Some of the most powerful members of the House and Senate have grown children who are paid to lobby Congress by organizations that want to influence legislation.
Many of those elected members are chairmen of committees that write legislation with a direct financial impact on their children’s clients. Others hold party leadership positions with broad influence over legislation.
For instance, the two top Republican leaders in Congress-Sen. Bob Dole of Kansas and Rep. Bob Michel of Illinois-both have daughters who are lobbyists.
“I guess this is the congressional equivalent of the parent making room for the child at his or her company; it’s going into the family business,” observed University of Virginia political science professor Larry Sabato.
There are no laws or congressional rules that prohibit the members’ relatives from lobbying.
Children of lawmakers who lobby include:
– Robin Dole, 38, chief lobbyist for Century 21, the world’s largest real estate franchise organization. She also administers the firm’s political action committee, which gave $112,000 in campaign contributions to members of Congress during the 1991-92 election cycle, including $3,000 to Bob Dole’s Senate campaign committee.
Robin Dole was hired by Century 21 in 1981, the same year her father became chairman of the tax-writing Senate Finance Committee. In almost every Congress, including this one, the most critical legislative issues facing the real estate industry involve real estate-related tax breaks. Although he now is his party’s Senate leader, Dole remains a member of the Finance Committee.
– Laurie Michel, 40, Washington lobbyist for Connaught Laboratories, a French-owned pharmaceutical firm that recently helped defeat President Clinton’s proposal to provide free government vaccines to all children regardless of family income.
Prior to joining Connaught last year, Laurie Michel was an associate with Hogan & Hartson, one of the largest law and lobbying firms in Washington. Her clients have included a Michigan utility, a Mississippi savings and loan, a tobacco trade association and the government of the Bahamas.
– Clifford Gibbons, 42, a partner in his own lobbying firm, O’Bannon & Gibbons, which represents mainly corporate clients on tax and trade issues. His father is Rep. Sam Gibbons (D-Fla.), chairman of the trade subcommittee of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, possibly the most powerful committee in the House.
Clifford Gibbons’ partner, Dona O’Bannon, is a former aide to Rep. Gibbons, and many of their clients are based in Tampa, the home district of the senior Gibbons.
– Jamie Whitten Jr., 51, a partner in the law and lobbying firm of Lipsen, Whitten & Diamond. He is the son of Rep. Jamie Whitten (D-Miss.), who was chairman of the House Appropriations Committee for 13 years until he was forced to step aside last year because of ill health. Whitten remains a member of the committee.
The younger Whitten’s firm has lobbied on behalf of numerous clients interested in securing government funding though appropriations bills.
– N. Hunter Johnston, 32, a lobbyist associated with the Washington office of Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere & Denegre, a New Orleans law firm. He previously was associated with Griffin & Johnson, a lobbying firm whose principal partners are former top Senate leadership aides.
Hunter Johnston’s father is Sen. Bennett Johnston (D-La.), chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee’s energy and water development subcommittee. Hunter Johnston’s clients include General Atomics Corp., Turner Broadcasting System and Tulane University.
– Michelle Clay, 34, an attorney who specializes in lobbying the Congressional Black Caucus. Her father is House Post Office and Civil Service Committee Chairman William Clay (D-Mo.), a founding member of the caucus.
Michelle Clay represents Lambert International Airport in St. Louis. Previous clients include the Federation of Postal Police Officers, the National Association of Minority Automobile Dealers, and the Bi-State Development Agency, a St. Louis-area transit authority.
– William Bumpers, 36, a lawyer with Howrey & Simon specializing in environmental law. He is the son of Sen. Dale Bumpers (D-Ark.), chairman of the Senate Small Business Committee and a member of the Energy and Natural Resources and Appropriations Committees.
William Bumpers’ law practice includes representing a variety of clients-particularly electric utilities-before federal agencies, in court and before Congress. Among his current clients is Florida Power & Light, which is working to kill Clinton’s proposed energy tax.
Jamie Whitten Jr. and Laurie Michel didn’t return phone calls to discuss their work. Clifford Gibbons declined to answer questions about his work or his father.
“Everything we do is registered,” Gibbons said. “We’re doing it all according to law and I think everything is a matter of public record.”
Robin Dole and Michelle Clay said they don’t discuss their work with their fathers. Hunter Johnston and William Bumpers said they scrupulously avoid lobbying their fathers and the committees they sit on.
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Although there are no regulations excluding family members from lobbying Congress, experts on government ethics said the potential for conflicts of interest abound.
“The appearances make one worry about what may be an overly cozy connection between policy-making and lobbying,” said Princeton University politics professor Amy Gutmann, who teaches a course on ethics and public policy.
As a practical matter, it is impossible for the public to truly know how much these relationships influence policy decisions, Gutmann said. Therefore, members of Congress have a special obligation to avoid circumstances that create the appearance of favoritism, she said.
“Appearances in politics are more than mere appearances,” Gutmann said. “Appearances are often the best information the public can have as to whether public officials are acting with good intentions to serve the public.”
For example, many of Clifford Gibbons’ clients-including Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York, cereal maker Kellogg Co., and Lloyd’s of London-have a deep financial interest in tax and trade legislation before the Ways and Means Committee and his father’s subcommittee.
At the same time he’s lobbying on these issues, Clifford Gibbons has been doing his father’s campaign fundraising.
A check of Federal Election Commission records showed that in the last two election cycles, 1989-90 and 1991-92, clients and associates of Clifford Gibbons contributed $51,005 to his father’s campaigns. Rep. Gibbons reported net campaign receipts of more than $1.2 million for those two campaigns.
Neither father nor son would comment.
Among the current corps of lobbyist-children, few have the direct work experience on congressional or executive branch staffs that is the usual prerequisite to setting up a lobbying practice.
Robin Dole, for example, has a degree in psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. After college, she worked briefly as a secretary and for a year as an oil company lobbyist before being hired by Century 21 to open its government relations office in Washington.
But as the children of members of Congress, some of the lobbyists were reared in the corridors of power on Capitol Hill and have developed relations with their parents’ colleagues and congressional staff.
“You do know the system having grown up in it,” Michelle Clay said. “I can guarantee you anybody who lobbies who is a congressman’s kid has been on the Hill. They probably grew up on the Hill.”
Congress is considering legislation to tighten the present loophole-ridden lobbying disclosure requirements. The bill would not affect lobbying by family members.