Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-IN)

Citing the ThinkProgress Green report, House Energy and Commerce Committee Ranking Member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) wrote one of those lobbyists yesterday, noting that her disclosed Keystone KL lobbying “seems unusual” as Indiana lacks any “obvious interest” in seeing the pipeline completed. In the letter, addressed to lobbyist Deborah Hohlt, Waxman “would appreciate the opportunity to learn about Indiana’s interests in the proposed Keystone XL pipeline” and requested a briefing from her.

“You’re kind of catching me off-guard,” Hohlt told Politico when asked about her tar-sands lobbying:

Hohlt had no answers when POLITICO contacted her Thursday, saying she still hadn’t seen Waxman’s letter. “You’re kind of catching me off-guard,” she said.

But Jane Jankowski, the press secretary for Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, said Hohlt simply listed in her disclosure report “any topic she’s spoken about on behalf of the state.”

“Gov. Daniels has talked about the need for the Keystone pipeline and issued a statement about it, which she passed on to our delegation, so she included it on her report,” Jankowski wrote.

Hohlt’s disclosure form lists the pipeline as one of four energy-related issues on which she lobbied both Congress and the Department of Energy.

A second lobbyist, Griffin Foster, also reported lobbying Congress and the Obama administration on the Keystone XL pipeline on Daniels’ behalf, over the same period.

Proposed Keystone XL pipeline map

$644,400 went to 35 of those senators who have endorsed this measure. Sens. Richard Burr (R-NC) and Rob Portman (R-OH) received the most, with $43,500 each. Manchin received $2,500 and the rest went to Republicans.

The most active companies and trade associations lobbying for the pipeline over the last three months were the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy.

Of those, the PACs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, and Devon Energy all made contributions to federal candidates over the past three years.

Here are their totals:

Methodology: January 30, 2012 search of Center for Responsive PoliticsPAC data for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, the Business Roundtable, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, the American Petroleum Institute, the National Association of Manufacturers, the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association, Deere & Company, TransCanada Pipelines, and Devon Energy. For active PACs for those companies and trade associations, tallied all PAC to campaign committee payments over the 2010 and 2012 cycles to U.S. Senators supporting the Keystone XL legislation.

Keystone XL protesters (credit: Josh Lopez)

Last week, ThinkProgress reported that, through the third quarter of 2011, at least 31 companies or organizations reported lobbying in favor for federal approval of the application by the TransCanada Corporation to build a tar sands pipeline between Alberta, Canada, and Nederland, Texas — while seven lobbied against it. That group included a wide array of energy and construction companies, trade associations, and labor unions lobbying for and a handful of environmental groups lobbying against.

During the fourth quarter of 2011, oil money poured into Washington to push for the tar sands pipeline:

– Backers include some of the most influential players in Washington. At least 31 pipeline supporters spent over $36.7 million lobbying on this and other issues in the fourth quarter of 2011. These included huge players including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers, the American Petroleum Institute, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips — each of whom spend $1 million on lobbying each quarter. New supporters included the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers ($251,383) and the office of Gov. Mitch Daniels ((R-IN) ($66,000).

– The few organizations lobbying against the pipeline were much smaller players. Seven organizations publicly opposed to the pipeline reported only about $1.1 million on all lobbying for that time. These included newcomers Environment America Inc., the National Farmers Union, and the Friends Committee on National Legislation. The Friends Committee is the advocacy arm of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and its $427,181 lobbying total made it the largest spender on the no side, for the quarter.

– Most of the lobbying groups who lobbied for the issue in previous quarters continued to do so in this period. Just a few proponents, such as the International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the National Taxpayers Union lobbied in previous quarters on the issue, but did not appear to in the fourth quarter. Only the Defenders of Wildlife lobbied in opposition to the bill in earlier quarters, but did not report lobbying on Keystone XL in this period.

– Self-interest continued to be a big factor. TransCanada Pipelines Inc. spent $410,000 on lobbying in quarter four of 2011.

As these groups were lobbying, the fourth quarter of 2011 saw public hearings on the bill, mass protests, industry-backed TV spots, and legislation pushed by Congressional Republicans to force an expedited permit application response by the administration.

TransCanada has vowed to reapply with a modified proposal and Republicans are threatening to hold up tax relief for working families to force federal approval. Expect 2012 to be more of the same: Washington lobbyists are gunning for Keystone XL, while the opposition is mostly grassroots and a few environmentalist organizations, largely outside of the Washington money game.

