|
Catherine Dolinksi, Maryland Gazette Oct. 3, 2003 Hiring a lobbyist is like buying a house or car. "Buyer beware," advises Suzanne S. Fox, executive director of the Maryland Ethics Commission, which monitors lobbyists. "Just because there are rules guiding the conduct of lobbyists doesn't exempt you from doing your homework," Fox said. "There is due diligence here. ... Lobbyists may have competing interests." Questions about such conflicts arose last week when Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) asked the state Ethics Commission to investigate lobbyist Gilbert J. Genn's dual representation of Diebold Election Systems Inc., the contractor providing the state's $55 million voting system, and Science Applications International Corp., the company hired by the state to analyze the voting system for security flaws. Budget Secretary James C. "Chip" DiPaula Jr., who oversaw SAIC's investigation, said the administration did not know about Genn's clients when it asked the company to look into questions about possible security flaws with the voting machines. DiPaula said neither Diebold nor Genn influenced the heavily edited voting systems report, which was released last week. "As a matter of fact, he tried. And he was refused." That's not accurate, said Genn, a former Montgomery County delegate. The state Board of Elections requested comments from Diebold on the SAIC report, Genn said, and Diebold offered several corrections -- some of which the report reflects, others that it does not. Exactly what rules the governor thinks Genn might have violated is unclear. While lobbyists may double as lawyers, the conflict-of-interest rules change as soon as they leave the courthouse for the political ring. Unlike a lawyer, who could face disbarment for harboring conflicting interests, there is nothing in the state law to keep a lobbyist from doing so. Lobbyists' required public disclosure of their employer lists and campaign contributions is an employer's only guaranteed line of defense. Henry P. Fawell, a spokesman for Ehrlich, said the governor is being careful not to draw specific conclusions. The administration requested the inquiry, Fawell said, because "we wanted to err on the side of extreme caution." DiPaula said Genn should have alerted the administration to his dual interests -- even though Genn has not worked for SAIC for more than three years, and his last assignment for SAIC, a diverse company, involved cancer research rather than computer security matters. The administration acknowledges that Genn followed the state's golden rule of disclosure: Both SAIC and Diebold appear on the state Ethics Commission's public list of Genn's 11 employers. In a statement, Genn said he welcomes the inquiry "to validate that the independent, third-party examination by SAIC" was not compromised by his relationships. "I fail to see the real conflict there," said Annapolis lobbyist William Pitcher. "We always have to be careful, but if he represented [SAIC] unrelated to this contract, I don't see the conflict." As the lobbying business and contract lobbyists' employer lists continue to expand, so does the potential for conflict of interest -- something businesses try to avoid at all costs, said Kathleen T. Snyder, president of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. After all, the indiscretions of a lobbyist can reflect directly on his employer. "Those public perceptions are very difficult to change," Snyder said. The state Ethics Commission maintains lists of lobbyists and their clients, Fox said, so employers can find out who represents whom in Annapolis. "That's one of the reasons all of this information is public, so that any employer, citizen or public official can look on our Web site and review the listings of which lobbyist represents which company," Fox said. But with no explicit regulating statute, exactly what constitutes an interest conflict for a lobbyist remains open to interpretation. James Browning, executive director of the government watchdog Common Cause Maryland, has questioned lobbyist Laurence Levitan's representation of the American Lung Association of Maryland and several auto dealer associations. "The lung association's goal is to make the air cleaner," Browning said. "I would think sharing a lobbyist with the [auto industry] would call their interest into question." But Levitan, a former state senator, said those clients generally do not wind up on opposite ends of the same issues. The key to avoiding conflicts, he said, is vigilant disclosure -- both to the state and to clients. At times, he said, he has turned down clients because a potential conflict was evident. Peter Kitzmiller, president of the Maryland New Car and Truck Dealers Association, said he was not aware that Levitan also represented the lung association. "But frankly it doesn't give me great pause," Kitzmiller said. "We haven't been directly on the other side from the lung association on a lot of issues." Deborah Kubecka, director of advocacy for the American Lung Association of Maryland, said the association advocates for cleaner air, bicycling and mass transit use, but "we have to live in reality and realize that people need their cars. It'd be different if, say, they were representing power companies not complying with the Clean Air Act." Kubecka pointed her finger at what she considers a clearer conflict -- the interests of the tobacco and health care industries. She questioned in particular lobbyist Bruce C. Bereano's representation of both an association of tobacco vendors and Dimensions Healthcare Corp., parent company of the Prince George's Hospital Center and other health care outlets. "I find it difficult to accept that a health care provider would want the same lobbyist as an industry that kills millions of people a year," Kubecka said. Bereano said the "tobacco police" are misguided in their accusations because they are not privy to his disclosures and discussions with his clients. "Secondly, if the hospital client does not involve itself in tobacco issues, but remains within the four corners of hospital issues, there is no conflict because you're not working at cross-purposes," he said. "I went to law school and I practiced law for 30 years," said Bereano, who was disbarred after being convicted of federal mail and wire fraud in 1994 but continues to maintain a powerful lobbying practice in Annapolis. "I was schooled in the standards for professional conflicts. I have always, throughout my lobbying career, applied the legal standards of a lawyer ... to my lobbying practice." Julie Hoffman, spokeswoman for Dimensions Healthcare, said her company is aware of Bereano's full portfolio and evaluates that contract on an ongoing basis. "Within that process we expect, and we do get, full disclosure." But public interest watchdogs say conflict of interest is a concern for more than just a lobbyist's employers. "If you have a lobbyist economically benefiting from a particularly company ... it is not the people of Maryland that are the top priority of that lobbyist," said Craig Holman, campaign finance lobbyist for Public Citizen. Disclosure laws are a helpful but possibly inadequate check, Holman said, given the mounting numbers of lobbyists and their employers. "We shouldn't have to rely on a disclosure system," he said. "We should go further." But business interests, which hire most of the lobbyists and perhaps have the most at stake, hesitate about piling on more regulations. "I think, particularly where ethics is concerned in Maryland, they've already gone overboard," said Robert O.C. Worcester, president of Maryland Business for Responsive Government, a nonpartisan organization working to improve Maryland's business climate. The perceived climate for business in Annapolis is unfriendly enough without further tightening regulation, Worcester said. But the lack of more stringent rules does not excuse complacency on any lobbyist's part, he said, especially given the "almost uninterrupted" history of political chicanery in Maryland politics. "Given that, a lobbyist should take special pains -- and I'm not saying [Genn] didn't -- to explain to both of his clients what the potential relationships are, or recuse himself from any overlapping issues," Worcester said. While disclosure is critical, a lobbyist's client list alone is not sufficient evidence of a problem, said Gary R. Alexander, whose firm Alexander and Cleaver represents health care providers as well as the state's top insurer, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. Alexander said those interests do not constitute a conflict for his firm, one of the top earners in Annapolis, noting that only one lobbyist at the firm -- former House Speaker Casper R. Taylor Jr. -- is registered as a lobbyist for CareFirst. "We don't do the same things for those clients," he said. "Both know who all our clients are. ... We don't represent clients on everything a client does; these are targeted, specific assignments." One of the firm's other clients is Adventist HealthCare Inc., which operates Shady Grove and Washington Adventist Hospitals in Montgomery County. Adventist spokesman Robert Jepson said the portfolio for Alexander's firm has changed since Adventist first hired it; in the beginning, its clients did not include the CareFirst insurance company. But the firm has always proven itself to be "ethically inclined," he said. "That's at the top of our priority list because there is such scrutiny of the entire legislative process," Jepson said. |
