Thursday, February 21, 2008

Vicki Iseman lobbying interests..

Iseman, Vicki
Career Client List, 1998 - 2006

American Maglev Technology

AMFM Inc

Arison Family Trust

AstraZeneca

BearingPoint Inc

CACI International

CanWest

Capstar Broadcasting Partners

Carnival Corp

City of Miami, FL

City of Palm Springs, CA

Click Radio

Computer Sciences Corp

Future Leaders of America

Hillsborough County

Hispanic Broadcasting Inc

Homer-Center School District

i2Telecom International

Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Ion Media Networks

Jovan Broadcasting

Latona Assoc

Marin County, CA

National Stroke Assn

Operation Warm

Paxson Communications

PriceWaterhouseCoopers

Saga Communications

Sinclair Broadcast Group

Telemundo Network Group

Total Living Network

Tulare County

Univision Communications

Walter Industries


http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/lobbyist.asp?txtname=Iseman%2C+Vicki&year=2007

NSA contractors CSC computers Porn

Computer Sciences Corporation CSC - SAIC NSA Digital Rights ...

Stolen personal data computer theft - CSC- VA social security breach

Dyncorp - 9/11- CSC

Mantech, BAE, CACI, NSA SAIC etc...

TortureGate: "Suspects" still at work CACI

The Abu Ghraib Titan - 9/11 Connection CACI

More on ACS, 9/11, Atta, Torture, CIA, CACI, Dekkers, Bribery, etc.

Khashoggi, Part 35: Fear and Loathing at the NSA CACI

Comair Crash Links: ACS, ManTech, A PRIOR PLANE CRASH, Bribery, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Raytheon - 9/11 PricewaterhouseCoopers

Ptech Inc About Us - Company Overview - PricewaterhouseCoopers
CantorFitzgerald - 9/11 PricewaterhouseCoopers

Oil - 9/11 PricewaterhouseCoopers

========
COMPANY NEWS; ARBITRATOR DENIES CLAIM BY PAXSON COMMUNICATIONS

NBC Moves to Break Up Relationship With Paxson
THE MEDIA BUSINESS; NBC Completes Acquisition Of 32% Stake in Paxson

PAXSON COMMUNICATIONS
Client Summary, 2005

A special interest’s lobbying activity may go up or down over time, depending on how much attention the federal government is giving their issues. Particularly active clients often retain multiple lobbying firms, each with a team of lobbyists, to press their case for them.


2005

Total Lobbying Expenditures: $120,000
Subtotal for Parent: $120,000

Industry

Total

TV/Movies/Music

$120,000

Lobbying totals chart by year
Lobbying Expenses Reported by Subsidiaries

Firms Hired

Contract Income

Subsidiary (Lobbied For)

Alcalde & Fay

$120,000

-

Paxson Communications does not include its subsidiaries' expenses in its self-filed report, so all expenditures are summed for Total Lobbying Expenditures
http://www.opensecrets.org/lobbyists/clientsum.asp?txtname=Paxson+Communications&year=2005





Alcalde & Fay

Lobbying 1998-2004: $44,414,660
Lobbying 2004: $8,864,000


Annual Lobbying

$4.72
$5.32
$5.11
$5.53
$7.02
$7.85
$8.86

1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004


U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
Lobbying 1998-2004 - (Companies): 2,995
Lobbying 2004 - (Companies): 1,273
1249) Vicki Iseman Alcalde & Fay
http://www.publicintegrity.org/lobby/profile-pf.aspx?act=agencies&year=0&ag=025

Company Profile. Click for Overview, Financials, Ownership, News and more. PRECISION SYSTEMS INC
Form:DEF 14A Filing Date:4/15/1997

During the fiscal year ended August 31, 1996, Hector Alcalde, and
Kwang-I Yu were granted 25,000 Tenure Options at $9.00 per share. Ian Dalziel
was granted 25,000 Initial options at $14.50 per share, and Bert Kolde was
granted 25,000 Tenure Options at $15.75 per share, in each case the fair market
values of the stock on the date of grant.
During February, 1997, Kwang-I Yu, Hector Alcalde, Bert Kolde, Ian M.
Dalziel, and Francis R. Santangelo were issued 25,000 options outside the Plan
at $4.125 per share. Such options vest and become exercisable equally over three
years beginning on the date of grant.
INFORMATION REGARDING NOMINEES FOR ELECTION AS DIRECTORS

