Two groups have found ways to set up meetings with Cass Sunstein and Jack Lew. Wooing the W.H.: Don't say 'lobbying'

Want to get a meeting with the White House? Just don’t call it lobbying.

President Barack Obama promised early in 2009 that he would usher in new limits on special-interest influence peddling on his watch, enacting tough disclosure rules that created an anti-lobbyist climate in town.


But some Washington insiders have figured out how to work the new system. Case in point: A nonprofit called Business Forward can boast of setting up an average of three meetings a week between top White House officials and business leaders, and member companies like Microsoft, Visa and Hilton.

The strategy: The meetings, with top officials like Cass Sunstein and Jack Lew, are billed as “dialogues.” It’s an approach that plays well with former academics in the administration who prefer a discussion with a special interest groups to a meeting with a hired gun.

Business Forward and a similar group, the Common Purpose Project, say the meetings don’t violate any rules and aren’t even lobbying in the traditional sense. But the companies funding Business Forward and the wealthy donors that subsidize CPP ’s operation are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars a year in large part because of what they offer: special access.

Business Forward organizes one briefing a week for D.C. member companies. It also coordinates two to three meetings for business leaders to come into Washington for White House meetings and another two events where administration officials meet with business leaders outside Washington. While member companies may participate in all meetings, the fly-ins and outbound meetings are attended largely by non-dues-paying people Business Forward has cultivated.

“The bulk of our work is organizing briefings,” said Jim Doyle, a veteran Democratic operative and the founder of Business Forward. “Our goal is to focus on all of those people outside Washington who have something to say, just don’t have a means of getting involved.”

A spokesman for the White House declined to comment.

Business Forward, which doesn’t take positions or advocate for specific policies, has a funding scheme that is similar to a traditional trade association. It charges founding member companies like AT&T, Hilton Worldwide, Microsoft, Visa and Walmart, among others, an annual membership fee of $50,000. Those dues — and the $25,000 dues that national members pony up — goes toward funding weekly small-group meetings for member companies with senior administration officials. The money also pays for nontraditional association activities, including a massive grass-roots push with Business Forward organizing meetings with administration officials around the country with nonpaying members such as local business owners, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs.

In its first three years, the organization has worked with more than 200 administration officials, including Sunstein, head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs; Greg Nelson, deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement; and Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to Obama. The group holds from 20 to 30 events a month and is now operating in 45 cities. During the first six months of 2012, Business Forward expects to bring 2,000 people to Washington to meet with administration officials. Business Forward Executive Director Bert Kaufman said the group’s 2012 budget will be close to $2 million.

Several member company representatives said the group’s value is in the level of trust the principals have with administration officials who come to meetings, the intimacy of smaller events and introductions with Obama aides.

CPP, a nonprofit whose members are prominent liberal groups, holds invitation-only meetings weekly at the Capital Hilton Hotel. They have been regularly attended by senior administration officials like Lew, Jarrett and others. President Obama himself “dropped by” a session in January and gave a nod to the group’s moniker in the closing line of his State of the Union address later that month.

Its founder, longtime Democratic operative Erik Smith, said Common Purpose serves as a convener for progressive organizations — not an amplifier for the White House or a back channel for lobbying.

“Common Purpose Project was founded to support the progressive movement, and our outreach efforts to the White House are designed to promote the progressive agenda,” said Smith, who also sits on Business Forward’s board. “When a legislative issue develops some urgency, we’re positioned to convene key progressive players to focus on that issue and invite the White House to participate in a dialogue.”

People who have attended meetings describe them as a cross between “office hours” for administration officials and a forum for progressive groups that are looking for additional ways to put their issues on the White House’s agenda.

Its critics — the most vocal is progressive blogger Jane Hamsher — have nicknamed it the Obama administration’s “veal pen” — a vehicle designed to keep outside groups on message and in line.

There’s no question that close ties to the Obama administration are a key feature of both groups’ organizers.

Business Forward’s Doyle served as senior policy adviser and deputy chief of staff to former Obama chief of staff Bill Daley when Daley worked in the Clinton administration. He is also married to Patti Solis Doyle, former campaign chief of staff to Vice President Joe Biden in the 2008 presidential campaign.

At CPP , Smith and Laura Burton Capps have attended more than fifty weekly “planning” meetings at the White House since 2009, White House visitor records show. Until 2010, Smith, Capps and other Common Purpose organizers met regularly with White House deputy chief of staff Jim Messina, who now runs Obama’s reelection campaign. They now meet primarily with Jon Carson, director of the Office of Public Engagement.

Though both Smith and Capps stress that its primary focus is to connect and organize advocates, CPP was also carefully crafted to secure White House participation. Its meetings, which administration officials regularly attend, are expected to be kept strictly confidential. Few attendees are willing to speak on the record about the group — most are unwilling to speak at all. One attendee said the strict confidentiality reflects the White House’s desire to keep its message tightly controlled.

For example during health care negotiations, the meeting served as an outlet for frustrated advocates who wanted to know when their neglected issues would get the attention of the White House. Dozens of organizations flocked to the meetings during the height of congressional negotiations.

Business Forward, meanwhile, doesn’t place as high of a premium on secrecy. “We help identify, brief and support business leaders who care about particular issues, from immigration reform to the IPO on-ramp provisions in [the] JOBS Act,” Kaufman said, noting that several business leaders got on board with the JOBS Act through the group’s briefings. “They don’t always agree with the administration, or one another, but getting business leaders behind politically tough issues can be the difference between a good bill and no bill at all.”

Both groups argue that they are here for the long haul and won’t be gone when Obama leaves office.

For Business Forward’s part, it plans to continue to grow and is in the early planning stages for the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

CPP’s next move is to facilitate meetings between state progressive organizations that are engaged in federal policy issues, mirroring the Washington gatherings.

Capps said that the model is one that has proved to be effective and is likely to continue.

“We’re proud of the role that it serves,” Capps said. “It very much serves a facilitation function in getting progressive groups to work better together and more effectively regardless of who is in the White House.”