The 2015 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Investigative Reporting

Eric Lipton of The New York Times

http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-lipton

For reporting that showed how the influence of lobbyists can sway congressional
leaders and state attorneys general, slanting justice toward the wealthy and connected.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi helped Eric Lipton

of The New York Times win a Pulitzer Prize

Regulatory capture is a form of government failure that occurs when a regulatory agency,
created to act in the public interest, instead advances the commercial or political concerns of
special interest groups that dominate the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.[1] When
regulatory capture occurs the interests of firms or political groups are prioritised over the
interests of the public, leading to a net loss to society as a whole. Government agencies suffering
regulatory capture are called "captured agencies". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
Edited by Neil J. Gillespie

TABLE OF CONTENTS
The 2015 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Investigative Reporting
Eric Lipton of The New York Times
http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/eric-lipton
Cover letter for entry
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/liptonletter2015.pdf

October 29, 2014

Lobbyists, bearing gifts, pursue attorneys general: With few disclosure

rules, state officials are pressed on inquiries and policy
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/01lipton2015.pdf

December 7, 2014

Energy and regulators on one team: Lobbyists help unite attorneys general
to fight rules
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/02lipton2015.pdf

December 19, 2014

Lawyers create big paydays by coaxing attorneys general to sue

http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/03lipton2015.pdf

January 20, 2014

(Legal) sprees with lobbyists

http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/04lipton2015.pdf

September 7, 2014

Foreign powers buy influence at think tanks: Financing of research often

is not disclosed
http://www.pulitzer.org/files/2015/investigative-reporting/lipton/05lipton2015.pdf

______________________________________________________
Attorney General Associations; Stateside Associates
National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG)
http://www.naag.org/

Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA)

http://www.republicanags.com/

Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA)

http://www.democraticags.org/

Stateside Associates is the largest state and local government affairs firm.
http://www.stateside.com/

Stateside Associates, Services, Regulatory Forecasting

http://www.stateside.com/services/regulatory-forecasting/
Cover: Pam Bondi photo credit Alex Wong/Getty Images

Courting Favor
BY Eric Lipton
Nomination for The 2015 pulitzer prize
category 3: INvestigative reporting

f you thought corporate lobbying couldnt get any worse, think again. All-out lobbying has spread from
legislative chambers into the state attorney generals office all across the land. Too many of those who
call themselves the peoples lawyers turn out to be another tribe of elected politicians to be catered to.

Eric Lipton, a reporter for The New York Times, captured the lobbyists at work and play in a nine-month
investigation that accomplished what no journalist had ever succeeded in doing: to show in irrefutable detail
how corporations sway and co-opt the very state officials elected to protect consumers and individual citizens.
Through Liptons eyewitness reports, we saw Republican state attorneys general sitting around the
pool at the posh Hotel del Coronado in California schmoozing with corporate lobbyists, who had paid
$125,000 to join in. They ate and drank together on the beach. They sailed, they played cards. And all of it
was behind resort gates that required special key card access.
The coziness is apparently bipartisan. At a 2013 Democratic fund-raiser in Santa Monica beside the
Pacific, a Dickstein Shapiro lawyer informed the Missouri attorney general of his staffs investigation
into deceptive advertising by 5-Hour Energy, represented by Dickstein. The attorney general reached for
his phone and stopped the inquiry in its tracks.
Lipton found:
l Lobbyists

and lawyers are using campaign contributions, personal appeals at corporatesponsored conferences and other forms of favor to persuade attorneys general to
drop investigations, change policies, negotiate sweetheart settlements or pressure
federal regulators.

l In

at least a dozen states, attorneys general are working, often in secret, with energy
companies and other corporate interests that they are charged with regulating.
Those companies and their executives have, in turn, provided them with millions in
campaign donations. One stunning instance of stealthy collaboration: the imploring
letters that Oklahomas attorney general dispatched to the head of the Environmental
Protection Agency, the Interior secretary and President Obama himself were actually
written by lawyers for one of Oklahomas biggest oil and gas companies.

l Biased

drafting services are common. A coal company lobbyist handed West Virginias
attorney general proposed legislation, written by company representatives, to block new
Clean Air rules. The measure passed.

Former attorneys general frequently become lobbyists, and several have become
brokers in a new business. They introduce state attorneys general to plaintiffs
law firms that are eager to join the state in pursuing cases, hoping to share in
big-dollar settlements. In exchange, the plaintiffs lawyers pump millions of dollars
into the campaigns of those attorneys general.

Because of Liptons series, Courting Favor, investigations were begun in Missouri, Rhode Island,
Florida and Washington State. The attorney general of Missouri vowed he would no longer accept
gifts from lobbyists or contributions from companies with cases before his office. In Washington, legislation
was introduced to bar former attorneys general from lobbying state officials, and the New York
attorney general urged the Democratic Attorneys General Association to bar contributions from
companies under investigation.
In addition, during a closed-door meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General in December,
officials voted to stop accepting corporate sponsorships. A White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush
has asked the American Bar Association to prohibit attorneys general from discussing continuing
investigations or other official matters while participating in fund-raising events at resort destinations.
(The impact of this work is detailed in the Supplementary portion of this entry.)
The series on attorneys general was only part of Liptons searching body of work on new and alarming
lobbying tactics. In other articles, he disclosed:
l Laws

that bar corporate lobbyists from giving legislators gifts are being circumvented:
Political organizations now pay to feed and lodge the lawmakers at posh resorts
where they meet lobbyists and then are indirectly reimbursed by the companies.

l Foreign

governments are trying to influence United States policy by pouring tens of

millions of dollars into nonprofit think tanks (like the Brookings Institution), seeking to
skew policy reports in their favor.

This project was nose-to-the-grindstone reporting. Through open-records laws, Lipton obtained 8,000
pages of emails between corporate representatives and attorneys general. He reviewed documents by
the thousands and conducted interviews by the hundreds to complete the picture. When attorneys general
refused to disclose emails, Lipton filed appeals and prevailed.
Lipton made an airtight case by relying on the players own words to show how the lobbying worked
and how effectively. These records are rarely public, and lobbyists in many states are not required to
register, so no journalist has ever examined this practice in such detail before.
Beyond combing records, Lipton traveled to conferences, where he got to know attorneys general
(present and past) and lobbyists and persuaded them to fill in stories, transforming chains of emails into
a compelling narrative.
To complete the picture, Lipton used disclosure records to show how the Republican Attorneys
General Association had quadrupled its contributions in just four years a period that coincided with the
officials unprecedented alliance with industry.
Liptons reports were rendered rock-solid by an extensive online presentation hundreds of pages
of original documents, in the best show me, dont tell me tradition of journalism. They included emails,
letters, photographs and copies of invitations to attorneys general for resort-destination conferences.
The Times annotated these materials, put them in chronological order, and showed how secret lobbying
campaigns unfolded in real time. The documents became a source for reporters around the country,
who wrote dozens of articles of their own.
What is clear, as some current and former state attorneys general now concede, is that Eric Liptons
revelations have changed the world in which they operate. Attorneys general are already debating
whether they need a new code of ethics intended to avoid even the perception of a conflict including
banning contributions from companies targeted in investigations.
Thanks to Eric Lipton, the days when no outsider was aware or watching are over. We proudly
nominate this work for the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting.