Word: boehner
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...LAST THURSDAY, CONGRESSMAN John Boehner took his seat at the head of a conference-room table a few steps from the Rotunda, beneath the Capitol dome. As the fourth-ranking Republican in the House and a field general in the war to pass the "Contract with America," Boehner (pronounced Bay-ner) looked at home. But his lieutenants, who were arrayed around the table strewn with coffee cups and cigarette butts, were not so natural a fit. They were not fellow lawmakers or even congressional staff members. They were lobbyists representing some of the richest special interests in the country. Still...
Welcome to the underside of the Republican revolution. To an extent unusual even for parasitic Washington, the House G.O.P. leadership has attached its fortunes to private lobbyists, and is relying on their far-flung influence to pass its agenda. Boehner's Thursday Group is the top of the pyramid of that sophisticated effort, serving as command central for a series of multimillion-dollar campaigns on behalf of the Contract with America. The stakes of the enterprise-and the potential rewards for the lobbyists-are huge. "If we don't do the contract, we don't have to worry about doing...
...business groups-heavily weighted toward small businesses-and decidedly populist organizations. Although the two sides disagree about many things, they share an antipathy toward government and a belief that Republicans should remain in power. And so far that has been enough to keep them together. The business groups around Boehner's table are the National Federation of Independent Business, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Home Builders, the National Restaurant Association and the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors. They are joined by such "movement"--or ideological--conservatives as the Christian Coalition, the Citizens for a Sound Economy...
...Boehner shows no sign of backing down. To the contrary, his Thursday Group is busy forming new coalitions and keeping its old ones intact. And that is no small feat. A Thursday Group lobbyist has been chosen to head the lobbying effort for each of the main provisions in the contract, ranging from tort reform to tax relief. In turn, the chairperson puts together an elaborate coalition of other lobbying groups. The biggest so far is the tax-relief coalition, led by Motley, which has more than 100 members and six task forces to handle policy, communications, vote counting, grass...
...Packwood, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, makes good on his threat to place new limits on the mortgage-interest deduction to pay for any cut in the tax on capital gains. To guard against those hazards, G.O.P. Senator Paul Coverdell, the Senate's lobbymeister, often attends the Boehner meeting, as he did last week...