The National Football League (NFL) has hired a former Senate Judiciary Committee antitrust lawyer as a lobbyist based in Washington.
The NFL hired Jeff Miller, a former aide to Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisc.), to represent its interests in Congress, the AP reported. Miller is the NFL's first in-house lobbyist, whereas before, it had hired outside representation.
"The emphasis is to have a full-time person spending every waking moment thinking about how what Congress or the administration is doing is going to affect the NFL's business model," Miller said. "I had had opportunities in the past to leave the Hill and do other things, such as work at a law firm and lobby firm. But when the NFL calls, you can't turn that down."
Miller's work coincides with the launch of the NFL's new "Gridiron PAC," which has its first quarter fundraising numbers due soon.
"I agreed with those who told me that during these changing times in Washington, the league should have full-time representation there like so many other business and entertainment organizations that have issues on the Hill," NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell told the AP.
Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) confirmed he will oppose the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA, a.k.a. "card check") during a speech Tuesday afternoon on the Senate floor.
"My vote on this bill was very difficult for many reasons," Specter said, calling the right to a secret ballot "the cornerstone for how contests are decided in a Democratic society."
Acknowledging the decisive nature of his vote for the bill's prospects, Specter said he would reconsider his vote when the economy improves.
"Knowing that I will not support cloture on this bill, Senators may choose to move on" to change the controversial provisions in the bill, Specter said.
Specter also said he had not taken his political future into consideration when determining his vote.
"I have not traded my vote in the past and I will not do so now," he said.
The bill passed by the House last week to heavily tax bonuses at AIG is unlikely to make its way into law, the body's third-ranking member acknowledged Monday.
When asked if the bill passed by the House is likely to make its way to the president's desk in its current form, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said: "No, I don't think so."
Clyburn defended what he described as an "emotional" response to constituents' anger over the AIG bonuses during last week's vote.
"We voted to tax this, knowing full well that it could end up in court, and could be considered unconstitutional," Clyburn explained on CNBC this morning. "We are a political body...and sometimes we respond to their emotions, and that's how it should be."
"I think that the president, you may recall, he had sensitivity to what we were doing," the majority whip said of President Obama's role in the AIG outrage. "Even at that time, he seemed to express some pause as to where it would go from there."
Clyburn also indicated that the House may take another look at how to handle the bonuses with a "cooler" perspective this week.
"Emotions get very hot sometimes in our legislative process, and we do need time to have a cooling off period," Clyburn said. "I think we will have a much cooler look this week."
Companies engaging in the Treasury Department's "Public Private Partnership Investment Program" (PPPIP) will not face restrictions on operations and compensation like those receiving assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a White House official said Monday.
Austan Goolsbee, chief economist for the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, said that there will not be restrictions like those imposed on bailed-out banks, and left the door open that President Obama would fight a Democratic Congress if it tries to impose such conditions.
"You should not expect the kinds of restrictions we have on companies that floundered and are only in existence because the government bailed them out," Goolsbee said during an appearance on CNBC Monday morning. "I will promise you that the president always pushes back if he believes the Congress is doing something unproductive."
Goolsbee said that the administration's goal was to open the program as broadly as possible in order to draw applications from many financial institutions to partner with the government in buying up firms' toxic assets.
"I would say the most important part of this plan is to remember that it's one key brick in what's been a multiple-brick process trying to put the house back together," Goolsbee said. "We're doing this thing jointly, so the government isn't going to massively overpay, and we've both got skin in the game."
The administration is considering proposing tying pay to performance, and requiring bonuses to be more related to company goals, and may be sought through legislation or regulatory methods.
The plan is said to include more stringent capitalization requirements for financial institutions, but would be imposed at a later date once the economy has recovered.
The Times reported that the administration is also currently internally debating over how to more greatly regulate hedge funds.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Friday afternoon that he doesn't see how embattled Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner can survive in that position.
"I don't see how he can survive, just given the fact that he has to either make the case that he's incompetent, and didn't know about it, or that he's dishonest and knew about it and didn't tell anybody," Gingrich said during a call into a Fox News program yesterday.
"Let's start with the fact that Geithner called the first meeting on Bear Stearns, he called the first
meeting on AIG, as the head of the New York Federal Reserve," Gingrich added.
The former Speaker also took former colleagues to task for having taxed the bonuses of executives at AIG, which came under fire for that practice this week.
"There's something truly despicable about what the Congress is doing right now, and it's all demagoguery," he told Fox's Neil Cavuto.
President Obama told CBS news in an interview to air Sunday that he would not accept Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's resignation, even if it were offered.
Obama told "60 Minutes" that neither he nor Geithner has talked of resignation, according to a preview provided to reporters by CBS.
Obama jokingly said that if Geithner offered his resignation, the president would respond:
A business advocacy group is calling on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to be replaced, and for Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) to step aside as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Americans for Job Security (AJS), a nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization which often backs conservative causes, announced a contest on its website for visitors to pick their favorite ad calling for the two's ouster.
The ads accuse Geithner and Dodd of having worked together to craft a loophole in the stimulus bill that allowed for executive bonuses to be paid out, like the controversial ones for AIG officials uncovered this week.
Former New York City Mayor and onetime Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani predicted Friday that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner will resign in time.
"I think he will [resign]," Giuliani said on Sean Hannity's TV show last night. "I think it's a matter of time, and how they finesse it, and how they explain it, and how they move on."
"There's a sense that either nobody's in charge, or if they are in charge, they don't know what the right hand's doing, what the left hand's doing," Giuliani added. "At a time like this, you can't have a Secretary of the Treasury that is someone people don't have confidence in."
Giuliani blasted Geithner and Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) for a loophole in the stimulus package allowing for the payment of controversial bonuses to AIG executives, which roiled Washington this week.
"This is not just a question of negligence -- this was presented to them, they did agree to it," Giuliani alleged. "And now, all of a sudden, when the thing becomes a big disaster, they're all trying to run for cover."
Executives at financial institutions receiving federal government assistance should not be making more in salary than government employees, Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) said Friday.
"Why should you get paid more than Geithner if you're working for Geithner?" Sherman asked during an appearance Friday morning on CNBC. "This is about ridiculously high compensation levels for people who think they're very important, who work at companies who are bailed out."
"I'm against bailing out Wall Street. Period," Sherman added. "If they want capitalism, let them have capitalism."
Sherman said there was a double standard between the government investing in companies like General Motors, where employees had to take make concessions to receive support, versus companies like AIG, where bonuses are routinely awarded.
"For you to assume that Wall Street is acting in the national interest flies in the face of recent reality," Sherman said.
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