Ain't That Special?

Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode CLXXVII

John "F" Kennedy Kerry has been railing against "special interests". But even mainstream media sources, like WaPo and AP, have been taking note of Kerry's... closeness to... special interests.

First, from The Guardian, Feb. 10.

Fresh from his latest win in Maine, the favourite to challenge George Bush for the US presidency has secured the financial support of some of the most powerful media moguls in the world.

As John Kerry's campaign to secure the Democrat nomination - and with it a crack at the White House - continues to gather pace, it has emerged that it is being bankrolled by key executives from News Corporation, MTV-owner Viacom and Sony.

The victory in Maine, Mr Kerry's 10th out of the 12 primaries in the opening weeks of the Democrat selection campaign, confirmed his position as overwhelming favourite to take on President Bush in November's presidential election.

Unsurprisingly, the donation from News Corp's boardroom came not from chairman Rupert Murdoch, a committed Republican, but from the company's chief operating officer, Peter Chernin.

Mr Chernin, one of Mr Murdoch's most trusted lieutenants, is among several media chiefs who have pledged to raise between $50,000 and $100,000 to support the Vietnam war veteran's campaign for the White House.

Others who have pledged to raise more than $50,000 include the Viacom chief executive, Sumner Redstone, and Sony chairman Howard Stringer, whose name has recently been linked with the vacant chairmanships at ITV and the BBC.

Most of the money raised from these contributors will have to be raised through business associates, relatives and friends as individuals can only give a total of $4,000 each to presidential candidates - $2,000 during the primaries and another $2,000 during a general election.

US political commentators have speculated that Mr Kerry has enjoyed the support of the media community in an effort to head off the challenge of Howard Dean, who has fallen back in the race despite being the frontrunner before the primaries began. Mr Dean made statements last year about wanting to break up media conglomerates.

New figures compiled by the Federal Election Commission, correct up to the end of December 2003, show that Mr Chernin and the president of the Motion Picture Association of America, Jack Valenti, both gave the maximum $2,000 to Mr Kerry's campaign.

Mr Redstone gave $1,000 to Mr Kerry, $3,000 to the re-election bid of the senate minority leader, Tom Daschle, and $5,000 to the Democratic senatorial campaign committee. Mel Karmazin, the chief operating officer at Viacom, also gave $4,000 to Mr Daschle.

Mr Murdoch, meanwhile, contributed $2,000 to the re-election as senator of Republican John McCain, who is chairman of the influential senate commerce committee, which regulates the media.

Contributors to president George W Bush's re-election campaign included the Time Warner chief executive, Richard Parsons, who handed over $2,000, and the Clear Channel chief executive, Lowry Mays.

Other noteworthy media executives who contributed to party funds include the cable mogul and Liberty Media chief executive, John Malone, who gave $2,000 to the Republican National Committee last year, and Disney's under-fire chief executive Michael Eisner, who gave $5,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee.

MediaGuardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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Next, an Associated Press story at the Las Vegas Sun, Feb. 9.

Back when federal lawmakers legally could be paid for speaking to outside groups, John Kerry collected more than $120,000 in fees from interests as diverse as big oil, tobacco, the liquor lobby and unions, records show.

Between 1985 and 1990, Kerry's first five years in the Senate from Massachusetts, he pocketed annual amounts slightly under the limits for speaking fees set by Congress. Unlike many colleagues, he donated a speaking fee to charity only once, according to annual financial disclosure reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

One of the companies to pay Kerry $1,000 for a speech in 1987, Miami-based Metalbanc, was later indicted, along with two executives, on charges it helped the Cali drug cartel in Colombia launder money in the United States. The charges eventually were dropped because the firm was defunct.

At the time of the 1987 speech to Metalbanc, Kerry was chairman of the Senate subcommittee that investigated drug trafficking and money laundering.

Kerry, now the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said he didn't learn about the drug connection to the company or its executives, who also gave him political donations, until The Boston Globe informed him of it in 1996. He donated several thousand dollars to charities to make amends.

Kerry's ethics reports show he made more than 90 paid speeches between 1985, when he first took office, and 1990, when Congress began the move to end honoraria.

The senator's campaign acknowledged Sunday that he accepted the speaking fees, but said he also gave several speeches a year for free.