The pipeline does not go through Indiana, and few, if any, Indiana workers are expected to be employed in its construction. However, the Indiana Petroleum Council has been touting the project.

An analysis of fourth quarter 2011 lobbying forms by ThinkProgress Green finds:

The state of Indiana’s DC representatives received $66,000 from Indiana taxpayers to lobby Congress in the fourth quarter of 2011. Deborah Hohlt reported receiving $50,500 for lobbying on behalf of the state, including advocacy of the tar sands pipeline. Hohlt is a long-time Washington lobbyist who began her career at the Republican National Committee and George H.W. Bush administration. Griffin Foster reported receiving $15,500 for lobbying on behalf of the state of Indiana, including the Keystone pipeline. Foster is a former legislative assistant to Rep. Judy Biggert (R-IL).

During the rebuttal, Daniels attacked President Obama for “extremism” that “cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands.” Daniels did not mention how many of those jobs seem to be going to DC lobbyists.

Proposed Keystone XL pipeline map

This decision, a major victory for grassroots activists, comes after lobbying by TransCanada and its big oil allies significantly dwarfed that of environmental groups. TransCanada alone nearly matched the combined lobbying expenditures of all Keystone XL opponents on all issues, over the periods in which they lobbied for and against the pipeline in 2011, a ThinkProgress Green analysis shows.

An analysis of lobbying disclosure records for the first, second, and third quarters of 2011 suggests that the lobbying expenses of the 20 or more business and labor interests who backed the project were much greater than those for the seven organizations that actively opposed the measure:

– Thirty-eight different companies or organizations reported lobbying the federal government on the Keystone XL pipeline in general or on H.R.1938 (the North American-Made Energy Security Act, a bill which aimed to speed up the Obama administration’s consideration of the application). Thirty-one groups supported the pipeline, and seven groups opposed it.

– TransCanada’s lobbying efforts alone over the first three quarters of 2011 totaled at least $920,000.

– The seven groups in opposition to Keystone XL spent just over $1 million on all lobbying efforts. Corporate Ethics International, Defenders of Wildlife, EarthJustice Legal Defense Fund, the League of Conservation Voters, the National Wildlife Federation, the Sierra Club, and the Western Organization of Resource Councils reported spending just over $1 million on lobbying efforts for the periods when they were lobbying on Keystone XL — little more than TransCanada’s spending. Lobbying disclosure forms do not specify how much is spent on individual issues.

– The 31 groups supporting Keystone XL spent $59.8 million on all lobbying. Combined with the massive lobbying prowess of supporters like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ConocoPhillips, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobil Corporation, the American Petroleum Institute, and the National Association of Manufacturers, as well as less expected players like the National Taxpayers Union and Deere & Company, supporters of the pipeline had lobbying operations over the periods in which they lobbied on application totaling at least $59.8 million.

– Oil and energy companies alone spent more than $37 million on total lobbying.

TransCanada has vowed to reapply. If these numbers are any indication, they will likely do so with some well-funded allies.

See the organizations who reported lobbying on the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline in the first three quarters of 2011:

Note: this chart does not include entities whose official position on the bill could not be determined

1. Primary Colors (1998): Unlike most political movies, which set up a dichotomy between often-unnamed but clearly defined members of opposite parties, the vast majority of Primary Colors takes place during the Democratic primary. That means you get tough debates, hilariously incompetent campaign volunteers who get whipped into a professional fighting force, the entrance of a late-breaking messiah candidate who turns out to be not-so-messianic, and best of all, a deeply cranky conversation about a meeting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This is politics as informed and presented by people who have actually been there.

2. Definitely, Maybe (2008): This movie may be disguised as a romantic comedy, but it’s a savvy look at the disappointment of the Clinton years that draws its small dramas from an actual understanding of political pressure points. Fundraising gets you places. Both candidates and journalists have a dangerous desire to be liked. Not putting union bugs on Democratic paper goods during a campaign is disastrous. The president probably will not remember his early volunteers years down the road.

3. The American President (1995) and Thank You For Smoking (2005): It’s sort of amazing how naive Aaron Sorkin is about lobbying in The American President, a movie that makes the profession look so sexy and principled it’s sort of shocking it wasn’t a product of the influence industry itself. Thank You For Smoking is a loopy tonic to that misconception. Watch this double-header as we gear up for a Super PAC-filled election year, and vow not to get fooled again.

