{"id":485097,"date":"2010-03-29T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:www.opensecrets.org,2010:\/news\/\/8.1446"},"modified":"2010-03-29T09:52:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T13:52:41","slug":"barack-obamas-ex-lobbyist-appointees-apples-ilobby-and-more-in-capital-eye-opener-march-29","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/485097","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama’s Ex-Lobbyist Appointees, Apple’s iLobby and More in Capital Eye Opener: March 29"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics:<\/p>\n

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OBAMA RECESS APPOINTMENT LIST INCLUDES ‘REVOLVING DOOR’ MEMBERS:<\/b> President Barack Obama this weekend made<\/a> 15 “recess appointments,” temporarily inserting people into senior administration jobs without the approval of Congress, which is on break. Despite Obama’s pledge<\/a> to limit special influence participation in his administration — he’s sought to  prohibit lobbyists<\/a> from serving on federal advisory panels, for example — a half-dozen of these new appointees<\/a> have strong union or special interest ties, or are themselves former registered lobbyists, the Center for Responsive Politics<\/a> finds.<\/div>\n
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Among them: Craig Becker, a union lawyer who Obama placed on the National Labor Relations Board. Jeffrey A. Goldstein, Obama’s nominee for assistant treasury secretary, has worked for a variety of private political influence peddlers, and is a member<\/a> of OpenSecrets.org’s “Revolving Door” database. Eric L. Hirschhorn<\/a>, a Department of Commerce under secretary appointee, is a former federal lobbyist, as is Michael W. Punke<\/a>, a deputy trade representative appointee<\/a>, and Jacqueline Berrien<\/a>, who will now serve as chairwoman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Chief agricultural negotiator Israel Siddiqui<\/a>, a former lobbyist<\/a> for CropLife America<\/a>, is also on Obama’s list.<\/div>\n

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APPLE’s iLOBBY:<\/b> With computer giant Apple poised to release<\/a> its iPad<\/a> device, its worth noting that the company has in recent years accelerated its federal lobbying efforts, spending<\/a> at least $1.5 million on them in both 2008 and 2009. Keep an eye on the company this year, as it has hundreds of thousands<\/a> of new reasons to make sure that government is fostering — or isn’t threatening — its corporate interests. (Lobbying reports for the first quarter of this year are released late next month.) And what were the targets of Apple’s lobbying efforts in 2009? Oh, just 21 different congressional bills<\/a> and seven government agencies or bodies<\/a>. Even so, and although its lobbying force<\/a> is certainly powerful, Apple ranked just 21st in 2009 lobbying expenditures among computer and Internet companies<\/a>, we find. In 2008, it occupied 16th place<\/a> among its hundreds of industry peers, many of which are experiencing lobbying booms<\/a> themselves.<\/div>\n
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CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS, IN THE NEWS:<\/b> On Saturday morning, we participated in a segment on the BBC World Service about campaign finance practices in various nations. Listen to the report here<\/a>, and start it at the 33:00 mark … Other reporters and media outlets quoting us or citing our work since late last week include: Eric Lichtblau and Edward Wyatt of the New York Times<\/a><\/i>, Graham Moomaw at Fox News<\/i><\/a>, Rich Blake at ABC News<\/a><\/i>, Alan Fram at the Associated Press<\/a><\/i>, James Politi at the Financial Times<\/a><\/i>, Eamon Javers at Politico<\/a><\/i>, Justin Fenton at the Baltimore Sun<\/i><\/a>, Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner<\/a><\/i>, Bartholomew Sullivan at the Memphis Commercial Appeal<\/a>, <\/i>Emily Holden of the Gannett Washington Bureau<\/a> and Bill Theobald at the Gannett Washington Bureau<\/i><\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n
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Have a news tip or link to pass along? We want to hear from you! E-mail us at press@crp.org<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your daily dose of news and tidbits from the world of money in politics: OBAMA RECESS APPOINTMENT LIST INCLUDES ‘REVOLVING DOOR’ MEMBERS: President Barack Obama this weekend made 15 “recess appointments,” temporarily inserting people into senior administration jobs without the approval of Congress, which is on break. Despite Obama’s pledge to limit special influence participation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3994,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3994"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}