Extortion (23 page)

As the
Washington Post
put it, Blunt came to “build a political machine of his own that extends from Missouri deep into Washington’s K Street lobbying community.”
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The operation became known as “Blunt, Inc.” As George W. Bush’s White House political director Ken Mehlman put it, “There’s nothing that happens in Congress that Roy Blunt isn’t a major architect of.”
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And this architect didn’t come cheap.

Blunt took responsibility for day-to-day meetings with lobbyists and formed an informal leadership team of twenty-five specific lobbyists to set the agenda. DeLay was constructing a political machine that included his congressional office and lobbyists who funneled money through a network of PACs and political committees run by his current and former staffers. At the center of the nexus was the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm founded by DeLay’s former chief of staff. DeLay’s wife, Christine, was on the payroll. Blunt made a similar arrangement in July 1999 with the Rely On Your Beliefs (RoyB) leadership PAC. Like DeLay’s operation, RoyB was run by the Alexander Strategy Group. Blunt was able to transfer those funds to Missouri Republican organizations, which in turn could transfer the funds to help his son, Matt, who was running for secretary of state.
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Missouri Republicans nicknamed Matt Blunt “Baby Blunt” because he was young, just twenty-eight, when he announced his bid to become Missouri’s secretary of state. Younger brother Andrew served as his campaign manager.
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Roy Blunt leveraged his position to steer money to the race. How could a D.C.-based lobbyist or corporation be motivated to send checks to a candidate for an office in Missouri with no real powers? Simple: by extraction. Roy was on the powerful Commerce Committee and was assigned to finance, telecommunications, and trade subcommittees. So checks arrived for the Missouri secretary of state race from Freddie Mac executives and railway transportation companies, as well as from Washington lobbyists. (Even famed motion picture industry lobbyist Jack Valenti sent a donation.) Never mind that as secretary of state, Baby Blunt would have no power to affect any of them. What mattered was that Roy Blunt had made it clear that he wanted the money to flow to his son. And with important legislation before his committees, they were eager to comply.
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Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) sent $100,000 to the Seventh District Congressional Republican Committee. (Roy Blunt represented Missouri’s Seventh District.) The committee in turn donated $24,200 to Matt Blunt’s campaign—the maximum amount permitted.
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On March 16, 2000, Friends of Roy gave $50,000 to the same party organization. Eight days later, that committee transferred $40,000 to Missourians for Matt Blunt.
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Later, an attorney for Roy Blunt would make a $3,000 payment to the Missouri Ethics Commission and admit that RoyB had violated campaign rules.
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Matt Blunt was elected secretary of state on November 7, 2000, in a tight race. He was the youngest person ever to win statewide office in Missouri. Days after he was sworn into office, his younger brother and campaign manager, Andy Blunt, registered as a lobbyist. By age twenty-six, Andy Blunt would boast an impressive list of clients that included Philip Morris, Miller Brewing Company, Southwestern Bell, UPS, and railroad companies Burlington Northern and Santa Fe.
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Blunt saw that government power gave you leverage over wealthy industries and companies that could be translated into money. He moved to solidify his relationship with the lobbying community. In 2003 his longtime chief of staff, Gregg Hartley, left to become vice chairman of the massive lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates. It didn’t constitute a break with Blunt so much as simply a job change. “Blunt and I both conclude that I could still be a valuable part of his team,” Hartley told
Washington Post
writer Robert Kaiser in an interview for Kaiser’s
book
So Damn Much Money
.
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Indeed, Cassidy & Associates would become a key component in the Blunts’ power structure. Andy Blunt would soon sign on as a consultant for Cassidy & Associates. “Mr. Blunt is available, on assignment, to augment Cassidy and Associates legislative and executive branch advocacy campaigns, at the state and federal level,” said the lobbying outfit. The Cassidy website points out that Andy’s clients include “Fortune 500 and 100 companies, state government vendors, and state trade associations.”
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Older brother Matt would also join Cassidy in 2009.
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Roy Blunt’s climb to the top continued when he was elected majority whip in 2003. At the time nobody knew that the married Blunt was dating a lobbyist for Altria named Abigail Perlman on the side.
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Surely not coincidentally, Blunt quietly tried to insert a provision in a Homeland Security bill that would prevent the Internet sale of tobacco products. It would have been a big win for Altria, which was the new name for Philip Morris, but the gambit was discovered by his Republican colleagues, who promptly killed it. Not only was Ms. Perlman a lobbyist for Altria, but so was Blunt’s son Andy in Missouri. Later, Roy Blunt would divorce his wife and marry Abigail, who remains a high-profile lobbyist to this day. For their wedding, Blunt made sure to obtain a waiver from the House Ethics Committee from “all financial reporting requirements regarding all wedding gifts.”
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Blunt became adept at using his powerful position in the House to do favors for his family members’ lobbying clients. For example, his son Andy represented UPS. Roy Blunt inserted a provision into the Iraq War Emergency Appropriations Bill that would have required the U.S. military to move cargo only by majority-owned U.S. firms. It was a bid to block foreign competitors from getting any shot at winning some of the lucrative postal business shuttling supplies and packages between the United States and Iraq.
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In 2003 the family’s climb to power took another turn when the young Missouri secretary of state Matt Blunt announced his plans to run for governor. There were two “first-class gubernatorial” candidates who were also looking at the race: the State Senate president, Peter Kinder, and Congressman Kenny Hulshof. But they both knew how it worked: you didn’t run against the Blunts.
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They both demurred, so the office was young Matt’s for the taking. Andy, still a lobbyist, came over to run the campaign. They were joined by sister Amy Blunt, who served as a strategic adviser. Matt Blunt was only thirty-three, yet he won the election. Amy registered as a lobbyist for the firm Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin. The Blunts quickly announced that neither Amy nor Andy would lobby their brother. “My brother never lobbied the Secretary of State’s office and my brother has been very clear that he’s not going to lobby the executive branch of state government,” said the governor- elect.
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Technically this was true. But there were easy ways around it. On December 9, 2004, Andy Blunt’s firm hired a new associate named Jay Reichard, who was registered to lobby all branches of government. Reichard and Andy soon shared seventeen clients, thirteen of which were new clients signed after Matt had been elected governor. “Jay Reichard is not related to the governor,” Andy Blunt said, “and is free to lobby anybody he wants.”
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True. And it was also true that Andy Blunt was right down the hall.