4. Contagion (2011): In the hysteria of an election year, it can be easy to forget that there’s life beyond politics and elected officials. But a lot of what’s important about presidential candidates is the people they’d appoint to serve under them, and any administration is limited in the changes it can make by layers of existing bureaucracy, regulations, and the time it takes to turn a ship much bigger than the Titanic around. Contagion‘s a critically important reminder that in crisis, it’s not always a matter of whose finger is on the button.

5. All the President’s Men (1976) and Dick (1999): These two very different retellings of the same essential story make two different but critically important points. First, journalism is hard, and it’s difficult to do it even when you have all the right breaks and time in which to do it: so how hard must it be to nail down true stories on the campaign trail, where everyone is sleep-deprived and exhausted, and events are moving extraordinarily rapidly. Second, politicians are people, often eccentric, obnoxious people. They want power, but they want other things too, including pot brownies and to kick their dogs.

He’s done this all independently without any input from me. I respect Josh Block but I 100 percent disagree with much of his language. People can disagree about Israel’s policies without being anti-Semites. In fact I think it’s a terrible mistake to blur the two. We should be able to debate Israel’s policies. I am very pro-Israel. I believe the onus for negotiations is on the Palestinians but both Israelis and Palestinians share responsibility. However, that’s all fair debate. Israelis debate the subject. We debate the subject. Impugning motives of people at the Center [for American Progress] and impugning [that] those motives are driven by anti-Semitism is, in my opinion, wrong. I respect John Podesta and the Center greatly.

In our post yesterday on Block, we explained that Davis “represented business interests backing the 2009 coup in Honduras.” In an interview today, Davis responded, “I am on the record as having opposed the illegal and indefensible deportation of Mr. Zelaya. Suggestions that I supported a military coup are simply false.”

Davis also defended his lobbying work for the Ivory Coast, telling ThinkProgress, “The Ivory Coast Embassy in DC retained me, not Mr. Gbagbo. My mission, among other things, working behind the scenes for ten days before I quit, was to facilitate a phone call from the President of the United States to Mr. Gbagbo to bring about a face saving effort to avoid bloodshed.”

General Electric spent more lobbying the government than it did in federal income taxes between 2008 and 2010.

Today, thousands of 99 Percenters will march on K Street in Washington, D.C. as a part of an action called “Take Back The Capitol,” taking aim at the lobbying firms that corporate interests use to influence the federal government.

A report released this month by Public Campaign demonstrates just how important it is for Americans to battle corporate special interests and reclaim our democracy. The group’s research finds that thirty big corporations actually spent more money lobbying the federal government between 2008 and 2010 than they spent in taxes. For example, General Electric — one of the top 10 most profitable companies in the world — got a net tax rebate of $4.7 billion during this period. Meanwhile, it spent $84 million lobbying the federal government.

Here’s the full list of the 30 corporations identified and what they paid in federal taxes as opposed to lobbying:

To follow today’s actions, check out Take Back The Capitol’s website, and find instant updates about the protest through the hashtag #99indc. ThinkProgress will be covering today’s events at our 99 Percent Movement special topics page.

But Gingrich also worked with state lawmakers, particularly on behalf of his Center for Health Transformation (CHT). The New York Times last week highlighted meetings conducted with Georgia lawmakers in 2004, wherein Gingrich promoted the activities of VitalSprings — a paying member of CHT. According to Politico’s Emily Schultheis, those meetings likely constituted lobbying under state law. If so, Gingrich’s failure to register as a lobbyist may amount to a violation of a Georgia law that was in place at the time:

The state’s lobbying laws have recently changed, adding a 10 percent threshold for amount of time spent on lobbying activities — but in 2004, the two main requirements for lobbyist registration were compensation for promoting products or companies to lawmakers, or spending over $250 on those promotion activities.

William Perry, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, says Gingrich should have been a registered lobbyist in the state.

“If he was receiving compensation — and it doesn’t have to be compensation for lobbying [specifically] — and you have a meeting with legislators to try to get either something passed or you’re representing a vendor, you’d have to register,” he said.

As ThinkProgress has reported, Gingrich has a lengthy history of peddling the interests of companies that pay him, even if he has never met the threshold to register as a federal lobbyist. Now, however, it appears that Gingrich may not only have acted as a lobbyist on the state level, but that he may have also broken Georgia law in trying to avoid disclosure.

