Detroit News May 17th, 2000

http://www.detroitnews.com/2000/politics/0005/17/c01-57879.htm
By Gebe Martinez / News Washington Bureau

GOP tapped tech execs to aid Abraham
Senate Republicans sought industry cash to offset negative ads

WASHINGTON -- Sometime before Memorial Day, the U.S. Senate is expected to
vote on a bill Michigan Sen. Spencer Abraham has shepherded for the
high-tech industry to raise the number of immigration visas for highly
skilled foreign workers.

Aside from the issue's merits, the looming action offers a clear example of
how politicians, congressional staffers and lobbyists come together at a
time of mutual need. In this case, GOP leaders sought help for Abraham, the
Auburn Hills Republican widely viewed as one of the Senate's most vulnerable
incumbents in November's election, while some of high-tech's heaviest
hitters anxiously hoped to sustain a measure crucial to their recruiting
drives.

The result: Industry and immigration lobbyists favoring the measure rallied
to aid Abraham by countering a massive media ad blitz unleashed throughout
Michigan by an ardent critic of the bill, the Federation for American
Immigration Reform.

The frenzy to respond to ads by the controversial immigration control group
was partly whipped up by Abraham's staff on Capitol Hill during a time when
the bill for the so-called H1-B visas was being readied for floor debate.
Extra pressure was applied by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.,
who stepped in and directed the lobbyists to donate money to a
Republican-friendly nonprofit group called Americans For Job Security, which
is running attack ads against Abraham's senate opponent, Rep. Debbie
Stabenow, D-Lansing.

While there have been grumblings about Senate staffers potentially violating
Senate ethics and Federal Election Commission rules, defenders of Abraham
said those lines were never crossed.

Nor did any official actually threaten to stall the bill unless Abraham was
helped.

"The leadership is not stupid," said John Pelafoutas of the American
Electronics Assn. "I have been around 20 years. I have never heard them talk
about campaign contributions and tie it to a bill moving."
Still, "that's a message that's not lost on any lobbyist ... at a time where
there's active discussion over legislative matters of importance to
favor-seekers," said Gary Ruskin of the Congressional Accountability
Project.

Indeed, an Intel lobbyist e-mailed several industry members organized to win
passage of the H1-B bill with her view that "we need to do something for
Abraham if we want to see something moved in the Senate. It must be visible
and soon." The message went out just before the coalition paid for a radio
ad that aired in Metro Detroit.

Other high-tech lobbyists said they did not need much prompting to help
Abraham, who has championed the immigration issue as chairman of the Senate
immigration subcommittee and also has worked on issues such as relaxing
controls on encryption and digital signatures.

"Something needs to be done, whether they ask us to or not," said Mary Dee
Beall, a lobbyist for Hewlett-Packard.

For years, Abraham has been fiercely criticized by FAIR for his efforts to
expand the high-tech worker visas. In one highly charged newspaper ad a
couple of years ago that furthered FAIR's reputation as ethnically biased, a
photograph of Abraham, the grandson of Lebanese immigrants, was placed next
to international terrorist Osama bin Laden.

"It's a slur of his own ethnic background. It doesn't tie him to Chinese
engineers, but to terrorists. That's why we think it's so demogogic," said
Michael C. Maibach, senior vice-president for Intel.

FAIR has spent about $500,000 in Michigan against Abraham recently to
generate opposition to the bill, mainly arguing it would take jobs away from
American workers.

Talk of the new ad campaign spread quickly among the lobbyists and the
industry coalition known as ABLI, American Business for Legal Immigration.
The companies argue that 1.2 million new high-tech jobs were created in the
last six years, and there are not enough qualified Americans to fill crucial
openings.

Among those distributing copies of the FAIR ads to the lobbyists were
Abraham aides.

"We have been in contact with lobbyists, letting them know about the issue
and what the press is reporting in Michigan," said Abraham spokesman Joe
Davis. He added that Abraham's Chief of Staff, Cesar Conda, kept lobbyists
informed.

"He didn't ask them to do anything," Davis noted. "He just said, FYI: Maybe
you guys need to ramp up your support of the legislation.'"

During the week of March 19, the ABLI coalition steering committee, which
includes Microsoft, Intel, Hewlett-Packard and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
raised money for a weeklong radio spot on two Detroit stations that cost
about $20,000. The commercial focused on the Abraham's efforts to win
passage of the bill and urged listeners to reject the message of "extremist
anti-immigrations groups."

The following week, the FAIR ads were discussed during a conference of the
American Immigration Lawyers Association, and members were given the names
of two Abraham Senate staffers for additional information on how to counter
FAIR.

Apparently frustrated that the responses had not been strong enough, Lott
summoned the high-tech lobbyists to a 40-minute meeting away from Capitol
Hill -- to avoid the appearance of a conflict between political and official
Senate business -- and said FAIR needed to be fought "fire with fire,"
participants said.

"We have a shared interest. I believe strongly in this bill and the issue of
getting high- tech workers into this country," Lott spokesman John
Czwartacki recalled the majority leader telling the group.

Lott told them to contribute to Americans For Job Security, an obscure
conservative group that was founded with $1 million from the American
Insurance Association.

The nonprofit group was not involved in the immigration debate until March,
when it began running a planned $2 million ad campaign that scolds Stabenow
for not being critical of FAIR. A recent ad in Detroit's African-American
media alleged FAIR, a "racist group," was doing "Stabenow's bidding" in the
campaign against Abraham.

"The senator did in fact pick this group because the response they were
making and contemplating was a hard-hitting and effective response,"
Czwartacki explained.

Some, like Microsoft, did donate undisclosed sums to Americans For Job
Security. But the response was tepid overall.

Privately, some lobbyists said there was concern the Americans For Job
Security ads were close to crossing the line from acceptable "issue
advocacy" ads to political attacks against Stabenow.

In crafting its own radio spot, ABLI was "very careful about making sure our
ads are within the bounds of the law," said Sandi Boyd, of the National
Assn. of Manufacturers and chairwoman of ABLI.

"If we decide to do more for Senator Abraham, we will do it on our own," she
added. "Whatever we do would be only issue advertising and it would be
behind on of the specific issues."