PRIVATE EQUITY COUNCIL HAD 20 LOBBYING FIRMS

[In 2007 when Congress began to consider closing the ‘carried interest’ loophole] “the private-equity industry was ready. The biggest firms—Carlyle, Blackstone, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, and Texas Pacific Group—coördinated operations through a trade association called the Private Equity Council, founded the year before. Together, the council and the individual companies retained twenty lobbying firms for the task. Blackstone spent $4.9 million on lobbying in 2007, working mainly with a team from Ogilvy Government Relations, led by Wayne Berman, a veteran Republican lobbyist. Carlyle also used Ogilvy, along with McKenna, Long & Aldridge, a smaller firm that generally lobbied Democrats.

“The private-equity lobby could expect strong Republican opposition to tax increases and, among most members of the Democratic House, reflexive support for the loophole-closure bill. But there was an opening when it came to one sliver of the Democratic caucus: Finance Committee members reluctant to raise taxes on big donors in the financial centers they represented. Private-equity lobbyists focussed on Chuck Schumer, of New York, and Maria Cantwell, of Washington. Schumer had strong ties to the industry; the private-equity firm Apollo was one of his biggest donors, not far behind Bank of America.”

Alec MacGillis, “The Billionaires’ Loophole,” New Yorker, March 14, 2016, pp: 64-73.