Yates, whose biography on the Newt Gingrich campaign website only lists him as president of DC International Advisors, “a consultancy,” since 2006, had an extremely active lobbying career in the two years following his job as Deputy Assistant to Vice President Dick Cheney for National Security Affairs from 2001 to 2005. The Gingrich campaign’s decision to leave Yates’ career as vice president of the “global affairs practice” at Barbour Griffith & Rogers off his official bio, might have something to do with the two years of active lobbying he conducted on behalf of foreign clients.

In 2005 and 2006, while he was based at Barbour Griffith & Rogers, Yates was listed on lobbying disclosures as having represented the interests of:

Yates also serves as a director at the U.S.-Taiwan Business Council.

The campaign’s decision to present Yates’ biography without any reference to his career at Barbour Griffith & Rogers or his representation of Taiwanese, Indonesian, Lebanese, Indian and British interests in Washington, raises questions. Indeed, Yates’ two-year career as a lobbyist focusing almost exclusively on foreign clients seeking influence in Washington is an interesting omission from a biography that portrays Gingrich’s national security adviser as a career civil servant.

Yates’ background in public service would indicate that he has a strong interest in U.S. foreign policy and national security. But his two years as a professional lobbyist might also suggest that annual contracts of $740,000 with the Indonesian National Shipowners Association, $720,000 with the Republic of India, and $1.5 million with the Republic of China (Taiwan), held a certain appeal in more recent years.

Palin has given the thumbs-up to major lobbying reforms. Will conservatives join her?

Today, former GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin blasts this insider trading and other practices related to the link between Big Money and Congress in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. Complaining that Congress has “occupied Wall Street” and is profiting off of its inside connections, Palin calls for a series of lobbying reforms:

What are the solutions? We need reform that provides real transparency. Congress should be subject to the Freedom of Information Act like everyone else. We need more detailed financial disclosure reports, and members should submit reports much more often than once a year. All stock transactions above $5,000 should be disclosed within five days.

We need equality under the law. From now on, laws that apply to the private sector must apply to Congress, including whistleblower, conflict-of-interest and insider-trading laws. Trading on nonpublic government information should be illegal both for those who pass on the information and those who trade on it. (This should close the loophole of the blind trusts that aren’t really blind because they’re managed by family members or friends.)

No more sweetheart land deals with campaign contributors. No gifts of IPO shares. No trading of stocks related to committee assignments. No earmarks where the congressman receives a direct benefit. No accepting campaign contributions while Congress is in session. No lobbyists as family members, and no transitioning into a lobbying career after leaving office. No more revolving door, ever.

Whether Palin is truly sincere about calling for these reforms or is simply riding a wave of political anger is unclear. But she concludes her piece by saying that the “The grass-roots movements of the right and the left should embrace” these reforms. Yet the institutional right-wing in American politics has always resisted reforms to the lobbying system. The bill before the House of Representatives to ban the form of insider trading 60 Minutes highlighted had only five co-sponsors before the report aired — all Democrats. Afterward, it has 40 Democratic Party co-sponsors and a paltry six Republican co-sponsors. If Palin is really serious about pushing for these reforms, she should publicly call on these fellow conservatives in Congress by name to join her in enacting them.

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) erupts at a constituent who asked about the bank lobby

Freshman Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) is known for his anti-Obama rhetoric on cable television and his inability to pay his child support payments. But during a recent meeting with constituents in his Chicago-area suburban district, Walsh lost his cool when several attendees asked about why banks have so much power in government. At one point, Walsh even threatened to eject a man who asked Walsh about the revolving door of bank lobbyists infiltrating Congress and financial regulatory agencies.

Walsh at one point screamed, “don’t blame the banks … this pisses me off!” After several constituents accurately pointed out that bank lobbyists occupy key positions within Congress, the SEC, and other oversight bodies that are supposed to supervise bank practices, Walsh began sticking his finger close to his constituent’s faces, yelling, “quiet for a minute or I’ll have to ask you to leave.” The constituent, who had calmly asked his question before being cut-off midway through his sentence, obliged:

WALSH: Thats not the problem! The problem is you’ve got to be consistent. And I dont want government meddling in the marketplace. Yeah, they move from Goldman Sachs to the White House, I understand all of that. But you gotta’ be consistent. And it’s not the private marketplace that created this mess. What created mess was your government, which has demanded for years that everybody be in a home. And we’ve made it easy as possible for people to be in homes. [...] Don’t blame banks, and don’t blame the marketplace for the mess we’re in right now! I am tired of hearing that crap! This pisses me off! Too many people don’t listen. [...]

