Thursday, July 06, 2006
Copeland Lowery Failed To Report All Income
The lobby shop Copeland Lowery is back in the news.
A Washington lobbying firm at the center of a federal corruption probe failed to disclose at least $755,000 in income from 17 nonprofit organizations and governmental entities, and $635,000 from 18 other clients between 1998 and 2005, according to the firm's recently amended filings with the clerk of the House.
Lawyers for the Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White firm say that the errors were inadvertent. But some experts have called them unusual and suggested that Copeland Lowery might have been trying to play down how much money it was paid by those who received federal grants the firm arranged, particularly the clients who paid its lobbying fees with tax-exempt or public funds.
Such payments to obtain "earmarks" -- a form of funding directed by language that lawmakers often insert in spending bills without hearings or competition -- have become increasingly common on Capitol Hill and increasingly controversial. Federal investigators have been probing whether there was a relationship between some of these earmarks and the campaign donations Copeland Lowery lobbyists made to House Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) and his committee colleagues.
The initial reporting errors had the effect of understating what Copeland Lowery received in lobbying fees from universities, health-care centers and municipal governments, among others. The reporting errors also understated what the lobbying firm received from private firms including ADCS Inc., owned by Brent R. Wilkes, a longtime Republican contributor also targeted in the federal probe...
Copeland Lowery was founded by a former colleague of Lewis, former representative Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), who withdrew in 1992 from a primary race against Cunningham after House records showed Lowery had written 300 overdraft checks on his House banking account. Last month, the firm's Democratic partners resigned, and Lowery and the remaining Republican partners renamed the firm Innovative Federal Strategies, a spokesman said.
Between 1997 and 2006, Lowery and his clients gave (former representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham's) political campaign committees $459,000 and Lewis's committees $917,000, according to a tally by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics.
