WASHINGTON – Airlines, hotels and restaurants. Military contractors and banks. Even Broadway actors. These are just some of the special interests that are already maneuvering to get a share of the next coronavirus relief package that Congress is going to take.
The House has already signaled that it wants $ 3 trillion in aid, the Senate appears to want something in the $ 1 trillion range, and the White House is now involved in negotiations. The main components at the discussion table are additional payments to individuals, money for state and local governments, extended unemployment insurance, and liability protections for companies and other institutions that are trying to reopen.
But the package is also likely to be the last chance before the November elections for a wide range of industries and interests to push for closer provisions that benefit them, triggering intense lobbying.
The process is still at an early stage, and the pandemic has forced lobbyists who would normally rely on more direct contact with legislators and their assistants to resort to other techniques to generate support for their causes, such as network campaigns. social and opinion articles from newspapers.
But with the pandemic still across the country and the economy showing little sign of the rapid rebound that President Trump had predicted, the two parties in Congress and the administration are under pressure to unite on a substantial stimulus bill, leaving lobbyists optimistic about getting at least some of the breaks they seek.
“With the extraordinarily unsuccessful management of the disease, the economy is again a serious risk,” said Bruce P. Mehlman, a Republican lobbyist whose firm represents dozens of corporate clients from 3M to United Airlines. “It makes it more likely that the White House will tell Republicans to cut a big-dollar deal.”
The $ 3 trillion stimulus package approved by the Democrat-controlled House in May, a marker set by President Nancy Pelosi for upcoming negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate and the White House, would send aid to state governments and local and would provide another round of direct payments of $ 1,200 to taxpayers.
But it lacks many of the special provisions that are being lobbied by various interest groups, allowing them to focus now on the Senate and on any bipartisan negotiations between the two houses and the White House.
Republicans hope to unveil a tailored package in the next few days, likely to be around $ 1 trillion, which would include a series of liability protections for businesses, hospitals and schools. The conference remains divided on how to address extended unemployment benefits, which amount to an additional $ 600 per week, with some Republicans pushing to cut the amount rather than completely eliminate the benefit.
It’s also unclear how other disputes between Republicans will be resolved, including efforts to allocate billions of dollars to the nation’s top health agencies and states for testing. Over the weekend, the White House rejected preliminary suggestions for those levels of funding, enraging Republicans eager to present their own legislation before an intense round of negotiations with Democrats begins.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Majority Leader, and Senate Republicans plan to soon introduce legislation that they say would focus on “children, jobs, and health care,” and liability protection for businesses. , schools and medical workers.
Senator Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic minority, told members last week in an appeal that “Republicans are trapped in shilling for special interests.”
The US Chamber of Commerce, the largest lobbyist, submitted an 18-page wish list of actions it wanted Congress to take as part of the upcoming bailout, which would be the fifth aid bill related to the coronavirus since spring.
At the top of their list is liability protection, which their lobbyists have argued will allow large and small companies to reopen if they make “good faith” efforts to comply with government rules, without fear. to be sued if an employee falls ill.
“I’m struggling to make sure I’m not the third monkey heading to Noah’s Ark,” said Jack Howard, the chamber’s chief lobbyist, explaining why he submitted his full list of questions before Congress returned to session. . “You have to rush like hell before the flood comes”
Bankers, and many small businesses that have lent money for coronavirus relief, are asking Congress to pass a streamlined process to forgive most small business loans of less than $ 150,000 disbursed through the Payment Check Protection Program. Those loans total approximately $ 140 billion, representing nearly 87 percent of all companies that participated in the $ 521 billion Check Protection Program. Many of them would have already been eligible to keep most of the money; This plan would simplify the process.
American Airlines effectively enlisted tens of thousands of its own employees for the lobbying effort when the CEO sent a note warning 25,000 workers, including 2,500 pilots and 9,950 flight attendants, that unless the company and union could convince the Congress extending assistance to the industry until March 2021, they were likely to lose their jobs.
