Hope and Fail

Lobbyist to take deputy spot at HHS

President-elect Obama has tapped an anti-tobacco lobbyist to take the No. 2 spot at the department of Health and Human Services. From Reuters:

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama intends to nominate the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids head William Corr as deputy secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, the transition office said on Tuesday.

… Before joining the privately funded Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids organization in 2000, Corr was Daschle’s chief counsel and policy director when the former South Dakota senator was Senate minority leader.

Corr also worked for the Obama transition team:

As a leader of the Obama HHS transition team, Bill Corr, who lobbied as executive director of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, appeared to break an Obama transition rule that prevents lobbyists from serving in policy areas they have worked to influence within the past year.

Questioned about the apparent discrepancy in November, the transition team explained that Corr’s work as a lobbyist didn’t violate the restrictions, an example of how the tough-sounding rules can provide the president-elect with plenty of wiggle room.

And on Tuesday, a transition spokeswoman said that as deputy secretary, Corr would recuse himself from tobacco-related issues in compliance with the president-elect’s ethics guidelines.

Corr represents the very “revolving door” that Obama promised to slam shut as a candidate. His campaign Web site reads:

Close the Revolving Door on Former and Future Employers: No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration.

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