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Washington, DC: The Other City That Never Sleeps
Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, R-AZ, is trying to reach a broader audience with the launch of his new Web site dedicated to campaign finance reform. McCain said he chose the Internet as the vehicle for his message because it is a way to reach and inform a lot of people about the "corruptive business influences in Washington." "The site is designed to encourage people to join the campaign against soft money," said Wes Gullet, McCain's deputy campaign manager in a conference call. The site offers three suggestions to get involved including signing a petition, donating to McCain 2000 (McCain's presidential campaign) and e-mailing other people about the issue. Gullet stressed the importance of small donations to McCain's campaign, but clarified that the site was not for McCain's personal presidential campaign and only carried a link to that site.
David Crane is making the transition from working on Y2K legislation and securities litigation reform for Mayer, Brown & Platt to lobbying on intellectual property and software piracy issues for Autodesk. Crane recently was hired in an attempt to increase Autodesk's visibility on Capitol Hill and is expected to lobby for making the R&D tax credit permanent and lifting the cap on the number of H1-B visas allocated annually. "We don't have the name recognition [on the Hill] and we hope that David will help with that...we hired an attorney not to only work on piracy but also because we need to be more visible," said an Autodesk spokeswoman. "If you can hit it on all fronts, more interests can be more regularly addressed." Company officials said Crane's hiring had nothing to do with a Federal Trade Commission probe of Autodesk practices launched by the agency last year.
The Center for Responsive Politics released the breakdown of campaign donations for 11 presidential candidates for the year 2000 race last week, revealing that as of April 15 the total donations from computer equipment and service companies accounted for the second smallest amount of all the industries with a total of $231,775 for 10 candidates. Texas Gov. George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore lead the pack overall, as well as with donations from the computer industry with $86,450 and $76,250 respectively. Gore received nearly $2,000 from IBM employees and a little more than $3,250 from Microsoft, while Bush received $1,000 a piece from both companies. Sen. Bob Smith, R-NH, rounds out the list with a total of $3,500. The site gives viewers the opportunity to check candidate profiles and track donations by industry and geography for all of the candidates.
The K Street Crowd has a new address, online that is, with the debut of its Web site that offers a variety of services and information to the public, members and authorized users. The aptly-named club of Republican lobbyists developed the site in order to bridge the electronic gap between Republicans on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Catering to everyone, the site is divided into two areas: one for members only and the other for the public. Non-members are allowed access to Street Noise, an interactive news and gossip column, that introduces itself as "a regular feature highlighting rumor, innuendo and gossip. This site operates on principles established by the news media: We don't reveal our sources, and we never admit we are wrong!" K Street Crowd members and select Republicans will be able to access private areas of the site, offering different services such as "Trial Balloon," an e-mail service that allows Hill staffers to run legislative ideas by lobbyists.
An adult entertainment lobbyist has bought domain names for presidential candidates in the hopes of "educating the country about the First Amendment." California lobbyist Michael Ross, who represents the National Cabaret Association and other adult entertainment businesses, announced last week that he purchased domain names for candidates like Elizabeth Dole, Pat Buchanan, Steve Forbes, Bill Bradley and Hillary Clinton using their last names and adding "4president2000.com" at the end. He plans to post the candidates' opinions on First Amendment issues on the sites.
Temporary workers are a staple of the high-tech industry, and some are becoming roiled over their payment model. Hundreds of Washington state temporary workers, frustrated about not knowing how much money employment agencies keep from companies paying for their work, are petitioning. The workers do not begrudge the agencies their cut to "cover expenses and make a profit," however they would like to know just how much of a cut the agencies are taking. Hence, the petition urges employment agencies to disclose the amount they keep. "The temp agency knows, the client knows — the only person kept in the dark is the person doing the work and creating the wealth," Marcus Courtney, a cofounder of WashTech, a Seattle-based organization of high-tech workers that lobbies on workplace issues, told the Seattle Times. A few days after the launch of the petition drive, there were 250 signatures.
Send comments and contributions to Jessica Smith.
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