The More Things Change . . .
CONTINETTI, MATTHEW
The More Things Change . . . Washington lobbyists are still getting rich off Indian casinos. BY MATTHEW CONTINETTI IN 2003, at the height of his influence in Washington, the ex-lobbyist Jack...
...In 1995, shortly after he returned to the capital after an unsuccessful stint as a movie producer, Abramoff, then at the firm Preston Gates, registered as a lobbyist for the Choctaw, who had opened the Silver Star Resort and Casino in Philadelphia, Mississippi, the previous year...
...At present, for example, the Louisiana Coushatta have no lobbyists in Washington, though last year they briefly employed the services of Hance Scarborough Wright Woodward & Weisbart, an Austin-based law firm...
...His firm is flush with casino money...
...In charge of the account is Todd Boulanger, a former legislative aide to retired senator Bob Smith, the New Hampshire Republican...
...For this, the tribe paid Cassidy & Associates $40,000 in the first half of 2004...
...In the first half of 2005, the Choctaw paid Barnes & Thornburg around $200,000...
...Matthew Continetti is a staff writer at THE WEEKLY STANDARD...
...Tesler's husband, Sam Hook, also worked at Greenberg Traurig, where he was a registered lobbyist for Grassroots Interactive, one of Abramoff's front companies...
...Protecting sovereignty and ensuring funding are both expensive...
...Also registered to lobby on the Chitimacha's behalf is Shana Tesler, a Democrat who worked with Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig...
...The Chippewa's primary contact at lETAN is Larry Rosen-thal, the former chief of staff of the National Indian Gaming Commission...
...According to Senate filings, at one time or another his firm has lobbied on behalf of the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux, the Eastern Pequot Tribal Nation, the Mashan-tucket Pequot, the Pokagon tribe, the Buena Vista Rancheria of Me-Wuk Indians, the Tunica-Biloxi tribe, the Florida Seminoles, the Catawba Indian Band, and the Oneida tribe of Wisconsin...
...Edward Ayoob, for example, worked for Harry Reid before joining Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig...
...Last November, Scanlon also pleaded guilty to conspiracy...
...Ring is a former legislative director for California Republican congressman John Doolittle, who is under scrutiny in the Justice Department's Abramoff investigation...
...Last year, the Choctaw hired Barnes & Thornburg LLI, an Indiana firm with branches throughout the Midwest as well as in Washington, to "protect tribal sovereignty and to ensure federal funding for critical tribal programs," according to Senate disclosure forms...
...Abramoff enjoyed a long-term, and lucrative, relationship with the Choctaw...
...Volz, it should be noted, was also Ney's chief of staff in 2000, when the congressman, at Michael Scanlon's behest, entered two statements into the Congressional Record that helped Abramoff and his partner Adam Kidan purchase the SunCruz Casino cruise line...
...Another Barnes & Thornburg lobbyist mentioned in the firm's disclosure forms is Neil Volz, a former chief of staff to Ohio Republican congressman Bob Ney...
...The Chippewa also employ Holland & Knight, a massive, 1,200-lawyer firm that, according to its website, offers "service without boundaries...
...Kevin Ring left Greenberg Traurig in October 2004, when that firm discovered he had received payments from Capital Campaign Strategies...
...Finally, the Saginaw Chippewa tribe, which operates the Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort in Mt...
...In 2001, the Choctaw followed him, along with most of his other clients and his team of lobbyists, to the firm Greenberg Traurig...
...And Volz has the equally dubious honor of being one of two former congressional staffers mentioned in the Abramoff plea agreement, where he is identified as "Staffer B." The plea agreement, also known as a criminal information, says that shortly after he arrived at Greenberg Traurig, Volz violated the one-year ban on former staffers' lobbying their bosses by contacting Ney and others "for the purpose of influencing official action on behalf of defendant ABRAMOFF's and Staffer B's clients...
...Each tribe operated a casino...
...Boulanger worked with Abramoff at both Preston Gates and Greenberg Traurig, and followed him to Cassidy & Associates when Greenberg Traurig fired Abramoff in early 2004, after an internal investigation into his business practices...
