In the Land of Lobbyists
From the perceptive of Governor Calvo, he has distinguished himself through several lawsuits against the federal government and also a willingness to speak out against US colonialism, including at the United Nations. We should divide these acts into two basic types, while some are more direct, as in they deal with legal challenges, the others are largely symbolic. They don't engage directly with the US, but appeal to the world of meanings around the US and in many ways don't ever reach the US. For instance, Calvo's claim that in response to the feds choking off the supply of foreign workers for local businesses, he was now AGAINST the buildup, was intriguing. In a small sense it was radical, as the governor of Guam, Calvo doesn't have a great deal of power, but he does have the ability to slow the buildup to interfere with it in order to make clear his new position of being AGAINST it.
But to his discredit, Calvo didn't take any concrete actions to manifest in policy or governmental position, his being against the buildup. It was a rhetorical point meant to make clear his displeasure and unlike Bordallo, try to tame some anti-buildup or anti-use of Litekyan sentiment. But it wasn't likely meant to be more than that.
But in the legal realm, Calvo truly shined in terms of attempting to take the federal government to task, within its own courts. But while we can cheer defenses of the Chamorro Land Trust, defense of the plebiscite and the lawsuit over the Ordot Dump, they were not part of any larger plan for moving ahead with federal-territorial relations. In a similar sense, while we can commend Calvo for putting money behind the educational campaign of the Commission on Decolonization, there was no larger governmental push within Guam or in concert with the delegate's office, and so the impact was quite limited. Calvo, could have been remembered in the ways in which Ada or Bordallo are, as someone who moved the island forward in fundamental ways, through their acts or dreams, but he missed that chance by lacking a larger plan or goal.
Will the next round of leaders be any different? Will they be able to come up with something substantive to guide their actions, to give it a larger sense of meaning and significance? Hekkua', ti siguro yu'.
As I've been researching the issue of federal-territorial relations, I've bumped into more and more the issue of lobbyists and how essential they can be in making things happen, or preventing things from happening. Lobbyists can be very expensive, but can also be effective. When looking to what the new administration might do differently, the issue of hiring lobbyists to lobby on behalf of Guam keeps popping into my head. For many of the smaller issues that Guam contends with, a lobbyist can make a huge difference since there aren't large corporate forces that have interests in Guam, unlike Puerto Rico or other territories. For the larger goals of political status, a lobbyist will be essential in helping keep Guam relevant even as Congresspeople change and administrations change.
One reason why a lobbyist may be necessary is because unlike voting elected leaders who have constituents, that have a base from which they are to draw their interests or support, Guam has not real constituents. It's interests and needs are not tied to any part of the US that matters and as such, it may need the help of lobbyists or other actors to help the administration pay attention and work in favor of Guam.
While I was in DC recently I learned about one of the most infamous lobbyists in relation to the territories, Jeff Farrow. A charmingly titled article about him from the New York Times can be found below.
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The Lobbyist with a Six-Figure Government Job
by Eric Lipton
New York Times
September 14, 2015
WASHINGTON — In this city with a grand tradition of government officials who pass through the revolving door into a world of big paychecks, Jeffrey Farrow stands apart.
While earning more than $100,000 a year as executive director of a tiny federal agency called the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, which has only one full-time federal employee, Mr. Farrow has simultaneously helped collect as much as $750,000 a year in lobbying fees. His clients have included the governments of Puerto Rico and the Republic of Palau, a tiny island nation in the western Pacific.
Mr. Farrow was at once a federal government bureaucrat and lobbyist. The revolving door did not even have to spin.
He managed this feat while running one of dozens of agencies that can get lost in the vast United States government — this one responsible for identifying and helping preserve cemeteries and historic buildings in Eastern and Central Europe that are important to American Jews and others, including Orthodox Christians from Kosovo.
An agency staff member has alleged that Mr. Farrow handled some of his lobbying work while at the offices of the federal agency. And at times, his work for private clients has overlapped directly with his public duties.
“A bizarre tale,” said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin and chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, in a letter he sent last month to Lesley Weiss, the chairwoman of the 30-year-old commission, asking her to explain Mr. Farrow’s dual roles. “This lobbyist used federal personnel and resources to run a profitable personal business advancing the interest of foreign agents.”
Mr. Farrow declined repeated requests for comment, and Ms. Weiss did not return calls seeking comment. Warren L. Miller, a former federal prosecutor from Virginia who served for over a decade as chairman of the commission, said in an interview that he had been unaware that Mr. Farrow was also working as a registered foreign agent — a type of lobbyist hired by a foreign government, like Palau.