WALSH: Quiet for a minute! Quiet for a minute!

CONSTITUENT: Joe, what did I say–

WALSH: Quiet for a minute or I’m going to ask you to leave. You need to listen, or I’m going to ask you to leave.

Watch it:

The conversation moved from talking about influence of the bank lobby to larger structural problems in government. Walsh absurdly claimed that worker unions have more power and money than corporations in America. But he was quickly rebutted by his constituent, who said that in any case, unions serve worker interests while corporate lobbies push for private, selfish interests. The video of the exchange, which occurred during Walsh’s “Cup of Joe with Joe Walsh” event on Sunday in the town of Gurnee, Illinois, was posted on YouTube last night by Gene Taylor’s District116.org blog.

Occupy the Securities and Exchange Commission?

In August, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi detailed a jaw-dropping scandal at the SEC. For nearly 20 years, a whistleblower complaint alleges that regulators systematically deleted files related to investigations of fraudulent activity at major financial institutions as well as cases of insider trading. The document-destroying regulators, who trashed investigations related to Bernie Madoff and Goldman Sachs, then took jobs at the same banks they protected from prosecution. Investigator Paul Thacker reported for Forbes.com that current SEC enforcement head Robert Khuzami was recommended for his position by Richard Walker, a regulator who spun through the revolving door to work at Deutsche Bank after allegedly squashing an SEC inquiry into a case of suspected insider trading at Deutsche Bank.

Since the Occupy Wall Street movement protests bank-domination of government and the Tea Party protests incompetent government, perhaps the SEC is the place for common cause. The Project on Government Oversight and ThinkProgress have detailed many cases of bank lobbyists infiltrating government at the highest levels and currying favor for the big banks.

We asked Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), a far right lawmaker who has made a habit of leading Tea Party protests, about the prospect for synergy. Even Price, who typically promotes big bank interests as a member of Congress, conceded that current protest movements are “frustrated by a lack of regulation” on “certain sectors of society,” like the banking industry:

Watch it here:

For an extended transcript, click more.

FANG: Rolling Stone and New York Times reported that one of the reasons why maybe there weren’t prosecutions for the firms involved in creating the financial crisis was because of the revolving door at the SEC. A lot of the banks got too close with the SEC, got their people in there—

PRICE: Sure.

FANG: –corrupted a lot of the bureaucrats. Do you think there’s a synergy between the Tea Party and the Occupy Wall Street movement, that they should be protesting the corruption at the SEC?

PRICE: Well I think that both of them recognize that the regulatory regime in our country is broken and now it’s being used solely for political purposes and not for a regulatory oversight of whatever entity you have in this country. We didn’t have the challenge that we have because of too much regulation, er, too little regulation. We have the challenge that we have because the regulators didn’t doo their job. And so, as far as these current protests are frustrated by the lack of regulation, or regulatory oversight on certain sectors of society, in some ways, that’s correct because they didn’t do their job. That doesn’t mean you need more regulation, that means you need regulators who do their job.

Former Congressman and current Bank of American executive Harold Ford

Despite his move from public official to bank executive, Ford used his opportunity on NBC’s Meet the Press yesterday to offer President Obama some economic advice. Ford suggested that Obama tone down his supposedly anti-business rhetoric, and instead implement policies like a tax repatriation holiday (a tax holiday for corporations bringing profits made overseas to the United States). Such a bailout to already profitable companies does not even create jobs. Before Ford could go on, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell interrupted him to ask about the growing Occupy Wall Street movement.

Ford dismissed the movement and told Obama and the Democratic Party to “look beyond Occupy.” In Ford’s world, a tax holiday bailout for super rich corporations like his own is in the “best interest of the country”:

FORD: But the posture and the language and the rhetoric has been just too overheated. And to, to Mr. Welch’s point, you can’t, you can’t incentivize the type of things that he–that they incentivized in this bill. Two, you have huge balance sheets on the part of corporate America, meaning they’re making money. You got to incentivize them, as the president has asked, to use that money to stimulate job creation. There’s a way to do it, if you have some certainty around regulations and taxes. And two, you’ve got 1.2, maybe 1.3 trillion sitting overseas. Allow that money to come back. But–

MITCHELL: With Occupy Wall Street, how does he take that posture?