"He gave these speeches to address what he saw as the important issues at the time such as the growing national deficit," spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter said. "In compliance with the law, he accepted small speaking fees from some of the groups he spoke to, and, in at least one case, donated that money to charity."

At the time Kerry could accept speaking fees, senators were forced to abide by annual limits, which ranged from $26,568 to $35,800.

A number of veteran lawmakers often collected more than $100,000 in a single year but had to give everything over the limit to charity. For instance, former House Ways and Means committee chairman Dan Rostenskowski once donated $155,000 of his speaking fees in one year to charity.

And Sen. John Heinz, R-Pa., the late husband of Kerry's wife, Teresa, donated all $12,000 in speaking fees he made in 1986.

Kerry reported donating a speaking fee to charity only once, when he was paid $2,000 in 1988 to speak to the RJR Nabisco tobacco and food conglomerate, his reports state.

A longtime federal election regulator said Kerry's extensive speaking efforts after he arrived in Washington followed a path taken by many new lawmakers who were not wealthy. With congressional salaries half what they are today, many lawmakers pressed to find outside income from special interests.

"Members were often pulled almost like a magnet into a circle of lobbyists who were very willing to pay large honoraria for them to give a brief speech or a talk to their organization or group," said Kent Cooper, former public disclosure chief for the Federal Election Commission who now runs a Web site that studies political donations and lobbying.

"This provided instant cash to a member and at the same time built a relationship with that lobbyist or organization," Cooper said.

Several of the Democratic candidates this year have accepted special interest speaking fees in their career. Former Gen. Wesley Clark collected more than $1 million in speaking and consulting fees after his military retirement, and Howard Dean accepted speaking fees about a half-dozen times while governor of Vermont governor.

In 1985, Kerry's freshman year in the Senate, he supplemented his $75,000 salary with $19,480 in speaking fees. The next year the fees grew to $22,725.

Kerry's paid speaking engagements included several traditional Democratic constituencies, like the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers' union; law firms and the St. Louis Women's Democratic Committee.

Kerry, who sharply criticizes special interest money and big oil companies while campaigning, earned handsomely from some of Washington's most famous lobbies as well as corporate America.

For instance, oil giant Chevron paid him $2,000 in 1986 for participating in a round-table discussion. Large financial companies, among them Paine Webber, J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs, also paid to hear Kerry speak, as did the Chicago Board of Trade and defense contractors such as Allied Signal and Textron.

Kerry also spoke for pay to the National Restaurant Association ($1,000 in 1985), the National Association of Independent Insurers ($1,000 in 1986), the American Bankers Association ($2,000 in 1986) and the National Association of Manufacturers.

"It certainly didn't seem to influence his voting record," said Laura Brown Narvaiz, a spokeswoman for the NAM, which paid Kerry $1,000 for a speech in September 1986. "I don't think he voted in favor of our positions very many times."

The Distilled Spirits Council, which paid Kerry $2,000 for a speech in 1987, said such engagements gave a chance for the liquor lobby to bend the ears of policy-makers on issues such as taxes, free trade and restrictions on alcohol ads.

"When lawmakers speak with us, there's an exchange of views and they come away with more information about what's important to our industry," said Frank Coleman, the council's senior vice president.

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Now, a report at ABC News, Feb. 9.

On the night of his victory in the New Hampshire primary, Democratic presidential front-runner Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts warned so-called special interests that a new day was coming.

"We're coming, you're going, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!" he said to cheers.

The sincerity of that claim, however, depends upon one's definition of a "special interest." Kerry has been criticized for proclaiming himself to be a foe of lobbyists and special interests although, according to survey of federal records by The Washington Post, he is the Senate's No. 1 recipient of individual campaign contributions from lobbyists. As Kerry's front-runner status has become further solidified, media reports have pointed out various actions by Kerry that they say benefited his campaign contributors.

ABCNEWS has learned of a story involving Kerry taking legislative action that benefited a campaign contributor: Predictive Networks, a Cambridge, Mass., tech firm co-founded by Paul Davis, although he is no longer directly associated with the company.

"It absolutely is a special interest," said Davis, a Democrat who generally likes Kerry. "Make no mistake about it — we were in that business to make money, not to perform any kind of social service."

