After 20 years with the lobbying firm Cassidy & Associates in Washington, DC, Tufts has taken its business elsewhere. The University hopes that the switch to The Dutko Group will put "fresh faces" to work for Tufts, monitoring legislation in congress and lobbying for money on capitol hill.
Six months ago, Dutko assumed responsibility for reviewing legislation that affects Tufts in Washington, and vying for federal funding, usually for research projects.
Although the University has declined to give specific reasons for the switch, Ron Kaufman, Tufts' lobbyist and a senior managing partner at Dutko, confirmed that his firm is charging less than the $320,000 Tufts paid Cassidy for its services in 1999.
Provost Sol Gittleman said that the University was "looking for a more effective lobbyist for more effective representation in Washington" and that "it was time for a change."
"We change our auditors, too," he said. "You are always looking for the best possible service at the least cost."
Tufts was one of Cassidy's first clients in the 1970s. The firm is popular with many major universities and has also lobbied for Boston University, Boston College, Northwestern, Columbia, and other research schools over the years. Dutko's client roster is somewhat more eclectic, and includes AT&T, Sprint, and Harley Davidson.
Bill Shingleton, a lobbyist researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a watchdog group in Washington, DC, said Cassidy's popularity with universities might have led to Tufts' decision to switch firms.
"There are obvious conflicts inherent in that," he said - especially when many of the same firm's educational clients compete for limited government funding.
According to opensecrets.org, the CRP's website, Cassidy is the biggest lobbying firm in Washington. In 1999, the firm reported lobbying revenues of $20.84 million, while Dutko brought in only $6.5 million.
Dutko, which employs 22 lobbyists, ranked eighth in Fortune magazine's "Power 25" list of Washington lobbying firms with the most clout. Cassidy, which employs twice as many lobbyists, placed 14th. This year, the magazine based its results on 397 surveys received from members of Congress, senior Capitol Hill staffers, senior White House aides, and professional lobbyists. Respondents rated firms' political sway on a scale of zero to 100.
Lobbying for any cause does not enjoy a good reputation and watchdogs seem ambivalent about universities' activities on Capitol Hill.
"Universities want to get their fair share and there is something to that," Shingleton said. "But there is certainly a perception out there that hiring a lobbyist buys you undue influence."
Though lobbying may not be looked upon favorably, University administrators consider it essential for any school with a heavy emphasis on research. According to the most recent data collected by the CRP, 326 universities had representatives in Washington in 1999. Some public universities also relied on the influence of their congressmen.
"The representatives are universities' eyes and ears in Washington," Shingleton said.
During the three-year period from 1997 to 1999, when Cassidy still lobbied for Tufts, those eyes and ears cost $1.1 million. But the University considers the expenditure a worthwhile investment.
"The lobbying helps bring resources to the University," Gittleman said.
According to the National Science Foundation, the federal government financed $63.6 million of research and development at Tufts in 1999.
In addition to financing research at Tufts, the government owns the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging (HNRC) on Tufts' downtown Boston campus. The facility is manned with Tufts researchers and students.
"The research component is very important for our faculty," Gittleman said. "If we don't [lobby], we would find ourselves at a very distinct disadvantage."
He added that faculty involved in research make better teachers.
Some universities have invested more than Tufts in lobbying efforts and have received more funding as a result.
Boston University spent $760,000 with Cassidy in both 1998 and 1999, and according to The Boston Globe, it received $141 million in government money in 1999. The figure represents a marked increase over previous grant amounts, the newspaper said ("Lobbying makes smart returns," 5/6/01).
BU's lobbying expenditures placed it at the top of the CRP's list of ten highest-spending university lobbyists. Tufts did not make the list in 1999; in 1998, it tied with New York University and Yale for eighth place.
But the CRP's numbers do not show the whole picture - Harvard ranked third and ninth for lobbyist spending in 1998 and 1999, respectively, although those figures did not include money spent on in-house lobbyists.
Harvard, along with MIT, Columbia, and about 80 other research-intensive universities, rely so heavily on government funding that they not only employ lobbying firms, but also run their own offices in Washington, DC to represent their interests.
According to Gittleman, Tufts considered opening its own Washington office, but decided that in-house advocates would cost too much money.
