super PACs, uses the resulting access for clients across the globe and even has a voice in the media.
This year, BGR’s employees or close associates have been involved with the presidential campaigns of three former governors — Jeb Bush of Florida, Rick Perry of Texas and Scott Walker of Wisconsin — and they have ties to Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana. The firm also has a representative in Ms. Clinton’s inner fundraising circle.
“Political activity by lobbyists in D.C. [or Harrisburg] is nothing new,” BGR’s government affairs principal, Loren Monroe, wrote in a brief email response to seven questions. He declined an interview request.
“That firm in and of itself is unusual because of those high-level connections, with a former governor heading up the firm,” said Timothy LaPira, an assistant professor at James Madison University, who has written extensively about lobbying.
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He said the fundraisers held in the firm’s office and the deployment of lobbyists to super PACs are not “signaling that this firm is endorsing any given candidate at this point. They’re simply getting in under the door with numerous of the candidates. … They’re more or less hedging their bets.”
Barbour knows the ropes
It’s doubtful that anyone knows how governors interact with lobbyists better than Mr. Barbour.
He went from political operative to White House aide to lobbyist to chair of the Republican National Committee to two-term governor and, briefly, in 2011, to presidential contender. He rejoined BGR — for Barbour, (Lanny) Griffith and Rogers — in 2012, a year after he finished a term at the helm of the Republican Governors Association, or RGA.
Mr. Barbour, like any good lobbyist, “uses every connection he has,” said Heath Brown, an assistant professor of public policy at the City University of New York and author of the 2012 book “Lobbying the New President.”
“Haley Barbour is also very smart about who has won presidential campaigns in the past, and we know governors have been successful in lots of recent presidential campaigns.”
The firm’s chits to governors go far beyond the $87,800 it has donated to the RGA since 2011. Even as it sells its access to officials, it lends to candidates its access to the people who donate to campaigns.
BGR’s government affairs president, Bob Wood, “is a ‘raiser,’ ” an RGA executive wrote in a 2009 memo to Bob McDonnell, who was then running for governor of Virginia, “and can be very helpful in setting up meetings with his clients.” Mr. McDonnell won the race, and went on to chair the RGA starting in 2011.
McDonnell’s attorney, Noel J. Francisco, declined to make the former governor available to talk about BGR and the RGA. McDonnell is appealing a conviction and two-year prison sentence on federal corruption charges related to favors done for, and gifts received from, former Star Scientific CEO Jonnie Williams.
Contributions, questions
In July 2010, Mr. Christie and BGR hosted a Washington, D.C., fundraiser for the New Jersey Republican State Committee. A BGR client, Amgen Inc., co-hosted the event, which aimed to raise around $45,000, according to documents obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Mr. Rogers hosted a fundraiser for Mr. Christie in 2013, and BGR hosted another such event for him four months ago, according to NJ Advance Media, a newspaper chain.
“The employees of BGR, a bipartisan government and public relations firm, are welcome to participate in political activity on their own time with candidates they support,” wrote Mr. Monroe, the BGR government affairs principal.
Mr. Christie’s ties to BGR and the RGA drew scrutiny in 2012 and 2013 after a BGR client, Ashbritt Inc., got an emergency contract to remove debris after Hurricane Sandy. Ashbritt has also been a regular donor to both the RGA — including a $50,000 contribution a week after the hurricane — and the Democratic Governors Association.
“The state could’ve made that decision for very legitimate reasons,” said Larry Noble, senior counsel at the Campaign Legal Center who was formerly the top lawyer for the Federal Election Commission. “But when you mix in the political contributions it throws the whole thing into question.”
Embedded lobbyists
Sometimes BGR’s lobbyists take their talents as “raisers” and embed within campaigns or super PACs, including that of the Democratic front-runner.
Jonathan Mantz, one of a handful of Democratic principals at BGR, was the national finance director for Ms. Clinton’s 2008 campaign, and is now involved with her super PAC, called Priorities USA Action. He’s also on the finance committee of the Democratic Governors Association.
The diversification of BGR — which was a strictly Republican firm from 1987 until 2007 — reflects industry trends.
Lobbying firms “first and foremost are not ideologues,” Mr. Brown, the public policy professor, said. “For that reason, we see them spreading the money around, to Democrats and Republicans, and spreading the money around to different people in the same races.”
Recent Supreme Court decisions have made that much easier. A 2010 ruling set the stage for super PACs, a form of political action committee that can raise unlimited dollars from corporations, unions, associations and individuals, and spend them to help or hurt candidates.
“In theory, the super PACs are supposed to be independent of the candidates, but they’re not,” Mr. Noble said. “So what you have is a way for lobbyists and candidates to stay technically separate from each other, when actually they are not.”
Mr. Griffith, BGR’s CEO, is helping to raise money for Right to Rise, a super PAC backing Mr. Bush, on whose transition team the lobbyist served in 1998. Mr. Griffith is a longtime family friend. He served in George H.W. Bush’s administration and was a finance committee member for George W. Bush’s 2004 re-election bid, even while working at BGR.
According to Politico, BGR’s Mr. Wood in February helped introduce D.C. cognoscenti to Mr. Walker and his new super PAC, called Our American Revival. Two of Mr. Barbour’s nephews have been associated with Mr. Perry’s campaign, including Austin Barbour, who runs the former Texas governor’s super PACs.
“By helping fund these outside groups, they’re making connections that they could cash in on down the road," according to Chris Gates, president of the Sunlight Foundation, which tracks political fundraisers. The result: “The balance of power has shifted in favor of those who can open doors and write big checks.”
None of the campaigns responded to request for comment.
“When somebody wants to meet with the administration,” Mr. Noble said, “the administration is very aware of who their big supporters were, and it will get you in the door.”
A partisan platform
The firm’s “in” with Mrs. Clinton hasn’t spared her in Mr. Rogers’ column. For instance, he called her answers to questions about her handling of email as secretary of state “stale, musty and downright Clinton-esque.”
Mr. Rogers’ columns appear in The Washington Post’s PostPartisan blog. In recent months he has been the only contributor there who is not on the newspaper’s staff, other than left-leaning columnist E.J. Dionne Jr., of the Brookings Institution.
“Come to think of it, there are really not that many lobbyists who have that level of prominence in a public forum,” said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow with the reform group New America, and author of the book “The Business of America is Lobbying.” “Usually they have to work behind the scenes.”
Mr. Rogers is upfront about his GOP affiliation, and his role in BGR is disclosed in every column. Republicans — with exceptions including Mr. Trump and Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator from Penn Hills — have generally gotten better reviews than Ms. Clinton (see chart).
“I doubt that he would ever pen anything that would hurt his potential to recruit future candidates,” said Mr. LaPira. “He’s representing the party orthodoxy and the party mainstream. He’s going to criticize … outsiders. He doesn’t win if Trump becomes the nominee.”
Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1542. Twitter@richelord.
First Published: August 17, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
