In his first campaign for the Illinois legislature nearly a quarter-century ago, Dennis Hastert had a problem. He had plenty of campaign posters, but no wooden stakes to make yard signs.
His friend Dan Mattoon had the solution. Mattoon knew where former Rep. Tom Corcoran kept hundreds of wooden stakes and, as lore has it, he took them for Hastert without bothering to tell Corcoran.
Since that time, Mattoon, 52, now one of Washington’s most powerful lobbyists, and Hastert (R-Ill.), 63, speaker of the House of Representatives, have been joined like a poster nailed to a stake.
Mattoon plays a vital role in the political corporation that is Hastert Inc., a powerful and flourishing enterprise run by a select few that has in its charter everything from preserving a Republican majority in Congress to Social Security changes to funding a bridge in the Fox River Valley.
He has served as an unofficial emissary of the speaker to other members or business interests while at the same time balancing the needs of his clients, which include telecommunications and pharmaceutical companies with aggressive legislative ambitions.
His lobbying firm, PodestaMattoon, hired Hastert’s son, Joshua, who had run a DeKalb music store and recording label called Seven Dead Arson, to join the high-powered practice barely a year after Joshua moved to Washington to make a go at lobbying. Mattoon and his wife, Jane, also are listed as officers for two of Hastert’s political funds.
“They’re brothers–brothers-in-arms, good friends,” said Corcoran, who is a Washington lobbyist himself. “They work together. They have similar views. They help each other.”
Though common, relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists have invited new scrutiny following the disclosures of ties between House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, the Texas Republican who is second in command to Hastert, and a lobbyist under criminal and congressional investigation, Jack Abramoff. Abramoff is under investigation for, among other things, whether he improperly paid for trips taken by DeLay.
But the parallels between Hastert’s relationship with Mattoon and DeLay’s with Abramoff appear to be few. Hastert is not likely to face the same kinds of ethics questions as DeLay, his supporters say, because he has less flamboyant tastes and lifestyle and a less aggressive–though no less successful–approach to fundraising. And his friendship with Mattoon long predates his rise to power.
`Down the middle’
“He’s much more careful,” said Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). “There are styles of leadership that play it close to the edge and styles of leadership straight down the middle, and the speaker plays it straight down the middle.”
At the same time, the relationship between Hastert and Mattoon provides a window onto the tightly knit coterie of advisers, many of whom have been with him for more than a decade, who help run Hastert’s powerful political enterprise. Hastert’s major political funds, for instance, have taken in about $18 million since he took over as speaker in 1999.
Neither Hastert nor Mattoon nor any of Hastert’s top House staff would comment for this article on the record.
The structure of Hastert’s operation consists of a small circle of men who are fiercely loyal to the speaker. It includes divisions that cover policy, politics and fundraising, all of which have flourished along with Hastert’s unexpected rise to power in 1999 when he went from being DeLay’s deputy in the GOP House leadership to speaker.
“He didn’t run for speaker,” a Hastert aide said. “It just sort of happened.”
Hastert’s operation differs from DeLay’s in many important respects, not the least of which is their decidedly different temperaments and styles. DeLay has also developed a much broader network with outside lobbyists to help fund Republican objectives. And his methods, embodied in his nickname “The Hammer,” contrast with those of Hastert, “The Coach.”
Unlike the offices of many congressional leaders, Hastert’s staff is known for its longevity and loyalty more than its leveraging of government experience for private gain.
Hastert’s closest adviser is his longtime chief of staff, Scott Palmer, 54, whose style is at least as low-key as the speaker’s but who is also known for delivering results. Second to Palmer is the deputy chief of staff, Mike Stokke, 43. In addition to the men’s government salaries, Hastert’s political action committee pays them for outside political work, records show.
Hastert’s core advisers reflect the personality and style of a speaker largely content to work outside the public eye. Though Hastert now has been speaker nearly twice as long as Georgia’s Newt Gingrich, he commands nothing close to the same public recognition.
Likewise, Hastert’s inner circle is filled with understated, unassuming men who would rather listen than talk, stepping back toward the walls rather than jostling for a seat at the head of the table.
Palmer, a former employee of Aurora College who started with Hastert as a volunteer on a state legislative campaign, has been Hastert’s chief of staff since he arrived in Washington in 1987. At the center of the speaker’s operations, Palmer is described by some as Hastert’s “alter ego.”
