More
- Classifieds
- Cars
- Deals
- Real Estate
- Rentals
- Photos
- Blogs

Heather Podesta, The Insider's Insider

By Manuel Roig-Franzia,August 24, 2009

With front-burner legislation making this a busy summer for lobbyists,… (Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington…)

CORRECTION: The article incorrectly referred to HealthSouth as an "insurance giant." HealthSouth is not an insurance company; it is a health-care provider.

NEW YORK

The chairman beams.

So many people just dying to see him, the business guys, the pols, the lobbyists -- lots and lots of lobbyists. They circle Charlie Rangel -- birthday boy, Democrat and, of course, House Ways and Means chairman -- circles like rings on a tree planted in the party room here at Tavern on the Green. Simple math: the more powerful the pol, the more rings on the tree. This is a very thick tree.

Not a problem, though, for Heather Podesta.

"It's like doing the tango!" she says, all smiles yet all business.

The lobbyist tango: She glides right in her red D&G heels and her periwinkle stockings, cutting through the outer rings with a smile here, a kiss-kiss there, a "Great to see you!" or two. Some guy yells out: "The most beautiful woman in the world!" She doesn't blush, and she doesn't linger. She wriggles left, gets blocked, reverses direction, gets blocked again, reverses direction again. She's in.

"Great party!" Podesta tells the chairman.

"Isn't it wonderful?" Rangel gushes back.

The chairman pecks the lobbyist's cheek, and they're done. Thirty seconds of face time. Mission accomplished.

"Doesn't get any better than that," Podesta says, amused by the surreal nature of the ritual she has mastered. "A kiss from the chairman."

And so it goes, in Heather's World. On this particular muggy night in Central Park, she's electrically caffeinated after taking the red-eye from Las Vegas the night before (Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's energy summit) and she'll be turning around and flying west again in a couple of days (Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi's donor shindig in Napa wine country). It may be summer recess, but this is not a time to rest. This is a time to go full-bore. This is a time like nothing we've seen for a long, long time.

We've had the Summer of Love. We've had the Summer of the Shark.

Now, get ready for the Summer of the Lobbyist.

In a glum economy, the lobbying business feels kind of bubbly. Every new Obama proposal comes with acres of fine print for corporate powers, interests groups and lobbyists to haggle over, profitably. Three gargantuan legislative challenges -- health care, the environment, the economy -- crisscrossing at once on Capitol Hill. Major health-care interests alone are spending $1.4 million this year lobbying Congress . . . per day, according to Common Cause, a government watchdog group. A lobbyist's delight created, ironically, by the let's-solve-all-our-problems-RIGHT-NOW approach of a president who pooh-poohed the excesses of lobbyists.

"This is a very good time to be a Democratic lobbyist . . . it's incredibly exciting to be able to engage with Democrats and really see things happen," Podesta says one afternoon at her office in one of those cool, restored red-brick buildings on E Street. "It's always a good time to be Heather Podesta."

There are more than 12,500 registered lobbyists -- about 23 for every member of Congress, according to the Center for Responsive Politics -- and some are getting richer while others stagnate or even dip a bit because of all of this pesky recession talk. But those who operate at the confluence of this summer's big three legislative streams are happiest of all.

Podesta is right there in the eddy, an It Girl in a new generation of young, highly connected, built-for-the-Obama-era lobbyists. She gets an undeniable boost from a famous name -- she is the sister-in-law of John Podesta, the insider's insider who was Bill Clinton's White House chief of staff and Obama's transition director, and the wife of über-lobbyist Tony Podesta. Heather and Tony run his-and-hers lobbying shops. His grew a staggering 57 percent in the first six months of this year compared with the same period the year before, taking in $11.8 million, fourth-highest among major lobbying firms. (Full disclosure: Tony Podesta has long represented The Washington Post, which paid him $10,000 in 2009 and $80,000 the year before, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.) Her six-person shop grew even faster, rocketing 65 percent to $3.4 million.

Few Washington lobbyists do "The Ask" with more whimsy than Heather Podesta, a leggy 39-year-old with striking streaks of silver in her black hair, a flirty style and a lawyer's eye for detail. In a sea of Washington gray, Podesta has a penchant for flamboyantly patterned dresses -- a Brazilian number featuring the image of a cassette tape one recent afternoon. She once read one of those networking manuals and she took its advice to heart: Wear interesting clothing or jewelry to spark conversations; no matter where you are, pretend you're the hostess.