Dodd’s Mixed Signals on Lobbyists

After repeated criticism of lobbyists, it turns out that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) spent the weekend with lobbyists.

As reported in The Hill by Kevin Bogardus, Dodd attended a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee retreat in Martha’s Vineyard stacked with prominent lobbyists. The retreat is seen as a prime opportunity for lobbyists to network with lawmakers. It’s also a prime fundraising opportunity.

Recent weeks have shown there to be no senator more eager to talk tough about lobbyists than the newly anti-lobbying chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs, Chris Dodd.

“You almost have to feel sorry for the poor lobbyists,” Dodd’s campaign webpage reads. “They just can’t get Chris Dodd to listen to them.”

Just last week, a Dodd fundraising e-mail — sarcastically titled “Those poor lobbyists” — bragged, “The lobbyists can’t get meetings with Chris. He won’t return their phone calls.”

Following the e-mail, and responding to calls by the National Republican Senatorial Committee for Dodd, based on his anti-lobbyist rhetoric, to do the logical thing and return any monies his campaign has received from lobbyists — a Dodd spokesman said, “It’s not about the fundraising. It’s about lobbyists believing they’re going to get something, and they’re not.”

While Dodd’s newfound aggressive anti-lobbying stance strikes a populist message he feels will work for his reelection campaign, it also opens Dodd to charges of blatant hypocrisy. One day, he’s bashing lobbyists; the next, he’s with them in Martha’s Vineyard. And that anti-lobbyist e-mail? That was a fundraising pitch sent to, you guessed it, lobbyists.

The rhetoric also suggests that Dodd is ignoring priority No. 1 for any senator: meeting with and listening to your constituents.

Connecticut is home to major companies including General Electric, Xerox, United Technologies, Aetna, the Hartford Financial Services Group, Priceline.com Inc. and the Student Loan Corp. It’s home to large municipalities such as Hartford and Bridgeport, as well as the University of Connecticut, Yale University and Quinnipiac University. All of these entities presumably hire lobbyists. While most people know that large companies hire whole teams of lobbyists, most do not know that municipalities and universities employ lobbyists to help secure funding and/or legislative language for anything from transportation to brown field cleanup, from wastewater treatment to research grants.

Does anyone actually believe that Dodd’s office is closed to lobbyists that work for companies, municipalities or universities employing thousands upon thousands in the state?

If so, that might become of even greater concern than campaign rhetoric Dodd has already shown to be empty.