WILLEM HUISMAN, 62, was appointed to the Company's Board of Directors in January 1997 and appointed Chairman of the Board in February 1997. He became President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company during October 1996 and has been with the Company since April 1996. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Huisman held key positions at several large corporations. Most recently, he was Chairman of the Board of Management at RAET N.V., a Dutch corporation specializing in automation and software. Other previous positions include Chairman and CEO at Philips Communications Systems Division; Chairman and CEO at Philips Defense and Control Systems Division, Executive Vice President at AT&T Philips Joint Venture; and Managing Director of Telecommunications Cables at NFK Cable.

KWANG-I YU, PH.D., 47, joined the Company as a member of the Board of Directors in June 1994. Dr. Yu, who received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the California Institute of Technology, is President and Chief Executive Officer of Paracel, Inc., a leader in the development of genome data analysis and information service technologies. Prior to founding Paracel, Dr. Yu was a TRW Fellow.

HECTOR ALCALDE, 63, joined the Company as a member of the Board of Directors in January 1994. In 1973, Mr. Alcalde founded the firm Alcalde & Fay, a government and public affairs consulting firm in Washington, D.C., and serves as its President and Chief Executive Officer. He has provided consulting services to numerous national and international organizations and has served on many public and corporate boards.

BERT KOLDE, 43, was appointed to the Company's Board of Directors in June 1995. Mr. Kolde represents investor Paul Allen on a variety of business matters and has been a member of Allen's management team since 1985. Mr. Kolde serves as vice chairman of the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Arena Corporation, Football Northwest, and as director of Asymetrix Corporation, MetaTools, Inc., CyberSource Inc. and InfoModelers Inc. He served as president of Asymetrix Corporation through 1994, where he worked closely with Paul Allen on setting Asymetrix's overall corporate direction and product strategies, and overseeing their implementation. Before joining Asymetrix in 1985, Mr. Kolde was vice president of management reporting at Seafirst Corp., in Seattle. Mr. Kolde began his finance career with The Boeing Company. He holds a bachelor of business administration, finance, from Washington State University, and a master's degree in business from the University of Washington.

IAN M. DALZIEL, 49, was appointed to the Company's Board of Directors in June 1996. Since 1992, Mr. Dalziel has served as Chairman of the Board at C.S.I., Inc. In addition, since 1989, Mr. Dalziel has also served as a Director of Lepercq-Amcur Fund N.V. and as Chairman at Continental Assets Trust PLC. He was a member of the European Parliament from 1979 to 1984.

FRANCIS R. SANTANGELO, 64, was appointed to the Company's Board of Directors in January, 1997. Mr. Santangelo is an independent legal and financial consultant with over 30 years experience in the financial community. From 1959 to 1988, Mr. Santangelo was a principal in Francis R. Santangelo & Co., a specialist firm on the American Stock Exchange and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the American Stock Exchange. Mr. Santangelo also served on the Company's Board from August 24, 1992 to July 8, 1993 and has been a consultant to the Company since February 1, 1996.

http://sec.edgar-online.com/1997/04/15/00/0000950144-97-004232/Section4.asp

SAFLINK CORP
Form:DEF 14A Filing Date:4/10/2000
NAME                                       AGE                   POSITION                  EXPIRES      SINCE
--------------------------------------- ----- ------------------------------------- --------- ---------
Jeffrey P. Anthony .................... 42 President, Chief Executive Officer, 2000 1998
Chairman and Director
Hector J. Alcalde (1) ................. 67 Director 2000 1999
Frank M. Devine (2) ................... 58 Director 2000 1997
Donald C. Klosterman (2) .............. 71 Director 2000 1997
Robert J. Rosenblatt (1) .............. 43 Director 2000 1998
Francis R. Santangelo (1) (2) ......... 68 Director 2000 1997

http://sec.edgar-online.com/2000/04/10/15/0000950168-00-000961/Section6.asp

================

February 21, 2008

Is John McCain Uncomfortably Close to Lowell ‘Bud’ Paxson?

