NY Times, In House, Many Spoke With One Voice: Lobbyists’

[Guest guest]

_http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1 & emc=eta1_

(http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/us/politics/15health.html?_r=1 & emc=eta1)

WASHINGTON — In the official record of the historic House debate on

overhauling health care, the speeches of many lawmakers echo with similarities.

Often, that was no accident.

(http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/)

E-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that the lobbyists

drafted one statement for Democrats and another for Republicans.

The lobbyists, employed by Genentech and by two Washington law firms, were

remarkably successful in getting the statements printed in the

Congressional Record under the names of different members of Congress.

Genentech, a subsidiary of the Swiss drug giant Roche, estimates that 42

House members picked up some of its talking points — 22 Republicans and 20

Democrats, an unusual bipartisan coup for lobbyists.

In an interview, Representative _Bill Pascrell Jr._

(http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/william_j_jr_pascr\

ell/index.html?inlin

e=nyt-per) , Democrat of New Jersey, said: “I regret that the language was

the same. I did not know it was.†He said he got his statement from his

staff and “did not know where they got the information from.â€