“You cannot underestimate the relationship that the speaker has with Scott,” said Hastert campaign spokesman John McGovern. “Scott is Denny’s closest and most trusted adviser.”
Stokke, Hastert’s deputy chief of staff and chief political operative, has a history with the speaker that dates to 1981, when Hastert was a freshman state legislator and Stokke was a college intern in the legislative liaison office for the Illinois Department of Conservation.
Members of Congress and their aides describe Stokke as a shrewd political tactician with an encyclopedic knowledge of House races throughout the country.
In the district, Bryan Harbin handles business. Harbin, 44, has a relationship with the speaker that goes back to Yorkville High School, where Hastert was his wrestling coach.
When in Washington, Palmer, Stokke and Hastert share a townhouse near the Capitol. And, like Hastert, his top aides maintain residences in Illinois–Palmer in Aurora and Stokke in Bloomington.
A typical night in Washington for Hastert is likely to end with a dinner with Palmer and Stokke at AV Ristorante Italiano, a red sauce Italian restaurant in a transitional neighborhood of Washington.
That low-key lifestyle belies their public work.
“They’re driven people,” said former GOP Rep. Rick Lazio of New York, a lobbyist for JP Morgan. “But they’re not outwardly aggressive or offensive. They’re much more understated and in some ways more savvy. You can be much more effective if you’re not calling attention to yourself.”
Members of Congress, congressional aides and lobbyists said Mattoon is a trusted member of the Hastert inner circle as well, even though a Hastert political aide who spoke on condition of anonymity insisted that the relationship was largely “personal” and “social.”
Mattoon `top hired gun’
On the Web site of his lobbying firm, PodestaMattoon, Mattoon is described as “a trusted adviser to many of the Washington political elite, including Speaker Hastert, House Majority Leader DeLay” and others. It goes on to describe Mattoon as one whose “political shrewdness” has made him a “top Washington insider” and trumpets his mention in a Capitol Hill newspaper as a “top hired gun.”
In addition to providing Hastert help with the campaign for the state legislature that was the speaker’s first foray into politics, Mattoon was instrumental in engineering Hastert’s first Republican nomination for Congress, a Hastert aide said. Local Republican leaders chose Hastert after incumbent Rep. John Grotberg, a Republican, dropped out of the race at the last minute because of health problems.
Afterward, Mattoon helped Hastert set up his Washington office. Though a lobbyist for BellSouth Corp. for 15 years, Mattoon maintained his ties to the Illinois Republican. Shortly after Hastert became speaker, he turned to Mattoon to take over the congressional Republican campaign apparatus, which was then in disarray, in the crucial 2000 election cycle.
Partnership of clout
In 2001, Mattoon joined a lobbying firm with Tony Podesta, brother of Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta. On the strength of Mattoon’s addition to the firm and his close ties to the speaker, Fortune magazine immediately jumped the renamed PodestaMattoon to 9th from 14th in its ranking of Washington’s most powerful lobbying firms.
Mattoon is a regular and influential presence in the corridors of the Capitol. He once brokered a meeting between two committee staffs warring over a telecommunications bill. Republican leaders turned to him in 2002 to organize corporate lobbyists into a whip operation on behalf of a key trade bill. He is often used to deliver a message to Republican members of Congress, particularly when the speaker needs to sound out someone on a politically difficult vote, said congressional aides and lobbyists.
“He’s like the father confessor: You tell me where it hurts. We’ll try to figure out how we can help you,” said one lobbyist who has witnessed Mattoon at work but spoke on condition of anonymity. “He’s very good at it. He’s very non-threatening. He’ll say, `The leadership needs you on this.'”
“Mattoon is probably the only person who can talk with a member and have them tell him exactly how they feel–be completely candid–even better than they would be with the speaker. And he can relate it to Denny without any embellishment, any static, any noise,” said Douglas Richardson, a Washington lobbyist with Winston & Strawn LLP, a Chicago-based law firm.
Trusted conduit
“The member knows that their views will be in the perfect context when they’re related to Denny. There will be no misunderstanding,” Richardson added.
Larry Noble, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan research group that tracks money in politics, said Mattoon’s role magnifies “the problem of lobbyists having influence because of their financial and political connections.”
“We’re used to seeing lobbyists gain influence through political contributions, fundraising, having companies fly members around on corporate jets,” Noble added. “But when you then become involved directly in the various fundraising arms of the speaker, it just further complicates the matter and demonstrates that you have special access.”