FORD: He’s the president, Andrea. He’s the president.

MITCHELL: He’s caught between two polar opposites.

FORD: We Democrats can’t criticize Republicans for catering to the tea party and not be–and not say to our Democratic Party you got to look beyond Occupy and be willing to do what’s in the best interest of the country.

Watch it here:

Like former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) and other former lawmakers who have taken jobs at big banks, Ford speaks in the media using his former title instead of his current job. The Meet the Press segment had a chyron for Ford that read: “FMR. REP. HAROLD FORD JR. (D-TN).” It should have read: “BANK OF AMERICA EXEC HAROLD FORD.”

Disgraced UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox speaks at an American Legislative Exchange Council conference in Chicago

In 2003, Fox and Werritty officially partnered with the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to form the Atlantic Bridge nonprofit. The relationship flourished; ALEC supplied staff to the Atlantic Bridge, and Fox and his associates frequently spoke at ALEC events, which are comprised of meetings between American politicians and business lobbyists. But with the implosion of the Atlantic Bridge, which has already ensnared lobbyists for Pfizer and several defense firms, the controversy has brought ALEC into the limelight.

ThinkProgress has covered ALEC for years, and what we have found closely resembles the pay-to-play allegations against Atlantic Bridge. Our investigations helped expose the fact that health insurance lobbyists used ALEC to write anti-health reform legislation, that Koch Industries and coal lobbyists had used ALEC to kill clean energy programs, and that private prison corporations pushed immigrant detention laws with assistance from ALEC. At the last major ALEC conference, a convention with state lawmakers and business lobbyists held in August in New Orleans, ThinkProgress tried to gain access to what has become a deeply secretive, yet expansive organization:

Watch the ThinkProgress video report of the 2011 American Legislative Exchange Council conference:

Speaking at a 2008 ALEC conference in Chicago, Fox said, “we at Atlantic Bridge have been delighted at the success of our partnership with ALEC and we’re excited about what we might achieve together in the future.” “In particular,” he added, “we are patting ourselves on the back at having chosen such a disguised and solid values-based organization to be our partner because the values that you have need to be embedded at every level of government — not just national or federal government.” Given the way Fox exported ALEC’s stealth lobbying agenda to the UK, one must wonder when the Atlantic Bridge corruption scandal will hit the United States.

Shortly after news broke of the Atlantic Bridge controversy, the websites for ALEC and Atlantic Bridge went down. Both now claim to be undergoing maintenance.

Presidential candidate Herman Cain’s spokesperson and foreign policy adviser also has strong ties to Atlantic Bridge.

As a lobbyist for the NRA, Cain represented a trade association for McDonalds, Burger King, and other fast food establishments. But a little known history, uncovered by ThinkProgress using the University of California, San Francisco archives, shows that Cain also lobbied on behalf of tobacco industry giants like R.J. Reynolds and Phillip Morris.

Documents reveals a long partnership between Herman Cain, then-head of the National Restaurant Association, and the tobacco industry. Above, one of the many Cain-related meeting notes from R.J. Reynolds.

Cain met frequently with representatives of R.J. Reynolds and other cigarette companies to find areas of mutual concern. In 1993, when President Clinton proposed a health care overhaul, the expansion of coverage included a cigarette tax and a requirement for many businesses to cover their employees. The tobacco industry reached out to form an alliance against the Clinton plan, and Cain obliged given the fast food industry’s opposition to the so-called “employer mandate.” A fax, sent from the tobacco industry’s public relations firm Burson-Marsteller on July 13, 1994, proposes a positive article about Cain’s “BITE BACK” campaign against health reform and smoking bans.

As Cain rose through the ranks of the National Restaurant Association to become its CEO, his bond with tobacco giants continued. In 1997, R.J. Reynolds executive David Fishel filed a memo about a meeting between Cain and tobacco lobbyists shortly after Cain became the NRA CEO. “Cain gave every indication that the NRA and RJR have the same views with regard to excessive government regulations and the importance of letting restaurateurs determine their own smoking policies,” Fishel wrote. R.J. Reynolds and other tobacco giants were at the time engaged in a massive lobbying effort to crush local, state, and federal efforts to regulate smoking in restaurants and other places of public concern.

The relationship blossomed. At one point, Cain even signed up to help out with an international pro-tobacco publicity tour.