Soon it became clear that if you wanted something done, you had to hire a Blunt to help you.

In 2004 SBC Communications supported a Missouri state bill that would redefine competition between landline telephone companies and their wireless competitors. The bill would have given companies like SBC the opportunity to adjust their rates more quickly. But the bill died. In 2005 SBC hired Andy Blunt to “work behind the scenes” on the bill. Reintroduced as Senate Bill 237, it passed and was signed by his brother, the governor.
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It was part of a broader pattern of family profiteering—or attempted profiteering. Sometimes, when the family business became too public, their deals fell apart.

In 2005 Governor Blunt had to decide whether to sign a bill that would prohibit real estate brokers from offering homeowners bare-bones services in exchange for a low fee (H.B. 174). It was clearly an anticompetitive bill, and both the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission denounced it. But of course Realtors wanted it to pass, so they would be prohibited from undercutting one another’s rates. The National Association of Realtors hired Gregg Hartley of Cassidy & Associates, under a one-month lobbying contract. They paid him $50,000 “to assist in pursuing its government affairs objectives. The nature of these objectives shall be working to ensure the enactment of HB 174 [the bill in question].” Sam Licklider, the chief lobbyist for Realtors in Missouri, said he believed Blunt would veto the bill. So they hired his father’s old chief of staff to lobby him. The governor signed it.
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There was no major public flap about conflict of interest, and the family business prospered. Whenever you hear Republicans proclaiming themselves to be in favor of free markets, you had better make sure they have no family members who are paid to squash that freedom.

On January 12, 2006, during his State of the State Address, Governor Matt Blunt pushed for a $25 million Healthcare Technology Fund. It was for the purpose of converting medical records into electronic records. Cerner Corporation, based in North Kansas City, was hoping to win a contract to help with the conversion. On November 12, 2005, Jeanne Patterson, wife of Cerner CEO Neal Patterson, had given $20,000 to the Republican Sixth Congressional District Committee, a party organization. Just four days earlier, the Sixth District Committee had transferred $10,000 to Blunt’s campaign. Sixteen days after the Patterson contribution arrived, the Sixth District Committee gave $10,000 to yet another party committee, the Thirty-Second Republican Legislative District Committee, which naturally gave $10,000 to Blunt’s campaign.
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Cerner’s lobbyist was a gentleman named Jewell Patek, a former state representative.
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His lobbying firm had listed Andy Blunt as “of counsel” on several lobbying bids.

Also in 2006 Governor Blunt signed legislation requiring that gasoline sold in Missouri contain 10 percent ethanol. He also wanted full funding for an ethanol incentives fund, which would include a tax credit from the Missouri Agricultural and Small Business Development Authority. Andy Blunt was a founding member of a company called Central Missouri Biofuels, which was hoping to build a large ethanol plant that would produce 50 million gallons of ethanol per year. Partners in the project included the wife of Missouri congressman Sam Graves and a state representative and his wife. It fell to Sarah Steelman, the state treasurer and a fellow Republican, to kill the deal out of concerns relating to conflicts of interest. Andy Blunt was meanwhile also representing AGP, an Omaha, Nebraska, firm that was opening another ethanol production plant in Missouri.
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In another instance, Governor Matt Blunt proposed a dramatic increase in the cost of accessing driver’s license records by the Department of Revenue to pay for a new computer contract. The State Department of Revenue, on May 1, 2007, announced that it was raising the fee to $7 per record.
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In October, the Revenue Department signed a contract worth up to $50 million with BearingPoint, Inc., to refurbish the state’s computer system for driver’s license records.
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BearingPoint’s lobbyist in Missouri was Jay Reichard.
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After the connection became public and questions were raised about the fee, the State Legislature balked and canceled the plan.

Among Andy Blunt’s clients was Maximus, Inc., a Virginia-based firm that provides services to governments in the administration of health care. It ran the Missouri Medicaid payment system. Andy Blunt also represented a medical services contractor named ACS Heritage, which billed 10 million Medicaid prescriptions to the state Medicaid program every year.
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When Governor Blunt set up a program for people to compare the prices of various prescriptions, the state chose ACS for the job.
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When Governor Matt Blunt announced in January 2008 that he would not seek reelection, Missourians were stunned. He explained that he had accomplished all that he set out to do, but many assumed that, with low poll numbers, he didn’t want to fight what might prove to be a losing battle. (Among those disappointed were not only his family members but also a libertarian, pot-smoking gubernatorial candidate from Salem, Missouri, who had changed his name to Chief Wana Dubie and had hoped to produce bumper stickers that read: Dubie versus Blunt.)
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Back in Washington, Roy Blunt suffered from his close association with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Abramoff had been sentenced to prison for bribing government officials and politicians with expensive meals, vacations, and cash. He had signed letters for some of the lobbyist’s clients and had received campaign contributions. He was also on the FOO (Friends Of Owner) comp list at the lobbyist’s restaurant, Signatures. Blunt could eat there for free, dining on $74 steaks and a $140 tasting menu, although his spokesperson said he never did.
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