By Drew Clark

After a brief period of Democratic dominance, McCain returned to become chairman of the committee in 2003 and 2004. During that period, he took crucial legislative action that saved Paxson Communications from a bill that would have, in the words of CEO Lowell “Bud” Paxson, finally ruined his company.
==============================




FRIDAY, AUGUST 29, 1997 AT
(202) 616-2771
TDD (202) 514-1888


JUSTICE DEPARTMENT APPROVES CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS' ACQUISITION OF PAXSON COMMUNICATIONS

Justice Requires Paxson's Tampa Billboard Business to Remain Independent of Clear Channel

If Clear Channel had been allowed to acquire Paxson's Tampa billboard business, as originally proposed, Clear Channel would have gained almost a 65 percent market share in the Tampa outdoor advertising market. The restructured deal assures that Paxson's Tampa billboard operations will remain independent of Clear Channel's Eller Media, the leading firm in the $26 million a year Tampa area outdoor advertising market.

"The original proposed acquisition would have left Tampa outdoor advertisers with fewer choices and higher prices," said Joel I. Klein, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department's Antitrust Division. "The restructured acquisition preserves competition in that market while allowing the parties to proceed with those portions of the transaction that do not threaten competition."




Loophole Lets Lobbyists Hide Clients' Identity

WASHINGTON — It is a fact of life on Capitol Hill that new lobbying coalitions sprout almost every day to try to influence everything from electricity policy to bankruptcy law to health care legislation.

But the rising popularity of such coalitions goes beyond simply a desire to influence policy. Thanks to a loophole in the federal lobbying law, some companies and individuals — especially those pursuing controversial or potentially embarrassing causes — are using coalitions to conceal their identities.

"You can have unpopular causes such as a tobacco interest or one of these corporations that have renounced its American citizenship hide their interests through this device," said Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas. "You can have foreign interests, if they combine with others, hide their involvement through this device."

The Congressional Research Service, a part of the Library of Congress, recently examined lobbyist registration forms, Congressional testimony and media databases and found 135 lobbying coalitions for which it could find only limited information or none at all.

One such group, the Section 877 Coalition, has been largely dedicated to keeping Congress from tightening the section of the tax law applying to the estates of wealthy individuals who gave up their American citizenship.

The coalition paid more than $760,000 to two firms in 2000 and 2001 to press its case, disclosure forms filed with Congress by the coalition's lobbyists show. But the reports give no clue about precisely who wanted to protect expatriates, and some of the group's lobbyists have hardly been forthcoming.

"It is our policy not to comment on client matters, except to note that with respect to the registration of these entities, we are in full compliance with the letter and the spirit of the law," said Steven Silber, a spokesman for PricewaterhouseCoopers, which had been one of the lobbying firms for the Section 877 Coalition. This year, the accounting firm sold its federal tax lobbying operation.

Only in recent days, after repeated inquiries from a reporter and a request from a former lobbyist who now is an official at the Treasury Department, did lobbyists say that the coalition was made up of trusts for members of the Arison family.

In the 1990's, Congressional Democrats used Ted Arison, the founder of Carnival Cruise lines who saved millions in taxes by renouncing his United States citizenship and returning to Israel, as a case study of why the tax law should be rewritten. Mr. Arison was one of the richest men in the world when he died in 1999. A spokesman for the Carnival Corporation, whose chairman is Micky Arison, a son of Ted Arison's, referred questions about why the Arison family trusts had operated through the Section 877 Coalition to one of the lobbying firms, Alcalde & Fay.

At the firm, Hector Alcalde said he had listed the client as the Section 877 Coalition for "simplicity's sake," because PricewaterhouseCoopers had already done so. "There's no hidden agenda," Mr. Alcalde said

==============

Hiring Federal Lobbyists, Towns Learn Money Talks

By JODI RUDOREN and ARON PILHOFER
New York Times
July 2, 2006

TREASURE ISLAND, Fla. — Rebuffed on several requests for state and federal financing to help rebuild its crumbling bridge, this small resort town was all but resigned to raising the money by doubling the 50-cent bridge toll, increasing property taxes and issuing bonds.

