How to make friends and influence lawmakers under ever more-stringent ethics rules?
Five large pharmaceutical companies and the industry’s trade group donated $172,500 to a charity founded by Sen. Orrin Hatch, their longtime ally in Congress, the Washington Times reported Monday.
The trade group, Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, also employs Hatch’s son, Scott Hatch, as a registered lobbyist.
The powerful Utah legislator created the Utah Families Foundation in the early 1990s and continues to chair annual fundraisers which support a gamut of community and health groups from the Utah Food Bank to a cancer wellness center. The foundation’s board of directors includes Hatch’s campaign manager, Dave Hansen, and other Hatch political allies.
The contributions might have remained unknown, except that the IRS mistakenly released a form to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, which gave a copy to the newspaper.
Melanie Sloan, director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, told the Salt Lake City Tribune that the companies chose to contribute to Hatch’s foundation on purpose.
“When companies need a member of Congress and they’ve already donated to their campaigns, they can make very large contributions to members’ foundations,” she said. “It’s another way to curry favor.”
Indeed, the pharmaceutical industry is already Hatch’s biggest contributor, donating more than $1.25 million to his campaigns since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
But donations to a charity usually attract no attention because they aren’t public.
“There’s no disclosure,” Sloan said. “It’s just an accident that we know the drug companies were giving to the Hatch foundation. … It’s clear the companies are doing it because of the congressional relationship.”
In the Feb. 18, 2008, report to the IRS, the Utah Families Foundation listed the following donations: Eli Lilly and Company, $25,000; medical supply company Becton, Dickinson and Company, $25,000; Barr Pharmaceuticals, $30,000; AstraZeneca PLC, $25,000; drugmaker Sepracor, $27,500; and PhRMA, the lobbying group, $40,000.
Those donations accounted for a small part of the charity’s $1.1 million revenues that year – of which about $726,000 was disbursed to community groups, hospitals, wellness centers, youth and family support groups, and food banks. The remaining $375,000 went for salaries and operating expenses, according to the IRS report.
That same year, Scott Hatch, who is a partner at Walker, Martin & Hatch LLC, a Washington lobbying firm, was paid $120,000 by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America to lobby Congress on pending Food and Drug Administration (FDA) legislation.
The trade group told the Washington Times that it never asked Hatch to discuss any issues with his father.
“Clearly, Scott’s a very bright guy,” said senior vice president Ken Johnson. “He provides strategic advice.”
Given his father’s status as the senior Republican on the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, he is also a very well-connected guy.
Hatch released a statement yesterday, saying that he sees nothing wrong with the donations to the charity group.
“If a company or organization decides to support the Utah Families Foundation and its wonderful mission of helping so many in need, that’s great. The only benefit I receive is the knowledge that even more people will be helped.”
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1 Comments
#1. TACOM 03.04.2009
Of course Hatch would see no harm in being so cozy with Big Pharma—this is the mindset that develops after so many years in American politics. Hatch is also a good example of why senators are so quick to defend their friends in the Senate. They all have something to hide and it’s mostly crooked money. The Millionaire’s Club (the Senate) has no shame.
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