"Typically, a politician says that those who support me just want good government and those who support my opponents are special interests," quipped Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Kerry Sides With Company

Predictive Networks — now under new management and called Predictive Media — monitors what Internet and cable consumers are viewing and targets advertising accordingly.

As one might expect, such surveillance has raised privacy issues. In 2000, the U.S. Senate debated whether Internet and cable customers should get the opportunity up front to reject such surveillance, a position known as "opt-in," supported by consumer groups and codified into legislation by Sen. Ernest "Fritz" Hollings, D-S.C.

Predictive Networks' CEO, Devin Hosea, met with Kerry and his staff on July 25, 2000.

One day later, Kerry introduced a bill that would have enabled companies like Predictive Networks to automatically be allowed to monitor what consumers are viewing — placing the onus on customers to "opt-out" of surveillance if they wanted.

Making it more difficult for consumers to "opt-out" is generally believed to benefit the industry side of this debate, since the pool of consumers being monitored would be larger, making it more lucrative for those marketing ads to those viewers — like Predictive Networks.

According to Kerry campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter, the bill, co-sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had been drafted long before Kerry's meeting with Hosea.

Cutter argued that much of the tech industry wanted no bill whatsoever; AOL, Predictive Networks and the Walt Disney Co., which owns ABCNEWS, supported the Kerry bill.

Predictive Fund-Raising

In February 2002, Hosea threw a fund-raiser for Kerry at a Boston restaurant, Locke-Ober. According to Davis, the implied quid pro quo — never stated by Kerry staffers but inferred by many at Predictive Networks — made some executives uncomfortable.

One vice president at the firm told Davis he was "upset because company resources were being used and company personnel were being utilized in order to organize that fund-raiser," Davis told ABCNEWS. "As an investor, I was concerned because investor money ought to be used to build a company, to develop technology, not to fund a campaign."

When they ceased doing business together, Davis and Hosea did not have an amicable parting. Davis says the Kerry fund-raising issue was one of many; Hosea would not comment. Davis is quick to say he likes Kerry, is not supporting any of his rivals, and would vote for him for president should he become the Democratic nominee.

Hosea would not agree to an on-the-record interview with ABCNEWS, saying he felt uncomfortable talking about the Kerry campaign and referring questions to a Kerry spokesman, but he did deny that any company supplies or personnel were used for the Kerry event. Hosea confirmed that after the fund-raiser, a chartered plane took several company executives and others to New York City — but not before swinging by Washington, D.C., to drop off Kerry.

Kerry complied with Senate regulations and reimbursed the company for the cost of a first-class plane ticket. "That doesn't at all cover the cost and the convenience of flying on a chartered jet," Noble said, "but that is the rule."

That summer, Hosea hosted another fund-raiser for Kerry at the posh Princeton Club in Manhattan.

"Some of the investors, including our lead investors in the company, have very conservative political values and usually are Republican and quite conservative in their outlook," Davis said. "It was very surprising to see them writing large checks and bringing some other members of organizations in to write large checks for John Kerry, who is considered a progressive Democrat."

Why would conservatives give Kerry money?

"If you don't believe in Democratic Party values and you're receiving some kind of legislative benefit from a politician, the logical conclusion might be that the legislation somehow was tied to the money," Davis said.The legislation in this case, however, never became law.

No one contacted for this story has even remotely alleged that anyone affiliated with Kerry went so far as to imply a quid pro quo. And Kerry spokeswoman Cutter argued that as far back as May 11, 2000, Kerry was arguing against "heavy-handed legislation" relating to Internet privacy.

"Throughout his career, John Kerry has been a leader in protecting the rights of consumers," Cutter told ABCNEWS. "When the issue of Internet privacy developed as a national priority, John Kerry showed leadership in studying all sides of the issue and its impact on consumers, as well as the nation's global competitiveness."

Cutter argued that in 2002, Kerry worked on a compromise bill with Hollings and others. He "was instrumental in bringing all parties to the table — industry, consumers, as well as both Democrats and Republicans — to craft bipartisan legislation which, for the first time ever, protected consumer privacy on the Internet," she said. None of these bills has ever become law.

The Art of Bundling

Kerry makes a point of arguing that he has never taken any money from political action committees, or PACs.

