The Weed Agency (24 page)

“Congressman, I’m afraid I’m not quite up to speed on this matter,” Humphrey said. “What, in particular, did he turn down? And am I correct that ‘Austin’ is your deputy chief of staff Jacob Austin?”

After he calmed some, Hargis explained that after a decade of loyal service, his deputy chief of staff was seeking private employment with the Greater American Society of Pesticide Producers, or GASPP, an industry association and lobbying group that represented an $11 billion industry.

Hargis and GASPP had enjoyed a happy and mutually beneficial relationship for decades, but suddenly when one of Hargis’s favorite employees had sought a job in “policy analysis and legislative outreach”—more commonly known to the general public as “lobbying”—he had failed to score an interview and found his phone calls unreturned.

“Wait, where are you going?” Wilkins whined in response to Humphrey’s announcement of his sudden departure. “We have afternoon meetings lined up like planes landing at Dulles!”

“Cancel them!” Humphrey ordered in an uncharacteristically gruff manner. “I have to prevent a war.”

“A little late, boss, unless you know some secret to motivating Saddam Hussein,” Wilkins said.

“Not that war, the one between Hargis and our friends in the pesticide industry.” He grabbed his raincoat and umbrella and headed toward the door. But after a few steps, he suddenly stopped, and glanced across the room at the television.

The cable news network’s coverage of imminent war had briefly interrupted for an update on the day’s most bizarre development: a man wearing a military helmet and displaying an upside-down American flag had driven a John Deere tractor into a shallow pond in Constitution Gardens, near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. The man had claimed to have explosives, and threatened to blow himself up if police approached him.
³⁰

Humphrey watched the breathless coverage of the crisis just down the street for a few moments, and then sighed.

“Wilkins, Farmer McVeigh over there, just outside our offices—is he one of ours?”

“Nope. He’s protesting the end of federal tobacco subsidies.”

“Ah,” Humphrey exhaled relief. “Carry on, then.”

A half hour later, Humphrey found himself in the luxurious office of Conrad Steiner, president of GASPP. At least one forest had been clear-cut to provide the wood in the ornate bookshelves lining the walls, and the desk, mostly empty, appeared to be best measured in acres. Humphrey looked around and realized his office desperately needed an upgrade in furniture.

“Conrad, I consider diplomacy to be a key facet of my role at my agency, but I’m fighting a cold, everyone’s on edge about reprisal attacks for war in the Middle East, and some yokel on a tractor is threatening to blow himself up outside my office if the government stops paying him to grow a crop that kills people, so you’ll find me at less than peak diplomatic sensitivity today,” Humphrey began.

“Let’s hear it, Humphrey,” Steiner said, reclining in a chair that used more leather than the Folsom Street Fair.

“Why in the devil’s name are you not hiring Jacob Austin?”

Steiner had clearly expected the question, and spoke simply, as if rehearsed.

“He’s not qualified.”

“That is absolute nonsense, as the only qualification any lobbyist needs is access,”
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Humphrey scoffed. “Do you truly believe a former deputy chief of staff to a high-ranking member of the Appropriations Committee can’t get his phone calls returned?”

Steiner sighed. He turned his computer monitor toward Humphrey and typed in a URL: kstreetproject.com.

A Web site popped up on the screen.

“It’s a lobbying database,” Steiner said. “Keeps track of
lobbyists’ employment histories, partisan leanings, and, of course, donations.”
³²

“I’m familiar with it,” Humphrey nodded. “It’s run by … by …” The name escaped Humphrey’s memory. “The short Viking who’s always going on about taxes.”

“Grover Norquist. The scorecard of who gets hired to do what has traditionally been … low profile,” Steiner explained. “Norquist makes sure everybody knows who gets hired by whom, and DeLay and his lieutenants in the House are … not subtle about whether they approve. They and some of the other biggies, NFIB, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc., meet every Thursday. Santorum holds similar meetings on the Senate side. And every time one of our guys or I meet with them, the message is pretty clear: ‘Play ball with us, don’t play ball with them.’ ”

Humphrey shrugged. “I’ll use a golf metaphor so a lobbyist like yourself can understand: Isn’t that fairly par for the course?”

“Thirty-three of the top thirty-six top-level lobbying positions open in the last year have gone to Republicans.”

