We're not picking on Kit Bond or the GOP. This is a Washington problem.
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WASHINGTON -- Outgoing Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.) is headed for a pay raise, announcing on Tuesday he'll be joining a high-profile law firm that lobbies on transportation issues. While in Congress, Bond served as ranking member on a subcommittee that doled out transportation funds. Now he is joining the St. Louis-based law firm Thompson Coburn as a partner.
"I joined this firm to be a lawyer, not to be a lobbyist," Bond told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday, pointing to ethics rules that ban former lawmakers from lobbying for two years after leaving the chamber. "I do not plan to be involved in lobbying Congress."
Still, the firm touted the two-term governor and four-term senator's time as a lawmaker when announcing the hire. "Senator Bond has been a tremendous friend of the business community during his forty years of public service, and combines both legal and policymaking expertise with a deep understanding of the issues of importance to our clients," Thompson Coburn Chairman Tom Minogue said in a press release.
The firm primarily lobbies within the transportation sector, including contracts with Los Angeles County Metro Transportation Authority, and the Transbay Joint Powers Authority, a San Francisco-based transit project.
Bond will work on transportation, agriculture, biotechnology and international trade -- the same issues he focused on during his time as a lawmaker. Not only did Bond serve as ranking member on a subcommittee which allocates funds for transportation, during his time in the Senate Bond also funneled hundreds of millions of dollars back to his home state in earmarks.
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Career as a Lobbyist
While recovering from a difficult fight with cancer, Tauzin resigned from Congress and began work as the head of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, a powerful trade group forpharmaceutical companies. Five years later he announced his retirement from the association (as of the end of June, 2010).[4]
It was reported that PhRMA had offered more than $2.5 million per year for his services, outbidding the Motion Picture Association of America, which had offered Tauzin $1 million to lobby for it.[5]
Two months before resigning as chair of the committee which oversees the drug industry, Tauzin had played a key role in shepherding through Congress the Medicare Prescription Drug Bill, a bill which had been criticized by opponents for being too generous to the pharmaceutical industry. The switch from regulator to lobbyist was widely noted.[6]
This link was explored at great length in an April 1, 2007 interview by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes. The report, Under the Influence, pitted Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) and Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) against Tauzin and accused him of using unethical tactics to push a bill that "the pharmaceutical lobbyists wrote". Along with Tauzin, many of the other individuals who worked on the bill are now lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry. Michael Moore's 2007 film Sicko levied similar criticism.[7]
As head of PhRMA, Tauzin was a key player in 2009 health care reform negotiations that produced pharmaceutical industry support for White House and Senate efforts.[8] Reportedly, proposals for Medicare Part D cost reductions and permitting drug importation from Canada were dropped in favor of $80 billion in other savings.
Tauzin now is on the Board of Directors at Louisiana Healthcare Group.
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The Legacy of Billy Tauzin: The White House Pharma Deal
More than a million spectators gathered before the Capitol on a frosty January afternoon to witness the inauguration of Barack Obama, who promised in his campaign to change Washington’s mercenary culture of lobbyists, special interest influence and backroom deals. But within a few months of being sworn in, the President and his top aides were sitting down with leaders from the pharmaceutical industry to hash out a deal that they thought would make health care reform possible.
Continue reading...
http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2010/02/12/the-legacy-of-billy-tauzin-the-white-house-phrma-deal/
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