"I'm the only candidate running for this job, and I'm the only senator in the Senate today who's been elected four times who has voluntarily refused in any of my campaigns to ever take one dime of special interest political action committee money," Kerry told ABCNEWS' George Stephanopoulos on Jan. 18. "I ran the first PAC-free United States Senate race in 1984. "

But all together, Hosea "bundled" more than $100,000 for Kerry. Bundling is the process through which an individual — usually a lobbyist or company CEO — collects many lawful individual campaign contributions and bundles them together, giving them en masse to a campaign for maximum impact.

"It's one thing to say you don't take PAC money, but again, when you accept bundled money, it is in a sense the same interest that's behind it — and often it's in much larger amounts," Noble said. "PAC money is limited to $5,000. The bundler can bundle together $100,000 to $200,000." So Kerry's claim to be free of special interest ties because PAC funds are verboten from his campaign "is symbolic more than it is practical," according to Noble.

Kerry currently has 32 such bundlers raising more than $100,000 apiece for his campaign, according to the good-government organization Common Cause. Lobbying registration records indicate these bundlers include a number of lobbyists like John Merrigan, who has lobbied for the American Insurance Association, the Health Care Leadership Council and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association. And Manuel Ortiz, who lobbies for the American Hospital Association.

So some question how much Kerry truly can claim to be a foe of special interests. "Every candidate has to answer for the contributions they get, but in John Kerry's case I think it's magnified because he's made such a big deal about not being beholden to special interests, about not accepting lobbyist money," Noble said.

"They haven't gotten anything for it," Kerry said on Jan. 31 in response to questions about special interest and lobbyist donations. "Those guys have never ever gotten something in return in the legislation."

In that regard, Kerry is just like President Bush, who assigns his bundlers names like "Pioneers" and "Rangers," and who also denies ever doing anything legislative because of a contribution.

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Next, a highly regarded, and very amusing, column by David "Token" Brooks at the New York Times, Feb. 7.

John Kerry has been railing against the special interests, and I don't think that's very nice because it implies that some people's interests are not so special. I like to think that everybody's interests are special in their own way.

What's more, I think Kerry knows this, because if you look over his long career, you see that he loves all our interests, big and small, near or far. For example, a Chinese businesswoman named Liu Chaoying dreamed of having her company listed on a U.S. stock exchange. That's certainly a special dream.

Maybe as a little girl she would come home from school, gather up her little dollies and tell them about her dream of ringing the bell to start the trading day, or of having little Lucite tombstones on her desk to mark her mergers and acquisitions. Maybe some of the other little girls in school told her she'd never have a company on a U.S. exchange, because you know how cruel little kids can be.

But she had an interest, and to her it was the most specialest interest in the world. And she kept at it. And that cute little girl grew up to become a lieutenant colonel in China's People's Liberation Army, which is a very special army, even measured against the armies of other human rights-violating dictatorships. And what's more, she had a $300,000 bank account with funds supplied by the head of Chinese intelligence, which is certainly quite special indeed.

And Liu came to America in search of her dream, for this is the nation of dreams. And she went to see a most special man named Johnny Chung. And in July 1996, according to Newsweek, Chung took Liu to see his special friend John Kerry about her dream, and Kerry recognized its specialness. So his aides faxed over a letter to the S.E.C. about the dream, and the very next day Liu and Chung had a private briefing with a senior S.E.C. official about making her special dream come true.

And then a few weeks after that, Johnny Chung threw a fund-raiser for John Kerry in Beverly Hills. And John Kerry came away with $10,000 in contributions, and I like to think they were very special contributions. I like to think they were written on special designer checks, maybe with rainbows or kittens or Chinese long-range missile designs shaded on the back, because special dreams deserve special checks, and when a man as special as John Kerry takes up an interest, I think that makes it a special interest all by itself.

Liu Chaoying's interest was not the only interest John Kerry took a special interest in. According to The Associated Press, Kerry took a special interest in the insurance giant American International Group. When Senator John McCain proposed legislation that would have ended a federal contracting loophole benefiting A.I.G., Kerry did not look away, as others might have done. A loophole may not seem like much to you and me, but to A.I.G. it was a very special loophole — the cuddly kind of loophole you can hold under the blankets and tell your secrets to late at night. And according to The A.P., John Kerry preserved the little loophole. And by sheer coincidence, A.I.G. donated $30,000 to help start Kerry's presidential campaign.