“Good, our Republican friends are acclimating to the capital’s habitat,” Humphrey said. “They’ll stop trying to throw sand in the gears and get with the program.”

“Yeah, well, right now they’re getting even better at it than the Democrats were,” Steiner replied. “You ever run into that guy Gully? He’s like the mob enforcer over there. I keep asking where they dug him up, because I’m pretty sure he’s a ghoul or zombie or something.”

“I highly doubt that,” Humphrey said with a straight face. “Zombies subsist on brains, and surely on Capitol Hill the poor beast would starve.”

Drake Gully seemed to rotate among the staffs of the House Republican leaders from year to year, and generally projected one of the most menacing visages and demeanors on Capitol Hill, an impression only vaguely mitigated by his slight lisp.

Steiner chuckled. “If I hire Austin, I’ve got big problems with the majority, and hatchet men like Gully will make me pay for God knows how long. I know you’re here because Hargis is irate; he called me and left fourteen voice messages. Apparently when he put his phone in his pocket, he kept accidentally hitting redial.”

“You’ll have to forgive the congressman, he’s not used to phones.”

Steiner laughed. “That’s because when he was first elected, they still used the Pony Express.”

Every once in a while, after a particularly difficult week, Humphrey and Wilkins would tell their wives that they would be late, and headed off to the bar at the Willard InterContinental hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue.

Wilkins had finished his first brown liquor when he exclaimed, “Adam, why does it seem like the hiring of one guy is the fate of the world for us?”

“Because it’s a priority to Congressman Hargis,” sighed Humphrey.

“You realize he’s losing his marbles, right?” Wilkins asked. “The last time I spoke to him, he referred to Cheney as the Defense Secretary.”

“We’re at war with Iraq, the president is named Bush, and that burly Austrian is making another killer robot movie,” Humphrey said. “I think some historical confusion is forgivable.”

“ ‘Historical confusion’? Adam, Hargis is going senile!”

“Perhaps.” Humphrey shrugged. “But thankfully as a congressman, he’s in an environment where few will notice and it will have minimal impact on his work.”

“We’re in the very best of hands.” Wilkins rolled his eyes. “You know he’s hapless without his staff. At some point we should eliminate the middleman and just have the congressional chiefs of staffs cast the votes. It would be a bit fairer, since the staffers do most of the work. Let the voters know who’s really calling the shots.”

“Oh, life for the Hill staffers is fairer than it used to be,” Humphrey said. “Sure, they’re young, working exceptionally long hours, could lose their jobs at any time if their boss is defeated or keels over, but at least now they have the promise of a payoff after a distinguished period of service.”

“Nobody goes to work on Capitol Hill to get rich,” retorted Wilkins.

“No, but how long can you work modest five-figures and no job security, surrounded by those in the finest of suits and the Burberry scarf, the Cartier leather briefcase, the glint of light shining off their Rolex, heading off to their expense-account lunches at the Palm or the Monocle? Oh, that’s right, there’s a gift ban for staffers—we can’t even pick up the check for lunch. The average salary for a lobbyist is three hundred thousand dollars, and lobbying the government is a two-billion-dollar-per-year industry. It’s only fair that hardworking congressional staffers be given a chance to enjoy a piece of the pie.”

On Capitol Hill, the increasingly haggard Congressman Nick Bader was attempting to end a meeting with some wunderkind former Health and Human Services undersecretary who was about to launch a quixotic bid to run for governor of Louisiana.
The young policy wonk was undoubtedly bright and knew his policy backward and forward, but Bader could barely understand him, between his unimaginably fast speaking pace and his unexpectedly thick Louisiana drawl. He contemplated recording the aspiring governor’s remarks and later playing it back at half speed, just to make sure he understood him correctly.

“Well, look, I’ve really got to get to this committee hearing,” Bader said, picking up his pace and hoping the skinny Indian-American couldn’t walk as fast as he spoke. “I think you’ve got some great ideas, and I’ll be happy to help you out with a fundraiser or something, but I’ll warn you, I’ve been here a long time and changing the way Washington works is a hell of a—”

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The meeting would have gone on forever if the pair hadn’t nearly walked into a tall, pale, menacing figure in a black suit, Drake Gully. The gaunt staffer for the House Republican leadership glared briefly at the man occupying Bader’s attention.