House Members Parroting Lobbyist Talking Points

It’s naive to think we’ll ever be governed by angels, but norms and culture do matter for how people behave. And one of our problems in the United States is that the norms currently prevailing on Capitol Hill are not very admirable, and the culture is largely one of shamelessness and irresponsibility. Which is how you get stories like this about members of congress—from both parties—entering into the congressional record statements written by lobbyists for Genentech.

Robert Pear explains that the statements “were meant to show bipartisan support for certain provisions, even though the vote on passage generally followed party lines.” Basically, the House health care bill included some stuff that’s good for Genentech. So they had one version of their preferred language that was designed for Democrats who “emphasized the bill’s potential to create jobs in health care, health information technology and clinical research on new drugs.” Republicans, on the other hand, “opposed the bill, but praised a provision that would give the Food and Drug Administration the authority to approve generic versions of expensive biotechnology drugs, along the lines favored by brand-name companies like Genentech.”

In separate statements using language suggested by the lobbyists, Representatives Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri and Joe Wilson of South Carolina, both Republicans, said: “One of the reasons I have long supported the U.S. biotechnology industry is that it is a homegrown success story that has been an engine of job creation in this country. Unfortunately, many of the largest companies that would seek to enter the biosimilar market have made their money by outsourcing their research to foreign countries like India.”

I have no opinion on the underlying merits of this provision. But obviously the fact that congressional staff, from both parties, are comfortable copy-and-pasting emails from corporate lobbyists into official member statements is revelatory of the mindset up there. As are the statements being offered in response to Robert Pear’s article:

In an interview, Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was the same. I did not know it was.” He said he got his statement from his staff and “did not know where they got the information from.” [...]

In recent years, Genentech’s political action committee and lobbyists for Roche and Genentech have made campaign contributions to many House members, including some who filed statements in the Congressional Record. And company employees have been among the hosts at fund-raisers for some of those lawmakers. But Evan L. Morris, head of Genentech’s Washington office, said, “There was no connection between the contributions and the statements.”

On Pascrell’s part, you see a kind of narrow effort to evade blame for a slightly embarrassing story. But you don’t see evidence that he, personally, is anything close to shocked and outraged that this is how his staff has been conducting itself. Similarly, Morris is just clarifying that there are no illegal bribes happening here. And obviously it’s not his responsibility to uphold a higher standard of ethical conduct by members of congress and their staff. And one way or another, this is the kind of thing you’re never going to eliminate with formal rules. It’s a question of individuals’ own sense of what’s acceptable conduct, and what will be seen by friends and colleagues as acceptable