But in a last-ditch gambit, city officials hired a federal lobbyist who had known the local congressman for four decades. Within weeks, the congressman, Representative C. W. Bill Young, called the mayor to say he had slipped a special $50 million appropriation, known as an earmark, into an omnibus bill.

The city had originally sought $15 million. But Mr. Young — a Republican who was then the all-powerful chairman of the Appropriations Committee and, as his lobbyist friend knew, believes public roads should be free — raised it to eliminate the toll.

Since that windfall three years ago, Treasure Island has continued to pay $5,000 a month to the lobbying firm, Alcalde & Fay, and has continued to reap earmarks: $500,000 to fix a sewer plant, $625,000 to repair wooden walkways over the dunes, $450,000 for pedestrian crosswalks.

"They're worth every penny they get," said Mayor Mary Maloof, who led a parade of antique cars to open the new bridge on June 10. "When we started talking about it, there were plenty of eyebrows raised that we would be doing such a thing. But it's turned out to be a valuable tool for helping us cover costs."

Cities and towns — and school districts and transit authorities and utility agencies — across the country are increasingly reaching for that same toolbox, putting lobbyists on retainer to leverage their local tax dollars into federal tax dollars.

Since 1998, the number of public entities hiring private firms to represent them in Washington has nearly doubled to 1,421 from 763, as places like Treasure Island, population 7,514, have jumped onboard with behemoths like Miami that have long had lobbyists.

Most of these new clients had never sought earmarks — some had never even heard of them — before someone knocked on their door, essentially offering big pots for a pittance. Others had read in the newspaper about neighbors with lobbyists building bridges or beach walks and felt pressure to keep up with the municipal Joneses.

"We're all in competition for the same dollars, and you want all the advantages you can have," said John Litton, city manager in Lake Mary, Fla., about 20 miles north of Orlando.

The collective bill over eight years has topped $640 million.

Enlisted almost exclusively to land earmarks, lobbyists for local governments have boomed alongside a broader explosion in such appropriations, to 12,852 items worth $64 billion last year from 4,219 pet projects totaling $27.7 billion in 1998. The prolific earmarking does not change the overall budget's bottom line, but how the pie is cut: dollars are doled out, often in secret, at the whim of a lone legislator — often under the influence of a lobbyist — rather than through a competitive process.

It is against the law to use federal money to hire lobbyists. Yet local officials' near-unanimous justification is that the lobbyists pay for themselves many times over through the infusion of federal funds.

Ronald D. Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a frequent critic of earmarks, said he was most troubled at seeing firms solicit public clients with virtual guarantees that they could deliver "dollars for pennies" (or billions for millions).

"The mystery to me is the way they are able to promise returns," Mr. Utt said, pointing to the revolving door between Congressional appropriators' payrolls and lobby shops, as well as to lobbyists' generous campaign contributions. "It goes beyond mere influence peddling to just outright, classic third-world corruption."

The most vivid case of earmark-related corruption came with the conviction this year of Jack Abramoff for trading huge fees from Indian tribes for influence with lawmakers. Public entities have also played a prominent role in the current federal investigation of the links between Representative Jerry Lewis, the current Appropriations Committee chairman, and the lobbying firm Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, leading to subpoenas of several of the firm's government clients in Mr. Lewis's Southern California district.

Lobbyists say there is nothing improper in their political activity. In fact, they use it as a selling point. In a 2002 proposal to the City of Pembroke Pines, an Alcalde lobbyist pointed to monthly fund-raisers the firm held at its offices in Arlington, Va., and said attending events "very frequently" for Republicans and Democrats alike "does allow us to better our local government clients."

Although local officials are rarely active in the campaign-contribution race that accompanies the earmarks derby, the firm's employees have given upward of $200,000 to more than 100 politicians since 1997, nearly half in Florida and in other states where it has clusters of public clients.

"Because we enjoy a considerable clientele from the private sector," the Alcalde proposal read, "we are able to significantly participate in the political and fund-raising process that might at times better enable us to access public policy makers on behalf of all the firm's clients."

