The in-house lobbying shops of several of the nation's largest drug companies are still run by GOP-ers. GOP still dominates drug lobby

With Democrats in charge of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, this really ought to be a no-brainer: Should GlaxoSmithKline put a Democrat or a Republican in charge of its Washington lobbying shop?

But, as obvious as the answer may be, the drug maker is wrestling with the choice — and it sheds light on what seems to be an industry-wide partisan disconnect.


The in-house lobbying shops of at least eight of the nation’s largest drug companies are still run by Republicans, even as the industry’s major trade association, PhRMA, is desperately trying to cozy up to Democrats who now control both the Congress and the White House.

It’s a point that has not been lost on Democrats on Capitol Hill.

“They’re dealing with us the same way they dealt with us when we were in the minority, and we’re not,” said a Democratic House health staffer. “We literally don’t know where all the different companies stand on anything, so we just don’t care.”

Beyond Glaxo, health policy insiders cite as another example of the industry’s blind spot Abbott Laboratories’ decision to hire a Republican to help lead the lobbying shop instead of promoting a well-respected Democrat. An Abbott spokeswoman declined comment.

Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Novartis, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Genzyme and AstraZeneca also have Republicans heading their Washington lobbying shops, according to industry insiders.

“It doesn’t make any sense,” a Democratic Senate health care aide said. “At the end of the day it hurts them, not us.”

Republican industry lobbyists played down the importance of pairing the party affiliations of their lobbying executives with the party in power. “It’s a bogus issue,” said one GOP pharmaceutical lobbyist. “It has a lot to do with ginning it up to see if some jobs can be opened up.”

But former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) certainly sent a different message after the GOP’s 1994 congressional takeover when he pressured K Street to dump their Democratic lobbyists and hire more Republicans.

Democrats on the Hill and on K Street say they don’t expect the companies to fire its Republican leaders, but they are puzzled that the companies aren’t acting more aggressively to balance or dilute their stature.

Many K Street firms have done that by promoting Democrats to partnerships and co-chairmanships, or flipping titles among their top partisans. Although largely symbolic, the personnel shifts send important signals to Capitol Hill that acknowledge who’s in charge.

At Glaxo, according to sources with knowledge of the situation, there are two top in-house candidates vying to head the office when Democrat Janie Kinney retires: Patrick McLain, a company lobbyist and a former House Energy and Commerce staffer under Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), and Andy Hartsfield, who heads the policy shop and is a former aide to the late Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.).

“Past political affiliation is not a primary consideration for filling this position,” the company said in a statement. “We are committed to working across both sides of the aisle.”

For a multibillion-dollar company hiring the head of its Washington office, there are certainly other important job considerations. But Washington insiders say ignoring party affiliation risks weakening lobbying operations.

For instance, congressional staffers have come to rely heavily on a small cadre of the Republican-led firms’ Democratic hired guns — who don’t have the same connections to the corporate leadership.

Without good lines of communication into Democratic offices, drug companies have difficulty dispelling rumors that could have been easily quashed with more bipartisan intelligence, said a Democratic pharmaceutical lobbyist.

Face-to-face communication can also suffer. Republicans often have difficulty presenting their cases in terms that resonate with Democrats, say lobbyists and congressional staffers.

“We’re just coming from different places, couching in terms that you might use when you go into Republican offices. It just doesn’t ring any bells,” explained one House aide. “They don’t know what our bosses need. There are only so many things we can do to help if it doesn’t help my boss.”

Finally, without friendly faces on the inside, the companies make it difficult to attract talented Democrats who can take the top spots when they do open up, Democratic lobbyists say. As some noted: Why take a job as second fiddle to a Republican when there is major league work elsewhere?

Many of the companies with Republican lobbyists at the helm have Democrats in their shops. Several staffers said they had a good relationship with Glaxo lobbyist William Schulyer, a former contender to direct the office.

At Pfizer, Chief Executive Officer Jeff Kindler is a Democrat — one of the few CEOs invited to last week’s White House Forum on Health Reform.

Democrats do credit the companies’ trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, for making in-roads with the party through targeted positive advertising and the promotion of its Democratic lobbyists.

It’s a point PhRMA’s chief lobbyist Bryant Hall, a Democrat, echoed when defending his member companies.

“Regardless of their political affiliation, the companies decide the direction and fund the trade association’s priorities, and no one can dispute that PhRMA is operating in a bipartisan manner,” Hall said.

Republican pharmaceutical company lobbyists said they work both sides of the aisle. Their offices are often split equally between Democrats and Republicans, and their political giving has evened out in recent years.

“Our company does not exist to elect Republicans or ... Democrats,” said Joe Kelley, Eli Lilly’s vice president of government affairs. “We’re trying to find people we can work with on both sides of the aisle.”

A job running a pharmaceutical company’s Washington office is a roost that few give up easily, and it only comes open occasionally. When Republicans took charge of Congress in the 1990s, there were still plenty of Democrats heading those offices.

“Trade associations have much greater ability to say, ‘It’s a new majority, let the Republicans go and bring in the Democrats.’ Companies can’t behave that way,” said Rich Buckley, AstraZeneca’s vice president of federal government affairs. “They cultivate people for a career’s worth of service. HR departments wouldn’t tolerate saying, ‘Rich has done a great job, but he’s the wrong party now.’”