News Clips

“This bill will enable security for incumbency,” Aunna Dennis, the executive director of Common Cause Georgia, told me. “It really tramples the person who wants to be the community change agent from becoming an elected official through the legislature, because it’s allowing big donors to create war chests for incumbents.”

Former FCC Chairman Michael Copps found the news disappointing. He said commissioners tend to be more sympathetic to private equity firms and corporations when they are commissioners if they know that they might also, one day, become their future employers. “We have a serious revolving door problem at the FCC,” Copps told The Post. “This is not encouraging.” Private equity firms often put too much debt on media companies and do not have the public interest in mind, according to Copps. He raised the present example of Alden Global Capital buying up many of the country’s newspapers and firing reporters. Two of the four FCC chairs who joined private equity firms since 2001 were Democrats and two Republicans so the revolving door is not about party affiliation, he said.

“When someone sees industry leaders are able to, not even have a seat at the table but actually pay for the table, that doesn’t speak well for how policy decisions are going to be made,” said Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics for Common Cause.  Pointing to next week’s fundraiser for Parson, Rotman said things don’t have to be illegal or corrupt in order to be problematic. “In many instances it’s clear,” she said, “to get the face time, to get the phone call returned, to get the one-on-one conversation, it requires these campaign contributions.”

Sylvia Albert, the director of voting and elections for the liberal advocacy group Common Cause said the filings were so troublesome that she believes there are grounds to disbar the attorneys general who made them. “When you submit something in court, you’re saying: ‘To the best of my knowledge, the information I’ve given you is true and valid,’” she said.

“There’s a lot of work we need to do on the revolving door and dealing with what we talk about as the reality and the appearance of any favoritism based on prior relationships,” said Beth Rotman, director of money in politics and ethics at the watchdog group Common Cause. “Obviously, when we look at the issues of money and politics in democracy, when there are large numbers, there could be potential conflicts,” Rotman said. “All of us are always having to grapple with the balance of special interests and expertise, and there wouldn’t be many appointees who couldn’t show from their past experience some relationships with some of the same industries that they’ve been called upon to work with, because that’s where their experience comes from,” Rotman said. “We have to strike the balance between appointing people with appropriate backgrounds but also ensuring there’s not a revolving door that gives unfair influence to people based on prior relationships.”

“The option for Steve Ricchetti is to recuse from involvement in White House policy matters that directly and substantially impact the finances of his brother,” Paul Ryan, the vice president of policy and litigation at ethics watchdog Common Cause, told CNBC on Tuesday. “I think it’s fair to expect public officials to recuse themselves from government decision making that could financially benefit their immediate family members.”