It is not difficult for a speaker of the House, of any party, to raise money, and Hastert’s main campaign funds have taken in about $17.9 million since his elevation in 1999, slightly more than DeLay over the same period.
But because the speaker also is in a relatively safe seat, he gives much of the money that he raises to other Republican candidates or the national party campaign committees.
“The speaker’s already the speaker,” McGovern, Hastert’s campaign spokesman, said. “He’s not running for anything. He’s not running for president. His primary political goal is to protect and expand our Republican majority in the House.”
One person closely involved with Hastert’s operation also pointedly noted that the speaker has not been linked with any lobbyist funding his travel. Investigators are examining whether Abramoff improperly paid for travel for DeLay, including a golf trip to Scotland.
“Where is the trip to Scotland?” the source said. “Where are the supersecret bills, the trading of staff. . . . We don’t have top people leaving every two or three years going to K Street,” he said of the corridor that is home to many Washington lobbyists’ offices.
“He has no need for high-priced lawyers to give him exotic interpretations of the law,” Kirk said.
Hastert does have fun
Which is not to say that Hastert is averse to a good time that also rewards his donors. Another major branch of the Hastert constellation is his Keep Our Majority Political Action Committee, or KOMPAC. In recent years, KOMPAC has held events at the luxury Waterfall Resort in Ketchikan, Alaska, that also featured salmon fishing, and had fun in the sun in Hawaii and Key Largo, Fla. Donors who agreed to give KOMPAC the maximum $5,000 donation were invited to such events and had direct access to Hastert during the events.
Hastert’s office declined to release the names or number of people who attended those events. Records show KOMPAC put down a $10,000 deposit for the event in Alaska, although McGovern said the ultimate expenses for the event were lower. Those who attended paid their travel expenses, and a list maintained by the National Republican Congressional Committee said they also were to be charged a $2,500 “conference fee.”
KOMPAC is directed by McGovern for an annual salary of $144,000. Longtime Hastert friend Tom Jarman, the athletic director at Manchester College in Indiana, is on the payroll, as well, though Jarman serves mainly as a traveling companion to Hastert on campaign swings for other congressmen.
And traveling and raising money on behalf of Republican candidates is indeed one of the prime functions of Hastert Inc. Hastert can be a big draw for candidates around the country and can go to districts where the more controversial DeLay cannot.
Many of Hastert’s large donors, like the pharmaceutical industry lobby, are heavyweight givers in Washington, no matter who is in power.
A significant number also happen to be Mattoon clients. Campaign records show that Mattoon and interests he represents donated more than $250,000 to Hastert campaign funds during the 2004 election cycle.
All in the family
Jane Mattoon is the treasurer of KOMPAC, a position a Hastert aide said was “volunteer” in nature. Previously, she had been the PAC’s executive director. Dan Mattoon was the “custodian” of records for a now-dormant state political fund called the Lincoln Fund.
Though Hastert spends many weekends a year and many nights in Washington raising money for other Republicans and himself, “his real job is to run the House,” McGovern said. “He wants to move the ball. He likes to legislate.”
Obviously Hastert cannot get things done or be speaker unless Republicans retain their majority in the House. And that is a primary purpose of Hastert Inc.
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Hastert benefactors
Top donors in the 2004 election cycle to the Hastert for Congress Committee*:
– UAL Corp., $44,000
– Morgan Stanley, $34,750
– Madison Dearborn Partners, $33,225
– Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw, $28,000
– Chicago Mercantile Exchange, $26,050
– Time Warner, $20,000
– Servicemaster Co., $18,500
– DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Gary, $16,000
– JP Morgan Chase & Co., $15,000
– American Hospital Association, $14,998
*Money donated by individuals and PACs associated with these firms; does not include donations to Hastert’s Keep Our Majority Political Action Committee (KOMPAC)
(Sources: Opensecrets.org, Center for Responsive Politics; Federal Election Commission)
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Mattoon clients
Some top recent clients of Daniel J. Mattoon:
– Clear Channel Communications
– Lockheed Martin Corp.
– United Airlines
– News America Inc.
– BellSouth Corp.
– National Association of Securities Dealers
– Altria Group Inc.
– United States Telecom Association
– Motion Picture Association of America
– Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America
(Source: U.S. Senate Office of Public Records database)
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