Beyond any question of quid pro quo, however, some critics say the new ubiquity of private lobbyists paid with public money perverts basic democratic tenets. Of the 250 top-grossing firms in Washington, 48 have state, local and tribal governments as their leading source of revenue, far more than any other sector, according to the Center for Public Integrity, which monitors lobbying.

Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, one of several Washington watchdog groups critical of earmarks, said it was local politicians' mandate to make their needs known — and the job of members of Congress to look out for them.

"If you're a mayor or a city councilman and you have to hire a lobbyist, what a gross admission of failure on your part," Mr. Phillips said. "I would think they have a fiduciary responsibility to not put taxpayer dollars into lobbyists when they're elected to be, really, the lobbyist for the people."

The mayors and city council members, though, point to the special appropriations as proof of their fiscal prudence.

Alcalde & Fay is one of three firms — along with Patton Boggs and the Ferguson Group — that collected $25 million from public clients in the past eight years, much more than any other lobbyists. A close look at Alcalde & Fay's 44 public clients in Florida alone shows that, since 2001, $9.8 million in lobbying fees translated into $173 million in earmarks, or a return of $18.41 on every dollar spent.

In Treasure Island, each dollar to Alcalde & Fay yielded $285.83 in federal money.

A Game Changed

To understand how the game has changed, consider the visit of West Virginia University leaders to Senator Robert C. Byrd's office one day in 1989.

They went to see Mr. Byrd — a Democrat long known as the "prince of pork" for pumping money into hometown projects, and then the chairman of the Appropriations Committee — about a research center. When the senator learned the delegation included several lobbyists, he directed them to wait in the lobby.

Mr. Byrd asked for an $18 million earmark, then withdrew the request after an article in The Washington Post revealed that the lobbying firm, Cassidy & Associates, was the origin of the university's idea for where to seek the money.

"I'm on the Appropriations Committee — if I can't do it, nobody can," The Post quoted Mr. Byrd as saying. "Why do you waste your money on a lobbyist when I'm being paid to be your senator?"

These days, such comments seem quaint.

Some lawmakers still insist that lobbyists are unnecessary for local governments, but far from being kicked out of meetings on Capitol Hill, the lobbyists typically arrange them.

When Ms. Maloof, the Treasure Island mayor, makes her annual pilgrimage to Washington to press her case, her lobbyist, L. A. Bafalis — a former Republican Congressman from Florida — picks her up at the airport and escorts her through the day's meetings, paying for lunch in the Capitol's members-only dining room.

A typical monthly retainer is $5,000, with raises over time — and success.

For that, according to interviews with more than a dozen Alcalde & Fay clients, the firm sends weekly e-mail messages detailing available federal grants and arranges once-a-year visits to Washington. In between, some clients speak to their lobbyists weekly, while others go a month or more without a phone call.

The Municipalities Practice Group at Alcalde, which accounts for about half the firm's client roster and a third of its $12 million annual revenue, was born with the firm, in 1973. Hector Alcalde had been chief of staff to a congressman from Tampa for a dozen years, and his first client was the Tampa Port Authority, which still pays the firm about $80,000 a year, according to Senate reports.

The City of Tampa eventually signed on, too. And the surrounding county, Hillsborough. Then the neighboring county, Pinellas. The City of Clearwater, 23 miles west of Tampa, became a client in the 1990's, and it was Alcalde & Fay's success in getting Clearwater $22 million in 2000 to replace its own bridge that got Treasure Island's attention.

And so on.

In the 2002 pitch to Pembroke Pines, Alcalde & Fay boasted of having 35 public clients on its roster, including many of the town's neighbors. Now it has 85.

"All of them say, 'We're paying taxes, this is a way for us to get back our fair share of what we're paying into,' " said Andy Wahlquist, a partner who handles several of the firm's public clients in Florida.

Noting the proliferation of earmarks, Kevin Fay, the firm's president, said, "They're compelled to try to get some of that money if the programs are out there."

A snapshot analysis shows that hiring a lobbyist seems to help.

