The End of a Lobbyist

Whoever puts himself or herself in that gray area where political stakes and private economic interests become entangled, picking the wrong horse can be insurmountable. Thus, Billy Tauzin, powerful president of the pharmaceutical laboratories lobby, announced his imminent resignation Feb. 11. Officially, he is leaving for new opportunities. No one is fooled: He is paying for a strategic error. It is the symbolic death of a traveling salesman who, chosen among the chosen, sold his merchandise with a known talent — promoting or preventing such and such a bill. One single fault would be fatal.

Tauzin presided over The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, an organization that represents big laboratories better known under its acronym, PhRMA — pronounced “pharma.” Its slogan: “Disease is our enemy. Working to save lives is our job.” Tauzin was one of the princes of the Congressional wings. His annual salary was close to $2.5 million. Only the patrons of the lobbies of finance, insurance, petroleum and defense can hope for more. Billy — Wilbert Joseph Tauzin II, 66 — kept one of the loveliest address books in Congress. It must be said that the course of his career was flawless — for a lobbyist, that is.

Elected in 1979 as a Democrat and then regularly re-elected every two years, this Louisiana representative was one of the most conservative in the House, a founding member of the Blue Dog Coalition, an assembly of Democrats supporting ultraliberal economic policies. In this capacity, he helped the Republicans defeat Hillary Clinton’s health care reform project in 1994, then moved into their camp. He was then re-elected to his position with the same numbers as before: more than 70 percent of the votes. In 2004, he announced that he did not intend to run again. After a quarter-century of civil service, he left his place … to his son: a youth who was looking to impose his opinion on his party and who ended up getting beaten. Tauzin, on the other hand, rebounded brilliantly.

As an elected representative, he was already one of those most suspected of corruption. On Jan. 3, 2005, the day of the opening session of Congress, we learned that he was taking on the presidency of PhRMA. According to an insistent rumor, he had been courted by two lobbies — the pharmaceutical industry and the motion picture industry — and chose the highest bidder. In Congress, some nasty gossipers picked quarrels with him. Didn’t he play a leading role in the adoption of a law seen to favor the big labs barely two months before his departure from the House? And then he became the head of their lobby: What is there to doubt … an ethical code forbids an elected official to capitalize on his future services on the outside as long as he is in his post. But go ahead, prove the constitutional offense! Billy exited it unscathed.

As a lobbyist, he hardly knew any hardship. He fought capably against the acquisition of cheaper foreign medications. He pulled a million strings to rein in the diffusion of generic products — until his fateful error. After the election of Barack Obama, with 50 million Americans uninsured, 70 percent of the population favorable to a reform and Congress under Democratic domination, the adoption of a new system of health insurance appeared to him, as to many others, unavoidable. He persuaded the laboratories to negotiate their support with the White House for its reform in return for guarantees. The White House hastened to enlist even though Obama promised to emancipate himself from the lobbies. How could it do otherwise? With the insurers standing in opposition to all reform, the Obama team needed allies. Cleaning house in Washington was expected.

It happened thus. The alliance remained secret: In exchange for its support, PhRMA got the advantage on their principal objectives. The Obama administration abandoned all vague notions of fixing a special price for basic medications and of directly negotiating the prices for the Retiree Public Health Insurance (Medicare). The pharmaceutical sector committed itself to reducing its part of health care overruns by $80 billion in ten years. The growth of their market to 50 million supplementary buyers had no price. That lobby — here comes a twist — had already contributed more to Mr. Obama’s campaign than to that of his rival John McCain. It financed $150 million worth of advertisements in favor of reform.

When the agreement was realized, the “Progressives” were enraged: Mr. Obama had done business with a proven Conservative. In a public letter, the leader of the House Minority, Republican John Boehner, accused Mr. Tauzin of “ [accommodating] a Washington takeover of health care at the expense of the American people in hopes of securing favorable treatment and future profits.” Tauzin also started to feel betrayed: He believed he had respected the terms of the agreement, going as far as to attack the unethical behavior of certain laboratories. Then, as more time passed, the reform became more entangled in the procedural curves of Congress.

Since the loss of the Democratic supermajority in the Senate, it is no longer certain that Obama is in a position to obtain the votes necessary to pass health care reform. In the battle of the lobbies, in which PhRMA opposed private health insurers, Tauzin lost. More than lost. His departure is very bad news for Mr. Obama: It signals that an important lobby directly concerned with his reform no longer believes that he will succeed in getting the vote. Unless the aforesaid lobby makes another mistake …