Since 1996, one-fifth of U.S. Sen. Max Baucus' highest-paid staff members have left their jobs to become lobbyists, usually for industries regulated by the powerful committee that Baucus heads, a Lee Newspaper analysis shows.

Take Jeff Forbes, for example. In 2003, Forbes was Baucus' lead staffer on the Senate Finance Committee working extensively on the Medicare prescription drug bill. Baucus, then the top-ranking Democrat on the panel, was one of the bill's central architects.

In late November, just five days before the Senate took the final, key vote on the bill, Forbes quit. Six weeks later, he was registered to lobby for two drug companies and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the lobby representing the nation's biggest prescription drug companies.

Those same companies got a multi-million dollar windfall in the Medicare drug program, critics of the program contend, because the law forbids the government from negotiating with drug companies for cheaper prices.

Forbes earned $144,000 the last year he worked for Baucus. The next year, his PhRMA contract alone brought $180,000 to the lobbying firm he founded after quitting Baucus' staff.

All told, Forbes has reported almost $5.4 million in lobbying income since leaving Baucus, representing drug companies, nursing homes, banks and other industries that often appear before the influential Senate Finance Committee, which Baucus now chairs.

Forbes did not respond to several phone calls seeking comment.

Baucus rebuffs the idea that his former staff members have special access to him after they quit. However, the issue seems certain to be part of his ongoing re-election campaign; Montana Republicans charge too many of Baucus' former staff members are now lobbying him.

Lobbying abuses and promises of reform played a pivotal role in Montana's 2006 Senate election. Colored by a far-reaching lobbying scandal, Republican Sen. Conrad Burns narrowly lost to Democrat Jon Tester after months of withering attacks from Democrats for Burns' connection to convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Abramoff was the center of a U.S. Justice Department corruption investigation looking into lavish gifts and contributions that lobbyists gave to lawmakers and their staff in exchange for special treatment. Some of Burns' staff took Abramoff-paid vacations and two members of the senator's former staff quit to work with Abramoff.

Burns took more than $150,000 in Abramoff-directed campaign contributions, more than any other member of Congress. Although he later returned the money, Democrats continued their attacks alleging Burns was corrupt.

Burns was part of the Justice Department probe. His lawyer, Ralph Caccia, announced in January that the agency had finished its investigation into Burns and no charges would be filed.

Baucus has never faced such accusations regarding his staff or lobbyist connections. However, the analysis by Lee Newspapers shows Baucus is not immune from what is becoming standard fare in Washington, D.C.: high-ranking staff quitting to lobby for industries likely to do business before their former boss's committee.

Lee Newspapers analyzed the employment records of Baucus' Senate staff between 1996 and early 2007. In that group, the analysis identified 58 of his highest-paid staff. Of those, 12 left to become lobbyists and 11 of those lobbied for banks, insurance companies, hospitals, nursing homes, drug companies and, particularly, PhRMA, the prescription drug lobby.

Baucus also had staff working for him on the Senate Finance Committee, and some of them left that job to become lobbyists.

Scott Olsen worked for Baucus until 1998 as a legislative assistant. In 2001, he took a job as one of 11 in-house PhRMA lobbyists. Olsen worked for the group for 3.5 years, including 2003, when the Medicare Part D bill was written.

During that time, PhRMA reported paying more than $49 million on its in-house lobbying team.

Medicare Part D is the prescription drug coverage for seniors covered by Medicare, the government health-insurance program for the elderly and the disabled. Medicare Part D dictated that private health-insurance companies provide the drug benefit, funded by the government.

David Castagnetti, Baucus' former chief of staff, was also hired by PhRMA in 2003, as the drug bill took front-and-center in Baucus' committee. In that one year, the industry giant paid Castagnetti's firm $160,000. Castagnetti quit lobbying for PhRMA by the end of that year, but in 2006 the group hired him again and he has been one of their lobbyists ever since, along with drug companies Merck and GlaxoSmithKline.

Timothy Punke worked for Baucus on the Senate Finance Committee for four years, quitting in January of 2005 to take a job lobbying with the prominent firm Preston, Gates, Ellis. His clients included Starbucks and Weyerhaeuser. In 2006, PhRMA also picked up Punke as a lobbyist.

To replace Punke, Baucus hired Brian Pomper. But Pomper quit a year later to form his own lobbying firm, Parven Pomper Strategies. Among their clients: PhRMA and drug giant Pfizer.

The path to PhRMA isn't a one-way street for Baucus staff. At least one Baucus staffer - Michelle Easton, the current chief health and welfare lawyer on Senate Finance Committee - was a vice-president at PhRMA immediately before Baucus hired her.

Baucus, who is running for a sixth consecutive term in the U.S. Senate and is likely to remain Finance Committee chairman next year, adamantly rejects the idea that his former staff have any special pull when they lobby him or his committee.

"No one gets special treatment," he told Lee Newspapers. "(Forbes) knew that about me before he left."

Since January 2006, Baucus has refused any lobbyist-paid travel, gifts or meals and requires his staff to do the same. Baucus instituted that ban, one of the strictest in Washington, to assure his behavior and that of his staff was beyond reproach.

"Your word is your bond back there," he said.

And, according to the analysis, Baucus has never had an employee leave, work as a lobbyist, and then re-join the senator's staff, a practice known as the "revolving door of lobbying."

Baucus doesn't always side with the clients of his former staff. For example, Baucus supports re-importing drugs from Canada, allowing the government to negotiate for lower prices in Medicare Part D, and encouraging use of generic drugs in Medicare. PhRMA opposes all three stances.