Looking at the 10 Florida cities with populations closest to Treasure Island's, none have lobbyists registered with the Senate; the only earmark among them was $25,000 last year for a veterans' memorial at Alachua City Hall.

North Miami Beach and Homestead, Alcalde & Fay clients with about 40,000 residents each, got a combined $13 million in earmarks in the past five years, while six cities of similar size got none. (Dunedin, population 35,691, lacked a lobbyist but got three earmarks totaling $2.7 million while its congressman, Mr. Young, ran the Appropriations Committee.)

Local leaders say they lack both the knowledge of bureaucratic procedures and the political contacts to navigate the complex world of federal appropriations. Besides, they are thousands of miles from Washington, picking up garbage and running recreation programs and putting police officers on beats.

Cyndie Goudeau, the Clearwater city clerk, said she could comfortably approach her own congressman, Mr. Young, "but if I walk into a representative or a senator's office that's not from this area, they don't know me from a man on the moon."

"But they know Danielle, they know Hector Alcalde, they know that firm,"

Ms. Goudeau said, referring to Danielle McBeth, the Alcalde partner who handles Clearwater's account. "If we didn't have one, we wouldn't be getting the funding we're getting."

In the past five years, Clearwater has collected 37 earmarks totaling some $30 million, or $26.25 for each dollar paid to Alcalde & Fay. Besides the sleek, curvaceous bridge leading from downtown to the city's island beaches, the city collected $4 million to transform the streetscape along the water, $1.5 million for a homeless shelter, $1 million for police technology and more.

"In a perfect world, you wouldn't need them," Ms. Goudeau said as she showed off the bridge one recent morning. "But the world's not perfect."

Flying to Washington in February, Joe A. Martinez, chairman of the Miami-Dade County Commission, studied biographies of members of the transportation committee he hoped to persuade to finance a new commuter rail line. He noticed one, Representative Corinne Brown, from Florida, but she is a Democrat — he is not — and from Jacksonville, the other end of the state.

So he called Mr. Alcalde. It turns out that Ms. Brown's daughter, Shantrel Brown Fields, is an associate at the firm.

"I had a meeting with her the next day," Mr. Martinez said of Representative Brown. "I got results."

Last year, Miami-Dade spent more than any other government entity on lobbying, $1.36 million. Totaling fees for the past eight years, it ranks sixth, with $6.7 million; topping the charts are the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California and the Gila River Indian Community, which each spent more than $10 million.

Spreading the Wealth

In general, the largest states had the most public entities with lobbyists — and the biggest fees — but there are notable exceptions: Louisiana ranks fifth, for example, with its government agencies spending nearly $24 million from 1998 to 2005, and Puerto Rico ranks ninth, with $19 million, about the same as Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania, which have two or three times Puerto Rico's 3.8 million people.

Mr. Martinez said that after taking over as Miami-Dade chairman last year, he decided to slash the lobbying budget in half, fire 8 of the 11 firms on contract and send his own employee to open a Washington office. But that employee does not have the contacts, Mr. Martinez said: "He doesn't have access to all these people."

Large governments like Miami-Dade — along with ports, airports and public utilities — have long had people in Washington looking out for their interests. What has changed in the past few years is the number of smaller entities looking to get in on the action.

The number of cities with lobbyists, for example, has grown to 511 from 234 in 1998, and the number of counties has also doubled, to 186 from 85.

Fifty-nine public school districts had lobbyists last year, up from 19 in 1998, while the number of police and fire departments with their own paid representatives jumped to 16, from just 2.

In Florida, Lake Mary, population 13,922, signed up for $5,000 a month in 2002, joining the two nearby county governments, the local airport, the wastewater authority and the nearby towns of Sanford (population 49,252) and Oviedo (population 30,800) on Alcalde & Fay's client list. But after three years, $220,000 and half a dozen requests for money, all Lake Mary got was a $100,000 clock tower that plays Christmas and wedding music. So the City Council terminated the contract last year, then promptly hired another lobbyist, based in Orlando.

"We felt that if we were going to invest that kind of money, we wanted to attempt to try to get more return on our investment," Mr. Litton said.

"Sometimes in the bigger firms you kind of envision yourself as just a number."

