Looking Out For Themselves

by hilzoy

Apparently, yet another key McCain staffer was hired by Freddie Mac specifically to influence McCain:

"When mortgage giant Freddie Mac feared several years ago that Sen. John McCain was too outspoken on the issue of executive pay, it pinpointed a lobbyist known for his closeness to McCain and hired him to work with the senator.

Mark Buse, a longtime McCain adviser who had been staff director of the Senate commerce committee, signed on as a Freddie Mac lobbyist, and his firm, ML Strategies, earned $460,000 in lobbying fees in late 2003 and 2004, according to lobbying disclosures. Buse is now chief of staff at McCain's Senate office."

What's particularly interesting is why Buse was hired:

"Freddie Mac's interest in Buse dates back to mid-2003. That May, McCain presided over a hearing on executive pay at which he condemned "a disconnect between CEO pay and performance at many of America's corporations" and said that "these kinds of excesses are making a lot of Americans angry."

Freddie Mac became a target of criticism the following month when the company announced it had fired its president and forced out two other top executives. Soon Freddie Mac revealed that fired president David W. Glenn would get stock options worth nearly $6 million. Leland C. Brendsel, who was forced to retire as chief executive after 21 years at the company, walked away with compensation worth $24 million.

Concern over the golden parachutes sparked calls in Congress for tougher oversight. McCain told a newspaper in August 2003 that he planned to hold hearings on executive compensation oversight and on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

"Senator McCain was talking about limiting executive compensation, and Buse was retained to nip that in the bud," said a former lobbyist who insisted on anonymity because of continuing relationships with the companies."

That is: Buse wasn't hired to lobby about some important matter or policy. He was hired because executives at Freddie Mac were worried that McCain might put limits on their own salaries.

I wonder how their shareholders, now largely wiped out, feel about the fact that Freddie's management was spending shareholders' money simply to protect their own salaries.

Did it work? It depends on who you ask. The McCain campaign:

"McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers said the hiring of Buse did not influence McCain. "I think the reality is that John McCain takes positions, you know, based on what he believes is in the public interest, period," Rogers said. "If these folks thought they were getting something out of John McCain . . . it's not based in fact.""

Freddie Mac:

"McCain continued to talk about the compensation issue. But inside Freddie Mac, Buse's effort was viewed as "hugely successful," a former Freddie Mac lobbyist said. "The statements didn't go away completely, but in terms of Senator McCain doing anything about it, it just never materialized. As far as I know, Buse was the only person working that issue for Fannie or Freddie, so he got a lot of credit internally for the results.""

Comments

[Gary Farber]

As Tim Dickinson pointed out again here:

[...] Charlie Keating, the banker and anti-pornography crusader, would ultimately be convicted on 73 counts of fraud and racketeering for his role in the savings-and-loan scandal of the 1980s. That crisis, much like today's subprime-mortgage meltdown, resulted from misbegotten banking deregulation, and ultimately left taxpayers to pick up a tab of more than $124 billion. Keating, who raised more than $100,000 for McCain's race, lavished the first-term congressman with the kind of political favors that would make Jack Abramoff blush. McCain and his family took at least nine free trips at Keating's expense, and vacationed nearly every year at the mogul's estate in the Bahamas. There they would spend the days yachting and snorkeling and attending extravagant parties in a world McCain referred to as "Charlie Keating's Shangri-La." Keating also invited Cindy McCain and her father to invest in a real estate venture for which he promised a 26 percent return on investment. They plunked down more than $350,000.

McCain still attributes the attention to nothing more than Keating's "great respect for military people" and the duo's "political and personal affinity." But Keating, for his part, made no bones about the purpose of his giving. When asked by reporters if the investments he made in politicians bought their loyalty and influence on his behalf, Keating replied, "I want to say in the most forceful way I can, I certainly hope so."

Or people can conclude that corporations and individuals hire these lobbyists and drop these big sums on politicians out of the goodness of their hearts.

Maybe it's all about the affinity.

There doesn't seem to be all that much affinity with hanging out with poor folks, as a rule, though. Why knows why? It's a mystery.

[russell]

There doesn't seem to be all that much affinity with hanging out with poor folks, as a rule, though. Why knows why? It's a mystery.

It's the vegetables. They serve such marvelous vegetables. Little fresh born things, scarcely out of the earth.

Seriously, who wants frozen peas when you can have fresh little perfect ones?

It's their due.

Thanks -

[Ken Houghton]

"The statements didn't go away completely, but in terms of Senator McCain doing anything about it, it just never materialized."

And this is unusual in McCain's 26-year career exactly how? (the more you look at his actual record, the less you see him having done.)

[Nell]

The mysterious affinity is bipartisan, thanks to the corporate hammerlock on election financing.

I'm glad voters seem to be mainly blaming Republicans for the economic ditch we're in, and that's entirely fair because of the control their administration has had and the extent to which they've gone along in Congress.

But there are serious sins of omission on the Democratic side, and the studied unwillingness to take a hard look at the financial shell games being run has everything to do with campaign financing.

The big fundraising edge held by the Dem. Senate Campaign Committee? That's not the result of activists sending in their $25 and $100. The toothlessness of the executive compensation provisions in the bailout bll (as well as the basic meaninglessness of most of the other "improvements") has a lot to do with the compromised nature of the whole membership of the Senate and House banking/finance committees, and their staffs.

Congressional staff, both members' and particularly the committee staff, are insufficiently well known and scrutinized. Reporters, who rely on them, are unlikely to do much of that scrutiny. Most members do not even make the names of their staff public, even to constituents who request them. A significant number of them are corporate and interest-group plants.

Aaargh. I need to get out in the beautiful sunshine and try to stop thinking about things I can do little to nothing about.