...It's Reed's industry now...
...There is IETAN Consulting, which declares, on its website, that its primary responsibility is "protecting inherent sovereign rights of tribes...
...They are well compensated...
...Pleasant, Michigan, has hired not one, not two, but three different lobbying firms...
...In 2004, the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla Indians, who operate a casino in California, hired Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one of the capital's lobbying giants...
...Not all of Abramoff's former clients have signed contracts with his former lieutenants...
...A spokesman for Barnes & Thornburg told me last week that Volz had resigned from the firm on January 16...
...Also that year, Abramoff directed the Choctaw to hire his former colleague, Michael Scanlon, to perform "grassroots" work on the tribe's behalf...
...Three years later, Abramoff has pleaded guilty, in his dealings with those tribes, to charges of mail fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy, and has agreed to cooperate with Justice Department lawyers as part of their wide-ranging, and open-ended, congressional corruption probe...
...The tribes he represented, however, still pay hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to K Street lobbyists...
...In the first half of 2005, the amount increased to $60,000...
...The chairman of Chesapeake Enterprises is Scott W. Reed, who ran Bob Dole's 1996 presidential campaign...
...In early January, Reed talked about his former rival with a reporter for Business Week...
...In 2002, Volz left Capitol Hill to work with Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig...
...From June 2001 to April 2004, the Choctaw paid Scanlon's company, Capital Campaign Strategies, some $14,765,000...
...Last July, shortly after the Senate Indian Affairs Committee held its third public hearing into Abramoff's lobbying practices, she and her husband left the United States for Israel...
...BY MATTHEW CONTINETTI IN 2003, at the height of his influence in Washington, the ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff represented seven Indian tribes, among them the Mississippi Choctaw, the Louisiana Chitimacha, the Louisiana Coushatta, the Agua Caliente band of Cahuilla, and the Saginaw Chippewa...
...The Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988 opened the door for casino gambling, and it took no time at all before many tribes stepped right in...
...Abramoff is on his way to jail...
...In the last six months of 2004, the Agua Caliente paid Akin Gump approximately $320,000...
...Ring is also an author...
...In 2004, another former Abramoff client, the Louisiana Chitimacha tribe, hired the firm Cassidy & Associates to "monitor general Indian matters," according to disclosure reports...
...Now that Abramoff is gone, however, Reed is the unquestioned impresario of Indian gambling...
...Volz is no longer working on the Choctaw account...
...Regnery published his Scalia Dhsents: Writings of the Supreme Court's Wittiest, Most Outspoken Justice in November 2004...
...The Chippewa's lobbyist there is Aurene Michele Martin, a lawyer with extensive tribal experience, including a stint working for former Colorado Republican senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and another as acting assistant secretary for Indian affairs at the Interior Department...
...The third firm the Chippewa employ is Chesapeake Enterprises, which helped the tribe navigate the Senate Indian Affairs Committee's investigation of Abramoff...
...Jack Abramoff," he said, "brought a microscope to the whole industry...
...The firm has six lobbyists working the account, according to disclosure forms...
...Scanlon, as per a secret arrangement known as "Gimme Five," then split the money with Abramoff...
...Tesler no longer works for Cassidy & Associates...
...Several of the lobbyists who work on the account are familiar with the tribe, since they also represented the Choctaw alongside Abramoff at Greenberg Traurig...
...Ney, who last week resigned from his chairmanship of the House Administration Committee, has the dubious honor of being the only lawmaker mentioned in Abramoff's and Scanlon's plea agreements...
...Until an unidentified lobbyist called Washington Post reporter Susan Schmidt in the fall of 2003 to draw attention to his business excesses, Abramoff was Reed's chief rival for Indian casino clients...
...For this, the tribe paid Chesapeake Enterprises $36,000 in the last half of 2004, and another $20,000 in the first half of 2005...
...The spokesman would provide no reason for Volz's departure...
Vol. 11 • January 2006 • No. 19