Of Alcalde's 44 Florida government clients, half a dozen got no earmarks in the past five years; five more got less than a dollar back in earmarks for every dollar spent on lobbying. The City of Tampa and Orange County also recently fired Alcalde & Fay upon changes in their elected leadership.

"If there's a long list of clients that have something in common with Orange County, i.e., being a local government in central Florida or the state of Florida, then it would occur to me that there's the potential, at least, to dilute your effectiveness," said the county's new mayor, Richard T. Crotty. "There's only so much money to go around, and if you cut the pie 40 ways instead of two ways, that's not as good a deal."

If Alcalde & Fay has cornered the Florida market, Bradley Arant Rose & White dominates Alabama, its home state. Robertson, Monagle & Eastaugh, an Anchorage firm, represents nearly half the public entities in Alaska with lobbyists. Then there are firms like Marlowe & Company, in Washington, which sells itself as an expert in getting money to prevent beach erosion.

Rather than creating a conflict of interest, partners of Alcalde & Fay said that having a geographic cluster of clients allowed them to concentrate on a certain Congressional delegation. They said they were careful to present each client's priorities and, as Mr. Wahlquist put it, never "go to the Hill with more than one client in mind."

A Need for Professionals

The four-lane, 1.4-mile bridge connecting this spit of land with St.

Petersburg was built in 1939, when Treasure Island was unincorporated and had just a handful of homes. By 2003, it rated 3.3 out of 100 on a standard bridge rating. "At zero, you're in the water," said Don Hambidge, the public works director.

Chuck Coward, the former city manager, said the city planned to issue $25 million in bonds backed by toll revenue, and to seek $15 million from the federal government and $10 million from the state. But, he said: "Treasure Island's a very small city. It's not savvy in federal politics."

"We thought we had a worthy project, we thought there were a lot of attributes to it, but we were not skilled in presenting those," Mr. Coward said, recalling several years of requests without results. "After talking with Clearwater, we thought very certainly some professional assistance would be appropriate."

Mr. Bafalis, the lobbyist assigned to Treasure Island, had served in the State Legislature and in Congress with Mr. Young before a failed bid for the governor's nomination in 1982. He mentioned Mr. Young's aversion to tolls when he first met with Mr. Coward on Sept. 23, the day before Mr.

Coward met with Mr. Young about the bridge.

Like Mr. Bafalis, Mr. Young declined to be interviewed for this article.

But his chief of staff, Harry Glenn, said the removal of the toll had been key to obtaining the earmark, not hiring the congressman's old friend.

"When asked the question whether a city or county needs to hire a lobbyist, he has always told them they don't need to hire a lobbyist to work with their own congressman," Mr. Glenn said. "That's his job. Those are the people he was elected to represent. He doesn't need to work through somebody else to schedule a meeting with a mayor or a city council member."

At the bridge ceremony, where residents nibbled "no toll house cookies," it was Mr. Young who got thanked, not Mr. Bafalis. A 1927 fire engine was the first vehicle to roll across, followed by a forest green Ford Tudor Deluxe as old as the original bridge and two dozen more classics, like a 1959 turquoise Impala and a 1967 cherry Camaro convertible, both complete with fuzzy dice.

Though only one lane flowed in each direction — the two other lanes should be done by next summer — residents were relieved to have their evacuation route reopened in time for hurricane season, and to be able to cut as much as 40 minutes from their commute into town.

The City Council, meanwhile, may yet consider raising property taxes this summer. Without the toll, they would otherwise have no money for maintenance of the new bridge. Unless Alcalde & Fay helps find another earmark.

Jodi Rudoren reported from Treasure Island, Fla., and Washington for this article, and Aron Pilhofer from New York.

===============

The Other Drug War:
Big Pharma’s 625 Washington Lobbyists


Drug Industry Lobbyists 2000

Name Firm Client(s)

Vicki Iseman Alcalde & Fay AstraZeneca

-------------

Lobbyists
Lobbyists 2004 - present Employer
http://www.public-i.org/lobby/profile.aspx?act=firms&year=2003&lo=L000147

========

=======

Vicki Iseman, Partner, represents corporate and public clients on issues as diverse as government contracting and regulatory reform.