But Mr. Miller, who still serves on the commission board after stepping down as chairman in 2012, said Mr. Farrow had done nothing wrong because he works as a contractor, first hired in 2001, rather than as a full-fledged federal employee, even with his title of executive director.
“I don’t think it was improper or unethical or illegal in any way,” Mr. Miller said. He added that during Mr. Farrow’s tenure, the agency had helped preserve dozens of cemeteries and other important historic and cultural sites.
Experts in government ethics and lobbying law said that the different hats Mr. Farrow has simultaneously worn — as a lobbyist, foreign agent and executive director of a federal agency — are at minimum highly unusual.
“Whether or not there is a legal violation here, you do have a mixing of roles that I have certainly never seen before,” said Caleb P. Burns, a partner at Wiley Rein, a Washington law firm, who specializes in lobbying and ethics laws. “Someone burrowed so deeply in the government and yet at the same time engaging in lobbying and representing a foreign government — it is pretty brazen.”
Mr. Farrow took home about 16 percent of the commission’s annual budget in personal compensation, given his salary of at least $104,000 a year, even though he was expected to work for the agency for only eight to 20 hours a week, according to a report on the agency by the General Services Administration’s inspector general, completed in 2013 but never made public. A copy of the report was provided to The New York Times.
Mr. Farrow, as a result of his different jobs, was often working with the State Department and members of Congress in his official capacity — as the agency urged foreign governments to preserve cemeteries and other historic sites — while he was also making appeals to these same officials on behalf of his lobbying clients. For the government of Palau, he described himself as a “special adviser,” foreign agent lobbying records filed with the Department of Justice show.
As a representative of Palau, Mr. Farrow frequently contacted the State Department, which recently released more than 20 emails between Mr. Farrow and Hillary Rodham Clinton and her top aides while she was secretary of state. Mr. Farrow tried to press Mrs. Clinton and her staff to sign off on a new agreement that would offer the country more assistance than had been planned.
“Palau offended by U.S. positions,” said one email Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton in 2009, as he helped Palau push for the new agreement, before explaining to Mrs. Clinton in detail the government’s objections.
Mrs. Clinton sent that email to Jake Sullivan, one of her top foreign policy advisers, saying: “Pls review, do some recon outreach and advise what, if anything, we should do.”
The outcome clearly pleased Mr. Farrow, who had also served on Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign before she joined the Obama administration. A year later, when a new deal was signed setting aside additional federal funds for Palau, Mr. Farrow wrote to Mrs. Clinton: “Thanks for all that you did. It obtained U.S. objectives as well as resulted in substantially greater fairness for a former territory.”
Mr. Farrow’s work on behalf of Puerto Rico intensified — and his lobbying fees increased — as the island’s recent financial crisis worsened. After first working directly for the government of Puerto Rico, in the last two years Mr. Farrow has been part of a lobbying team that as of July had been paid $2 million by three nonprofit groups advocating on behalf of the island, including the Puerto Rico Statehood Council.
At that time, Mr. Farrow’s two worlds came together. Records show that a nonprofit group created to help support the heritage commission’s work donated money to a hospital and a community college in Palau.
The questions about Mr. Farrow’s varied roles came to light after the agency’s only full-time employee, Katarina Ryan, said Mr. Farrow routinely used the agency’s office to conduct his lobbying work, paid himself an unauthorized bonus with federal funds, and used federal funds to buy subscriptions to publications like Congressional Quarterly and the Leadership Directories, to help him with his lobbying practice.
Ms. Ryan, the agency’s project manager, is on leave after raising questions about Mr. Farrow’s conduct.
An investigation by the inspector general from the General Services Administration concluded that while Mr. Farrow may have handled some of his lobbying duties while at the agency’s offices, he had a personal laptop and cellphone, so “there was insufficient evidence to show any violation by Mr. Farrow.”
The Senate Homeland Security committee has asked the agency to address the allegations. The commission, in a statement, said the allegations had “been found to be unsubstantiated, factual misunderstandings and factually incorrect,” noting that it would respond to the Senate request later this month.
Mr. Johnson, the Wisconsin senator, in a statement released by his office Friday, said the commission, despite its worthwhile mission, was an example of what is wrong with government.
“This relatively tiny agency is a classic example of the dysfunction and waste that typify far too much of the federal government,” he said. “Established with the best of intentions to memorialize the horrors of 20th-century genocides, the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad did little to accomplish that goal but was instead used to enrich a lobbyist.”
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