...So are Sallie Mae's lobbyists. The Huffington Post scoured lobbying disclosures to highlight Sallie Mae's efforts to move their reform plan forward. It appears that their original plan has morphed into the Student Loan Community Proposal, which would seem to have a nicer ring to it.
The article details the well-connected lobbyists that SLM has hired on Capitol Hill with the almost $2 million (according to the article) that they have invested over the past six months:
- Jamie Gorelick. "Sallie Mae's key hire was Jamie Gorelick, a former deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, who signed on in February to lobby White House and Education Department officials on student-loan issues. Gorelick is a partner in the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler, Pickering, Hale and Dorr, which billed Sallie Mae $270,000 for its work in the first half of 2009."
- Podesta Group. "In March, less than a month after hiring Gorelick, Sallie Mae retained the Podesta Group, founded by Tony Podesta, a legendary Democratic fundraiser whose brother headed the Obama transition team. In addition to Podesta himself, the firm, which was paid $110,000 for its work in the first half of the year, assigned at least four of its lobbyists to push Sallie Mae's case on Capitol Hill: Paul Brathwaite, the former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus and a former Clinton Labor Department official; Israel "Izzy" Klein, a former aide to Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York and Rep. Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, both Democrats; Lauren Maddox, a former assistant secretary for communications and outreach at the Education Department in the Bush administration; and Donni Turner, a former aide to Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, Rep. David Scott of Georgia, and former Sen. Max Cleland of Georgia, all of them Democrats."
- "Clark & Weinstock detailed more than a third of its lobbyists to the Sallie Mae account, including Vin Weber, the firm's managing partner, a former Republican congressman from Minnesota, and a half-dozen veteran Capitol Hill staffers: James Dyer, a former staff director of the House Committee on Appropriations; Niles Godes, who most recently was chief of staff to Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.); Ed Kutler, a former senior adviser to the Speaker of the House; Peg McGlinch, who most recently was chief of staff to Rep. Tim Walz (D-Minn.); Jonathan Schwantes, a former general counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee; Deirdre Stach, a former legislative director to Rep. Robert Walker (R-Pa.); and Sandra Stuart, a former chief of staff to Rep. Vic Fazio (D-Calif.)."
- "Sallie Mae also has a sizable in-house lobbying staff, including six individuals who are registered on Capitol Hill. They include Carmen Guzman Lowrey, a former legislative assistant to Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), and Brent Hartzell, a former chief of staff to the Education Department's chief financial officer."
The article also highlights the activities of the Sallie Mae PAC, which I had posted about on Friday:
Since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, Sallie Mae has wooed key Democrats. In the 2008 election cycle, Sallie Mae's PAC gave $10,000 to the Blue Dog PAC, and an additional $145,500 to the individual campaign committees of Blue Dogs and Democrats on the House Committee on Financial Services, according to a Huffington Fund review of campaign finance data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics."
This investment in lobbyists may explain why even after the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act passed through the House Committee last week, they could confidently tell financial aid directors in an email communication recently that "The legislative process is far from over."
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.