Heinrich rebuts White’s ‘slick lobbyist’ charge

ALBUQUERQUE — The Martin Heinrich campaign for Congress hit back today on charges made by his opponent that Heinrich’s years of work in environmental advocacy amount to him being a "slick lobbyist."

The epithet is tucked into an otherwise boilerplate Sept. 3 press release from the campaign of Darren White, the Bernalillo County Sheriff and Republican candidate, aimed squarely at Heinrich, his Democratic opponent for the open congressional seat.

“Only a slick lobbyist like Martin Heinrich would be cynical enough to use Sandia Labs as a political prop for an event with an ultra-partisan politician who voted to cut $400 million from our national labs…” the release quoted Stephen E. Schatz, the White campaign’s communications director, as saying.

The release was primarily aimed at criticizing Heinrich’s joint campaign appearance earlier that same day with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., at Albuquerque’s Sandia National Laboratories where both discussed energy issues. But calling Heinrich, a former Albuquerque city councilor, a lobbyist was a new line of attack for the White campaign.

In a statement e-mailed to the New Mexico Independent, White’s campaign manager, Sara Lister, stands behind the description. “It is well-known that Martin Heinrich’s consulting firm was hired by different groups to lobby various government entities, mostly on wildlife issues,” she wrote. “Is Heinrich now trying to say he has never lobbied a government entity?”

Lister emphasizes that Heinrich was paid by environment groups to push wilderness and other legislation before Congress. “By definition, all of that is lobbying,” she added.

“It’s inaccurate,” Angela Barranco, the Heinrich campaign spokeswoman, said when asked of the campaign’s reaction to the new charge. “Martin has never been registered as a federal or state lobbyist and he’s proud of the advocacy work he’s done.”

But Barranco does concede the point that Heinrich was paid for work that did include attempting to influence government officials.

“Exactly, he went to opinion leaders and decision makers to advocate on behalf of New Mexico wilderness,” she said.

Still, Barranco dismisses the “slick lobbyist” line of attack as the work of a “desperate” campaign.

“This is just another one of Darren White’s exaggerations because he’s down in the polls,” she added. “It’s a stretch.”

That’s pretty much how Steven Robert Allen, the executive director of Common Cause New Mexico, sees the is-or-isn’t-Heinrich-a-lobbyist flap.

“I think it’s quite a stretch,” Allen told NMI. “I think the word ‘lobbyist’ has been demonized because we don’t have the regulations in place right now, in terms of lobbyists forking out large campaign contributions to legislators and creating these kinds of conflicts of interests that ordinary citizens find unsavory,” Allen added. “And I think [White’s] lashing out on that for publicity reasons.”

Allen added, “I don’t think lobbying is something that should be seen as inherently suspect. It’s very important in a free society that citizens be able to interact with elected officials and express their views on proposed legislation,” he said. “And dragging that whole idea through the mud is a stretch.”

In a follow up e-mail, Lister argues that Heinrich should have registered as a lobbyist — and manages to work on one more attack.

“We believe Heinrich’s failure to register as a lobbyist is similar to his failure to register his business with the City of Albuquerque. His failure to register as a lobbyist doesn’t mean he wasn’t a lobbyist anymore than his failure to register his business does not mean he didn’t have a business,” she wrote. “He should have to explain why he did not register.”

The Heinrich campaign does not dispute that the candidate was paid by the Coalition for New Mexico Wilderness, Zia Pueblo and Sierra Club to advocate for the federal designation of the Ojito Wilderness, for example, but does maintain that he was not legally required to register as a lobbyist.

Lister does acknowledge that Darren White has also testified before the legislative bodies “in his official capacity” as sheriff and before that as secretary of the state Department of Public Safety. He presumably lobbied lawmakers for funding and other legislative measures.

But beyond the debate over who’s been engaged in lobbying, and the sinister implications the line of work may or may not carry, Lister’s larger point may be that the Heinrich campaign started the flap with its own stretch.

“Heinrich has made Darren’s VOLUNTEER role with the Bush campaign a central theme of his campaign,” Lister points out, referring to White’s 2004 role as the Bernalillo County chair of President Bush’s reelection campaign. “How can Heinrich now take the position that his PAID roles with various organizations and candidates should not be disclosed to the public?”

While the Heinrich campaign doesn’t appear to be taking the position that his paid advocacy and consulting work shouldn’t be disclosed — although it has yet to provide NMI with a complete list of all of the candidate’s past clients — it certainly is seeking maximum mileage out of White’s ties to an unpopular president. The campaign’s official blog refers to White as "a George Bush crony."

But if anyone was expecting the Heinrich campaign to accept Lister’s point about the greater significance of paid advocacy work versus volunteer advocacy work, they’d be sorely disappointed.

“I think it’s hard to compare advocating on behalf of New Mexico’s heritage lands to advocating on behalf of George W. Bush and the failed policies of the last eight years,” Barranco said.

In response, Common Cause’s Allen offers both a prediction and a plea to both campaigns.

“I think we’re going to be seeing a lot of this, sadly, from both sides,” he said. “The public would be better served with a focus on the issues.”