News/Commentary

Top ‘anti-lobbyist’ Dem senator’s staff is chock-full of former lobbyists

June 12, 2023 | | Print Article

If you are keeping track of the Democrats who say one thing and do the opposite (or something pretty near it), add Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, to your list.

Senator Brown has made his feelings about corporate lobbyists known in recent years.

“For years we fought to allow Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Big Pharma lobbyists fought us every step of the way,” Brown tweeted in August 2022. “In the #InflationReductionAct, we’re finally getting it done.”

“Multinational corporations should never pay less taxes than middle class families,” he declared in another tweet. “We took on corporate lobbyists in the #InflationReductionAct to work to change that.”


In March, following the toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Brown tweeted, “When we let big corporations—whether Norfolk Southern or Silicon Valley Bank—run the economy, Ohio workers and their families always, always pay the price.”

In the accompanying video, he torched rail and banking lobbies and the politicians who befriend them.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I want to say a few words about the people in East Palestine, Ohio, and the aftermath of the Silicon Valley Bank collapse,” he said. “They both have one thing in common: Companies followed the Wall Street business model, obsessed with short-term profits at the expense of everything and everyone else. They were aided and abetted by corporate lobbyists and the politicians here who do their bidding, weakening rules meant to protect the people whom we serve. And now working people in Ohio and around the country pay the price.”

And just last month, in an op-ed for the Ironton Tribune, Brown wrote, “My colleagues and I agree, big rail companies and the lobbyists that work for them have had too much power and influence for far too long. They have spent years fighting every effort to make our trains and rail lines safer.

“They cut more than 30 percent of their workers in less than 10 years,” he continued. “As a result, Ohioans are paying the price.”

So, it is safe to say that Senator Brown is no fan of lobbyists… unless, of course, they work for him.

ADVERTISEMENT

According to Fox News Digital, “Brown has a history of hiring lobbyists to his own staff.”

Since February, former lobbyist Logan Basch has been Brown’s digital director at the senator’s Capitol Hill D.C. office.

Fox News Digital reports: “Logan Basch lobbied for Exact Sciences between the fourth quarter of 2021 and the fourth quarter of 2022, according to lobbying disclosure records. Some of the bills he previously lobbied on came before Brown in the Senate Finance Committee, particularly those concerning health care, such as the Medicare Multi-Cancer Early Detection Screening Coverage Act of 2021.”

“Beyond Basch, at least three of Brown’s former chiefs of staff had worked as lobbyists,” the outlet reveals.

Take Jack Dover, who was a lobbyist from 1999 to 2004. Starting in January 2005, Dover served as Brown’s chief of staff, holding that position until January 2007, when he became Brown’s senior advisor. According to Legistorm, he stayed in that role until January 2013.

ADVERTISEMENT

What’s more, Dover “donated nearly $7,000 to Brown’s campaigns before joining his staff in 2005,” according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records, Fox News Digital notes, adding:

Dover’s firm — known at the time as Griffin, Johnson, Dover & Stewart before later changing names — lobbied for the Hong Kong Trade Development Council on legislation meant to strengthen trade between the U.S. and China. Hong Kong stood to gain from the normalization of trade between the U.S. and China.

 

And the list goes on.

Brown’s chief of staff from 2007 to 2009 was James Heimbach, who “lobbied for various clients from 2001 to 2007 and, since 2012, has given nearly $20,000 to Brown’s campaign, according to FEC records.”

ADVERTISEMENT

Remember that tweet from Brown about the evils of Big Pharma lobbyists?

“Heimbach is a lobbyist for Cigna Corporation, a company being sued by Ohio for allegedly driving up the costs of prescription drugs by charging high fees for pharmacy benefit management services,” according to Fox News Digital.

“As recently as the first quarter of this year, Heimbach was named as a lobbyist in a report for Bank of America, one of the country’s largest financial institutions,” the outlet states.

Mark Powden served as Brown’s chief of staff from 2007 to 2015. In 2015, he was named staff director for the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, “when Brown became the panel’s top Democrat.”

Prior to that, Powden lobbied for Education Finance Council, Inc.

And Elizabeth Farrar, Brown’s press secretary from 2005 to 2007 lobbied for the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance “just months before going to Brown’s office.”

“Farrar lobbied on multiple bills that were directed to the House Telecommunications and the Internet Subcommittee, of which Brown was a member,” according to Fox News Digital.

Philip Letsou, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, finds Brown’s hiring choices “surprising.”

“It’s surprising that Sherrod Brown keeps railing against lobbyists while hiring them in key positions,” he told Fox News Digital.

Critics of the practice of hiring ex-lobbyists by members of Congress argue that they will provide access to the lawmakers for their former colleagues.

 

Melissa Fine
Latest posts by Melissa Fine (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles