WASHINGTON • It depends on the definition of lobbying.
When it was announced last year that Andy Blunt would manage the re-election campaign of his father, Republican Sen. Roy Blunt, Missouri Democrats accused the younger Blunt of a conflict of interest.
In December, that “I lobby in the state of Missouri, not the United States Congress, and there is a clear distinction.â€
But in April, the Post-Dispatch has learned, Andy Blunt helped lead a delegation of Missouri cable television executives in meetings with members of the Missouri congressional delegation or their staffs.
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Asked about the meetings this week, Andy Blunt said he did not consider the meetings to be lobbying. Rather, he said, they were part of an annual “meet-and-greet†trip to Washington. He said he accompanied about 15 Missouri cable executives in his new job as executive director of the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association.
But the issue of a Federal Communications Commission proposal to change how viewers get television programming came up. And the staff of at least one Missouri congressional office said it considered the meeting to be lobbying.
The revelations rekindle questions about where Andy Blunt’s lobbying for clients ends and his advocacy for his father’s re-election campaign begins.
Roy Blunt is being challenged by Democratic Secretary of State Jason Kander, who has pointed to lobbying by Andy Blunt and other members of the senator’s family — including his wife, Abigail, and another son, former Gov. Matt Blunt — as an example of what Kander says is an entrenched career politician.
Roy Blunt says Kander is trying to change the subject from that of Kander being out of step with many Missourians on issues most important to the state.
While he did sit in on meetings with other members of the Missouri delegation, Andy Blunt said he did not attend any meeting between the cable executives and his father, the senator. Andy Blunt said that was not an acknowledgment that lobbying may have gone on, but simply a recognition of the line that he and his father have always drawn between their work and personal lives.
Roy Blunt is the second-ranking Republican on the Senate Commerce subcommittee on communications, technology, innovation and the internet. The committee has jurisdiction over the FCC.
“Look, I am not going to take away my right, if I think something important is going on, as a citizen to write to my congressman,†Andy Blunt said. “I drew a bright line that I am not a lobbyist and I am not lobbying members of the United States Congress.
“That certainly doesn’t mean that once a year when the MCTA has a fly-in, I don’t go walk around with 20 people from the Missouri Cable Association, or however many there are for that particular meeting, and say, ‘Here is what is going on in our industry,’†he said. “That would be a massive group of people that all of a sudden would be federal lobbyists in the eyes of whoever was making that assertion. And that is not accurate, that is not what I do. Proud of what I do and I am pretty clear about what I do and don’t do.â€
He said the cable-box issue did come up in some meetings, but that is an issue before the FCC, not Congress. He also said that the MCTA was one of many state cable groups there for an annual meeting.
“The Kander campaign is trying to draw an inference that an annual pilgrimage for a meet-and-greet should be covered as ‘See, he is a federal lobbyist,’ and any coverage of that assertion would leave the reader with an impression way different than the clear reality,†Andy Blunt said. “I don’t think if I was going to start a career as a federal lobbyist that I would be going to Senator McCaskill’s office, and I can’t imagine anyone would ever pay me to do that.â€
‘He was lobbying us’
John LaBombard, a spokesman for Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said Andy Blunt was in a meeting of five MCTA representatives with McCaskill’s staff on April 13.
“I can confirm on the record that this meeting was requested by Andy, that it was a staff meeting that didn’t include Claire,†LaBombard said, when asked by the Post-Dispatch. “And from our staff’s perspective, he was lobbying us.â€
Andy Blunt also sat in on meetings with staffs of Reps. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-St. Elizabeth; and Ann Wagner, R-Ballwin, spokespeople said.
The Federal Communications Commission is studying a proposal that would require satellite and cable providers to give makers of alternatives to cable boxes the right to have access to programming. Cable and satellite companies say the initiative would unfairly cut revenue to programming providers, stifle innovation and threaten user privacy.
‘A respected strategist’
In December, Andy Blunt described himself as “a son who loves my father and helps his political campaign†as its manager.
At the beginning of 2016, Andy Blunt became executive director of the Missouri Cable Telecommunications Association, while still maintaining his prominent lobbying profile in Jefferson City. The group’s annual trip to Washington came about three months later.
The MCTA represents about two dozen large and small cable companies and affiliates that provide video, broadband and other telecommunications services to about 2 million Missouri customers.
When Andy Blunt was named executive director, Paul Berra, the MCTA board chairman who is director of government affairs for Charter Communications in ºüÀêÊÓƵ, described him as “one of the brightest young lawyer/lobbyists in Jefferson City,†and “a respected strategist and tactician of integrity in Missouri.â€
Charter is the second-largest cable provider in the nation after acquiring Time Warner earlier this year, a move that was approved by the FCC.
In the cable group’s meetings with the congressional delegation, the cable box proposal being considered by the FCC came up, Andy Blunt said. But he said the issue didn’t directly involve Congress.
“I know the MCTA guys offered their perspective that the FCC has not been helpful, but that is an FCC issue, not really a congressional one,†Andy Blunt said.
Roy Blunt spokesman Brian Hart said the senator had not taken a public position on the cable box issue.
Through March, Roy Blunt’s re-election campaign had received about $462,000 from communications and technology sector donors, out of about $10.3 million raised, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Federal disclosure requirements say that to be considered a federal lobbyist, a person must spend 20 percent of his or her time trying to influence members of Congress or federal agency officials. Under that definition, Andy Blunt and the other members of the MCTA would be far from having to register.
By contrast, Roy Blunt’s wife, Abigail Blunt, was named one of Washington’s top lobbyists last year by The Hill, a Washington news outlet. Abigail Blunt lobbies federal officials for Kraft Food Groups Inc.
Lobbying and congressional ethics experts contacted by the Post-Dispatch in December were split on whether a lobbyist — even at the state level, as Andy Blunt primarily is — would cross lines in running a campaign.
Veteran campaign ethics expert Stanley Brand said there are “scores†of federal lobbyists involved in campaigns, and he said then that the fact that Andy Blunt said he lobbied only on state issues “makes a big difference.â€
But Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for , a nonprofit watchdog group, said that the appearance of a conflict of interest is important. He said he had documented about 25 U.S. senators who had family members as lobbyists, and that Roy Blunt had the most.
One of Holman’s colleagues at Public Citizen said this week that Andy Blunt’s trip here demonstrates why the group is trying to get Congress to more clearly define what constitutes lobbying.
“This falls squarely into the gray area, where a layperson (or a staff person) would likely access these interactions as lobbying,†said Lisa Gilbert, director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch. “But since Andy is not a registered lobbyist at the federal level, and definitely isn’t spending more than 20 percent of his time lobbying Congress, he wouldn’t record it as such.
“It is just ‘a meeting,’ as he described,†Gilbert said. “From our perspective, this speaks to the need to more accurately capture meetings with members, senators and their staffs, and have contacts be what triggers lobbying reporting rather than whether one is officially registered.â€