Blurring the lines between restaurant industry caretaker and tobacco company representative, Cain accepted hefty donations from tobacco corporations. Cain worked to snuff out a Senate bill that would have reigned in smoking at restaurants and other facilities around the country. The lobbying drive, which defeated the bill in 1998, occured just after the NRA started to see money coming in from tobacco firms.

As Cain gained political connections in the lobbying world, he let some of his associates in on his dream of becoming president. “What IS a little interesting,” remarked tobacco lobbyist Rob Meyne in a January 22, 1999 e-mail to his colleagues, “is that Cain has informed key NRA leaders … that he is, in fact, going to run for President.” Meyne mused that Cain probably couldn’t win, but could make some type of impact. Cain would be a positive addition to the Republican field because he is “good on our issues,” added Meyne.

State Senator Juan Vargas (D) killed the foreclosure mitigation bill; later went to dinner with Bank of America lobbyists

As the 99 Percent Movement takes shape across the country, citizens are demanding that Congress represent the public interest instead of the whims of bankers and big corporations. For instance, after demanding and receiving massive bailouts, Wall Street banks successfully lobbied Congress to crush any serious effort to mitigate the foreclosure crisis. The spectacular bank lobbying coup in Washington prompted Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) to remark that the banks “frankly, own the place.”

And this dynamic is not only at play in Washington: Banks have a disproportionate amount of power in California as well.

As one of the epicenters of the foreclosure crisis, Californians by the tens of thousands have lost their homes. In most cases, banks have repossessed houses without bothering to re-negotiate interest payments to find foreclosure alternatives. And in a growing number of cases, “robo-signers” have allegedly forged documents and illegally foreclosed on borrowers. Since the foreclosure crisis is leading towards a spiraling decrease in home property values across the state, nearly everyone is affected.

A common sense idea to add transparency and accountability to the mortgage market died a quick death earlier this year. State Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and State Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) proposed SB729, a measure “to require banks to give people a definitive answer on loan modification, identify who owns the loan, and give borrowers legal recourse if banks don’t take these steps.”

The idea, embraced by consumer advocates and many foreclosure experts, did not even make it out of committee. State Sen. Juan Vargas (D-San Diego), the chairman of the banking committee, joined two Republican state senators in snuffing the bill. State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Los Angeles) abstained from the vote, ensuring a 3-3 split (a tied vote does not allow the bill to proceed). Despite moving testimony from victims of foreclosure fraud and persuasive academic opinion, the bill died. To understand why, simply follow the money:

– Bank of America, a leading mortgage-lender in California, spent $173,703 lobbying this year in Sacramento. Disclosure reports show Bank of America hired lobbying firms like Nielsen Merksamer and Government Relations Counsel to kill SB729. Reports also show that Bank of America treated Vargas to dinner at the Ella Dining Room and Bar about a month after he voted to kill the foreclosure mitigation bill. Bank of America has contributed $5,500 in campaign contributions to Vargas and nearly $2,000 to Padilla.

– The California Mortgage Bankers Association, a lobbying group representing a number of mortgage lenders in the state, spent $55,711 lobbying in Sacramento this year. The bankers hired KP Public Affairs, a firm that doubles as the general counsel for the association, to help kill SB729. The group donated $4,000 to Vargas and $1,000 to Padilla recently.

– Wells Fargo spent $84,027 lobbying in Sacramento, and hired a firmed called Knudsen & Associates to help kill SB729. Wells Fargo has contributed $2,800 to Padilla and $2,000 to Vargas. Disclosure reports show agents for Wells Fargo took a state senator out to lunch shortly after the SB729 vote, but the disclosure forms appear to be incomplete because the name of the senator is not filled in.

JP Morgan Chase, the California Chamber of Commerce, Fidelity National Financial, the Securities Industry And Financial Markets Association (a trade association representing investment banks like Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital), and other bank-related organizations spent tens of thousands to lobby against SB729.

In an article last month in the San Diego Union Tribune, Vargas pled ignorance while explaining his role in killing the mitigation and transparency measure:

“If a homeowner is doing everything the bank asked him or her to do and the bank forecloses, I think that’s very inappropriate and should be a violation of the law. But I don’t remember hearing any testimony about that kind of thing while we were discussing this bill.”

According to sources contacted by ThinkProgress, Vargas was in the hearing room with witnesses who testified about a host of unfair and rushed bank foreclosures. Perhaps the dinner Bank of America bought Vargas after the vote had some memory-wiping ingredients.