Her experience includes representation of clients before Congress, Federal government agencies and local opinion leaders.

She has extensive experience in telecommunications, representing corporations before the House and Senate Commerce Committees. Her work on the landmark 1992 and 1996 communications bills helped secure cable access for broadcast television stations.
Her experience in the communications field includes digital television conversion, satellite regulations and telecommunications ownership provisions.

She has been active in grassroots communications campaigns for clients, building community based support for legislative initiatives. Among others, she participated in the "Keep America Moving" campaign that educated community leaders on the allocation of Federal highway trust funds.

In addition, she has consulted for clients who are interested in government contracting opportunities.
She has assisted corporations through the authorization and appropriation process.
An active fundraiser, she has organized and participated in many political fundraising events.

A native of Pennsylvania, she holds a B.A. degree in Education from Indiana University in Pennsylvania.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk

http://911review.stumbleupon.com/review/17706628/


Olberman said they had to
Block the candidate "FROM HIMSELF"

40yr old Vicki Iseman Washington lobbyist
Olberman said Mccain (71yr) has denied a romantic relationship

WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, in his offices and aboard a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s clients, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

It had been just a decade since an official favor for a friend with regulatory problems had nearly ended Mr. McCain’s political career by ensnaring him in the Keating Five scandal. In the years that followed, he reinvented himself as the scourge of special interests, a crusader for stricter ethics and campaign finance rules, a man of honor chastened by a brush with shame.

But the concerns about Mr. McCain’s relationship with Ms. Iseman underscored an enduring paradox of his post-Keating career. Even as he has vowed to hold himself to the highest ethical standards, his confidence in his own integrity has sometimes seemed to blind him to potentially embarrassing conflicts of interest.

Mr. McCain promised, for example, never to fly directly from Washington to Phoenix, his hometown, to avoid the impression of self-interest because he sponsored a law that opened the route nearly a decade ago. But like other lawmakers, he often flew on the corporate jets of business executives seeking his support, including the media moguls Rupert Murdoch, Michael R. Bloomberg and Lowell W. Paxson, Ms. Iseman’s client. (Last year he voted to end the practice.)

Mr. McCain helped found a nonprofit group to promote his personal battle for tighter campaign finance rules. But he later resigned as its chairman after news reports disclosed that the group was tapping the same kinds of unlimited corporate contributions he opposed, including those from companies seeking his favor. He has criticized the cozy ties between lawmakers and lobbyists, but is relying on corporate lobbyists to donate their time running his presidential race and recently hired a lobbyist to run his Senate office.

“He is essentially an honorable person,” said William P. Cheshire, a friend of Mr. McCain who as editorial page editor of The Arizona Republic defended him during the Keating Five scandal. “But he can be imprudent.”

Mr. Cheshire added, “That imprudence or recklessness may be part of why he was not more astute about the risks he was running with this shady operator,” Charles Keating, whose ties to Mr. McCain and four other lawmakers tainted them in the savings and loan debacle.

During his current campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Mr. McCain has played down his attacks on the corrupting power of money in politics, aware that the stricter regulations he championed are unpopular in his party. When the Senate overhauled lobbying and ethics rules last year, Mr. McCain was not among the leaders in the debate.

With his nomination this year all but certain, though, he is reminding voters again of his record of reform. His campaign has already begun comparing his credentials with those of Senator Barack Obama, a Democratic contender who has made lobbying and ethics rules a centerpiece of his own pitch to voters.

“I would very much like to think that I have never been a man whose favor can be bought,” Mr. McCain wrote about his Keating experience in his 2002 memoir, “Worth the Fighting For.” “From my earliest youth, I would have considered such a reputation to be the most shameful ignominy imaginable. Yet that is exactly how millions of Americans viewed me for a time, a time that I will forever consider one of the worst experiences of my life.”

A drive to expunge the stain on his reputation in time turned into a zeal to cleanse Washington as well. The episode taught him that “questions of honor are raised as much by appearances as by reality in politics,” he wrote, “and because they incite public distrust they need to be addressed no less directly than we would address evidence of expressly illegal corruption.”

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