While sitting on the commerce and finance committees, John Kerry has seen many interests, and you could forgive him if he didn't think they were all special. But Kerry has raised more money from Washington lobbyists than any other senator. He's raised over $30 million over the past nine years, and you just ask the folks in the telecom industry if he doesn't make them feel special.

You just ask David Paul, one of the big figures in the savings and loan scandal, if Kerry didn't make him feel special. You just ask the high-tech executive Bob Majumder how special Kerry made him feel, at least until Majumder was charged with 40 counts of conspiracy, witness tampering, fraud, tax evasion and illegal campaign contributions. You just ask the law firms, the brokerage houses, the oil companies, the H.M.O.'s and the drug companies, which have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Kerry.

Oh, he sometimes pretends that he doesn't care about our special interests. He puts on that callous populist facade. But deep down he cares. Maybe he cares too much. When he's out on the stump saying otherwise, he's just being a big old phony.

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And, finally, the mainstream-media piece that started it all, at the Washington Post, Jan. 31.

Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made a fight against corporate special interests a centerpiece of his front-running campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, has raised more money from paid lobbyists than any other senator over the past 15 years, federal records show.

Kerry, a 19-year veteran of the Senate who fought and won four expensive political campaigns, has received nearly $640,000 from lobbyists, many representing telecommunications and financial companies with business before his committee, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics.

For his presidential race, Kerry has raised more than $225,000 from lobbyists, better than twice as much as his nearest Democratic rival. Like President Bush, Kerry has also turned to a number of corporate officials and lobbyists to "bundle" contributions from smaller donors, often in sums of $50,000 or more, records provided by his campaign show.

"Senator Kerry has taken individual contributions from lobbyists, but that has not stopped him from fighting against special interests on behalf of average Americans," said Kerry spokeswoman Stephanie Cutter. "If anyone thinks a contribution can buy Kerry's vote, then they are wasting their money."

Kerry said on Jan. 19 that he would "happily release any lobbyist meeting I've ever had," but he has yet to do so. Cutter said Kerry will not release records until he compiles data on every meeting over the past 19 years, which will be a "pretty lengthy process." Kerry will not release it "piecemeal," she said.

Most members of Congress and presidential candidates turn to corporations and their Washington-based lobbyists for political assistance, most often with fundraising. All the presidential candidates take money from special interests, including Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.), who like Kerry has targeted corporations and lobbyists in his stump speeches. And Bush has far outpaced them all.

Because Kerry has made his fight against "Washington special interests" a new theme of his presidential campaign, campaign rivals and campaign finance watchdogs have accused him of hypocrisy.

Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, a newcomer to national politics, is running a television ad that hits Kerry and others for ties to special interests. "Special interest deals. Promises unkept. Do we really need another Washington politician?" the narrator says in the ad. "A politician won't change the way Washington works."

"John Kerry has been withdrawing money from the special interest bank for his entire career and now — because it's the popular thing to do — he wants us to believe that he's going to close the account and go after the people that have funded his political career," said Jay Carson, a spokesman for former Vermont governor Howard Dean.

"The note of reality is he has been brought to you by special interests," said Charles Lewis of the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group that has closely studied the senator's relationship with special interests. "It's very hard [for Kerry] to utter this rhetoric without some hollowness to it."

"I think it's harder for someone like Kerry to take on" Bush over special interests "because he's taken money . . . from a lot of the same" corporate sectors, added Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors money in politics. Dean, who has raised more money than Kerry in this campaign, has taken considerably less from lobbyists.

Cutter said her boss would have no problem fighting Bush on the issue because "Kerry has spent his career fighting against special interests, while Bush has never met a special interest he doesn't like. While Kerry was fighting to keep oil companies from drilling in ANWR [the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge], the White House was inviting them in to tea."

Kerry or any other longtime politician inevitably faces this charge when running for president as a self-styled reformer. Unless the candidate is someone like Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who has made a name for himself by fighting for reform and against corporate giveaways, or a self-financed independent, like Ross Perot in the 1990s, it is very hard to turn the theme into an effective campaign message, Noble said. "It's the classic situation: Most politicians get money from what they are calling special interests because they are the ones who give."