“If you are interested in supporting these legislative efforts, we recommend that you work with your union leaders to ensure that your voice is heard,” Doug Parker, chief executive, and Robert Isom, airline president, wrote to employees last week. .
The virus has changed the way lobbyists do their jobs. Howard has spent nearly two decades as a lobbyist in Washington after being a top assistant to Congress and the White House for both President George HW Bush and his son. Never in his four decades in Washington has he spent more than a few weeks between his visits to the Capitol to catch up with lawmakers or staff members between votes or in the cafeteria.
He has not been on Capitol Hill since March now.
“It is a strange dynamic, there is no doubt about it,” he said.
Now that lawmakers spend more time in their home states, lobbyists have relied more on state business executives and employees to make appeals or make video calls from home to make their presentations. That includes the restaurant industry, which is only asking for a $ 120 billion bailout, and which created a new coronavirus lobbying campaign, the Restaurant Law, which it claims has resulted in 500,000 appeals to members of Congress.
Giant military contractors have attempted similar tactics, turning to their trade association, the Aerospace Industries Association, to recruit small contractors to argue with lawmakers and their staff members that they should allocate money to help cover the additional costs associated with maintaining operations during the pandemic.
That included a virtual event the trade group hosted with a 140-employee Fort Worth company called InterConnect Wiring that makes cockpit panels for military aircraft. Company representatives told Congressional staff members that it had to hire a nurse to monitor employee temperatures and that it was forced to reorganize its production space to separate workers, among other steps, to maintain your assembly line up and running.
The industry trade group followed up last week with a letter to House and Senate leaders asking for extra money to help cover what it called “extraordinary emergency expenses necessary to respond to the pandemic and maintain our safe employees. “
Broadway actors are also mobilizing, including Alex Boniello, the star of shows like “Dear Evan Hansen.” He turned to Twitter to gather support to extend an expansion of unemployment insurance to include actors, freelancers and others out of work for unconventional jobs.
“The number of artists who will be forced to leave the industry forever as a result of the financial devastation that this brings and has brought is heartbreaking,” he wrote in a series of tweets, helping to fuel a lobbying campaign organized by other workers in the entertainment industry who were now unemployed.
Some traditions in Washington have not changed, such as industry executives who turn to lawmakers whose reelection campaigns they have helped fund to help with their case for special federal assistance.
That includes Representative Van Taylor, R-Texas, who attended Congress after a career as a real estate investment banker. You are helping to lead an effort to organize a real estate and hospitality aid package. Its political action committee and campaign have raised large donations from executives at companies like global investment firm Blackstone, which has a large hotel portfolio, and Boxer Property, a Texas-based real estate firm that has also invested in the hotel industry into a large company. road.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Taylor, when asked if campaign donations had motivated his actions, said his efforts were fueled by the fact that he had “hundreds of his constituents whose jobs are supported by the hotel industry.”
Creative tactics to build coalitions are also being developed, such as the work of Sam K. Geduldig, a former Capitol Hill Republican aide-turned-lobbyist who has dozens of clients ranging from Boeing to Disney. He has partnered with firms led by black and Hispanic lobbyists to try to gather the necessary votes for liability coverage to be included in the aid package.
Together they are targeting minority House legislators to argue that small business owners who serve their constituents also need these liability protections.
Some Democrats are delaying efforts to include liability protection in any bill, with Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat, tweeting that the proposal was a “Republican” plan screwing up greedy victims. “He argued that granting Employers liability protection could allow them to compel workers to return even if they felt the workplace was unsafe.
Part of the lobbying frenzy has been inspired by an all-powerful favorite force that lobbyists know is likely to produce some sort of result: Congress wants to take an August recess and existing expansion to unemployment benefits, credited by analysts with a substantial reduction The economic pain of the recession – expires later this month.
What is not clear is how a compromise will be reached and which of the wish list items will be included.
“They have a long way to go and little time to get there,” John Boehner, the former Speaker of the House, told colleagues last week at lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs, playing the soundtrack for the 1977 film. “Smokey and the bandit.
Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.
