Source:
the Hill Lobbyists leveraging SCHIP bill
By Jeffrey Young
October 16, 2007
Campaign contributions aren’t the only way to make nice with the people in charge. You can help to push bills that congressional leaders support even if the measures have little effect on your own business.
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The measure is one of the Democratic Congress’s top legislative priorities for the year and part of the party’s strategy to tee up healthcare as an issue in the 2008 presidential election.
If the veto is sustained as expected, the lobbying may have been for naught. But a show of strength by K Street could go a long way toward getting Democrats to smile on some industries that are frequent targets of the left.
Endorsements from these groups have already provided political cover to Democrats — and denied it to the president and the Republican Party. After all, if a bill is backed by America’s Health Insurance Plans, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) and the American Medical Association (AMA), how could it be a Trojan horse for government-run healthcare, as Republicans contend?
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http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/lobbyists-leveraging-schip-bill-2007-10-16.html