Kerry, who did not begin his campaign with a heavy emphasis on fighting lobbyists, appears to have usurped the special interest message from Edwards and Dean over the past few months. Now, Kerry's standard campaign refrain includes this warning to the "special interests" and their lobbyists: "We're coming, you're going and don't let the door hit you on the way out."

Kerry says he would extend the current one-year lobbying ban on government officials to five years and issue an executive order requiring a public record of all meetings between government employees and lobbyists. Since the early days of the Bush administration, Democrats, including Kerry, have been pressuring Vice President Cheney to disclose his contacts with energy officials who influenced the White House energy policy, making this a political issue for 2004.

Under current law, lobbyists must register with the federal government, list their clients and in very general terms describe the issues they are working on and which branch of government they are seeking to influence. White House and congressional officials are not required to disclose their meetings.

Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), co-author of the newest campaign finance law, said Kerry was not one of the half-dozen members who put together the reform package but "he's always been one of our most consistent and strongest supporters." Kerry unilaterally swore off political action committee funds from corporations during his four Senate runs, a popular position for reform advocates before large, unregulated of "soft money" from corporations, unions and rich people started dominating politics in the 1990s. "It's great he didn't take PAC money, but let's not go crazy here," said Lewis.

The reason: As Kerry was pushing reforms and boasting of his PAC-free campaigns, he was aggressively soliciting money from individuals working for companies and ringing up much bigger checks from corporations in the form of soft money. Kerry has not been involved in any of the major fundraising scandals of the past three decades — although he was one of several politicians who took money from Taiwanese American businessman Johnny Chung, who was convicted of contributing illegally to Bill Clinton and many others.

The Hill, a Washington-based publication covering Capitol Hill, this month reported that Kerry in 1999 lobbied the Coast Guard on a rule-making process that benefited a foreign company represented by Cassidy & Associates. Soon after, employees of Cassidy & Associates sent Kerry $7,250 in bundled contributions. Jim Ruggieri, the Coast Guard official who handled the matter, told the paper it was highly unusual for a senator to intervene on such a matter.

A review of FEC and other data by The Washington Post found that Kerry has raked in millions from U.S. corporations, especially financial companies such as Citigroup and telecom firms, including Rubert Murdoch's News Corp., which also flew one of his Senate staffers to California for a meeting.

In the presidential race, Kerry has accepted contributions from the same "special interests" he accuses Bush of being too cozy with: HMOs, drug companies and energy firms. He has raised nearly $27,000 from oil and gas companies, tops of the remaining Democratic candidates; $34,000 from health maintenance organizations, second to Dean; and $18,500 from pharmaceutical companies, third behind Dean and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.). Even after subtracting money Kerry has raised for his presidential campaign, he ranks in the top four Senate beneficiaries of lobbyist cash, the CRP found.

One of Kerry's biggest — and perhaps most controversial — donors has been the Boston-based law firm Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo. The group, which lobbies on behalf of the telecommunications industry — and employs the senator's brother, Cameron — is his single largest contributor over the course of his Senate career. David Leiter, Kerry's former chief of staff, is vice president of a lobbying company affiliated with the Boston-based law firm.

The Center for Public Integrity criticized the senator's relationship with the firm in a little-publicized report released last year, accusing him of pushing the agenda of those helping to pay his bills.

"Kerry, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has sponsored or co-sponsored a number of bills favorable to the industry and has written letters to government agencies on behalf of the clientele of his largest donor," the report said. The Boston law firm's client include the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA), an umbrella group for telecommunications companies.

Since 1999, Kerry has sponsored at least two bills and co-sponsored half a dozen that were sought by the CTIA, including industry-backed plans for winning lucrative auctions of spectrum, or airwaves. Thomas Wheeler, the former chief executive of the CTIA, and Christopher Putala, a lobbyist for the group, are both among Kerry's biggest presidential fundraisers.

Cutter, Kerry's spokeswoman, provided a list of several industry-backed bills Kerry opposed. "Kerry has never been swayed by any donation on a vote. He consistently votes to protect consumers and workers," she said.

Political researcher Brian Faler contributed to this report.

© 2004 The Washington Post Company

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See also Kerry and Chung.

Lane Core Jr. CIW P — Wed. 02/11/04 07:46:08 PM
Categorized as Democrats in Self-Destruct Mode & John Kerry & Political.