Baucus said he was working against PhRMA's interests in 2003 before Forbes left to work for them. In the weeks immediately before Forbes quit, Baucus was one of only two Democrats in the closed-door negotiations where the final Medicare prescription drug benefit was ironed out.

"I kept PhRMA and the health maintenance organizations and the big drug companies from getting a better deal," Baucus said. "I worked hard on that, harder than anyone else in the room."

One of Baucus' closest associates, Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said he has watched Baucus at work for years and believes good policy, not lobbying connections, guides the Montana lawmaker.

"I've seen (Baucus) work hard to get a lot of viewpoints on the issues we address," Grassley told Lee Newspapers. "And I've watched him consider and decide policy and procedure questions on the merits."

Baucus also has told the industries that he oversees - and from which he gets a good chunk of his campaign cash - that they may not like everything they get from him. Baucus was quoted in the Wall Street Journal as telling the health care business people at a fundraiser that he was "coming after" them to help pay for Medicare.

In sheer numbers of ex-staff in the lobbying ranks during their Senate careers, Baucus has Burns beat, according to a career-long analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., group that tracks money in politics. With 20 former staffers now working as lobbyists, Baucus ranks No. 5 on the center's list of lawmakers who have either hired from or lost staff to lobbying. Burns, who lost 16 staff to lobbying, ranks No. 14.

Massie Ritsch, a spokesman for the Center, said long-serving lawmakers like Baucus tend to have the highest number of former staff in the lobbying ranks. Baucus has served in the U.S. Senate for almost 30 years. The longer you work in Washington, Ritsch said, the more people you have working for you over the years.

Even if you lose just a few each year, it adds up. Plus, Baucus now serves as chairman of Senate Finance, an influential committee, and staff with contacts to powerful members of Congress are more valuable.

Such staff are in demand for what they know and who they know, Ritsch said. In the case of Baucus, those who have worked closely with him are well-versed in Medicare, trade, Social Security, tax policy and other topics the Finance Committee oversees.

But they also know Baucus, Ritsch said, and that is worth something, too.

The money of private-sector lobbying can be hard to resist, he adds.

"Government salaries can seem pretty lucrative when you're not living in an expensive place like Washington," Ritsch said. "People do find that it's hard to make a career on them."

Baucus' highest-paid employee made $154,000 in 2006, records show, but that salary is much higher than many others on the senator's staff. Salaries between $45,000 and $90,000 are more common.

Chris Carter, a spokesman for the Montana Republican Party, said Montanans should be concerned that so many of Baucus' former staff end up as lobbyists.

"All he is, is a Washington insider," Carter said. "It just means that Montanans are losing their voice. All of these (lobbyists) who don't necessarily represent the views of Montanans and the needs of Montanans are getting more influence."

If nothing else, Carter said, the steady stream of Baucus staff to lobbying ranks stokes public cynicism that lawmakers are corrupt.

"We need to get past the corruption and the perceived corruption in our government," he said.

Ironically, Carter makes some of the same arguments Democrats did just two years ago when going after Burns.

In some cases, Ritsch said, it's unavoidable that congressional staff would leave to lobby. And, in moderate doses, it doesn't have to harm the business of government.

"If the policy process is dominated by this small group that swings in and out of the revolving door (of lobbying) with frequency, then it's difficult for outsiders or the public at large to inject its say in the process," he said.

Ritsch didn't comment on Baucus' particular relationships with his former staff-turned lobbyist, but he did say that Baucus' one-time employees are "at least knocking on his doors."

"That's how it works," he said.

Role of the Senate Finance Committee

Just what makes the Senate Finance Committee so pivotal in the affairs of the nation?

For starters, the panel oversees the budgets of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which account for 46 percent of federal spending. It also oversees all federal welfare programs and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, among other social and health programs.

If you have health insurance through your employer, rules and laws governing that insurance policy fall under the Committee.

The panel also has jurisdiction over federal revenue and tax code, including billions of dollars the U.S. government spends as a result of issuing government bonds, a form of federal debt; the Internal Revenue Service; customs and all U.S. ports.

Finally, the committee oversees U.S. trade, and is involved in working to open markets to U.S. goods. The panel has jurisdiction over the U.S. International Trade Commission, the panel that gives trade reports to the president and can issue punishments to entities that break national trade rules.

- IR State Bureau

What is Medicare Part D?

Signed into law in December of 2003, Medicare Part D was part of a sweeping, multibillion-dollar bill that brought the biggest changes to Medicare since the program was created in 1965.

Medicare is government-funded health insurance for 37 million senior citizens and 7 million disabled people.

Until 2006, when Medicare Part D took effect, seniors on Medicare had no help paying for prescription drugs.

Yet unlike other parts of Medicare that are administered directly through the government, Medicare Part D is administered only through private health insurers. Seniors must choose from dozens of private plans to get the benefit.

However, most of the money for the program still comes from the government.

The program has been criticized as a windfall for drug companies, because the law forbids the government from negotiating with drug manufacturers for cheaper prices. Other government-run medical programs, like the Veterans Administration, negotiate for lower prices, as do some private insurance companies.

The program also drew criticism for expanding the role of private insurance in Medicare.

In addition to paying private health insurers to administer Part D, the 2003 bill also allowed them to administer all Medicare coverage for seniors who choose to buy “Medicare Advantage’’ products.

Under these plans, the government pays private insurance companies what it would have paid for the seniors under traditional Medicare, plus 13 percent more on average. Those extra payments have come under fire for potentially hastening Medicare’s expected bankruptcy.

U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has supported curtailing those payments.

— IR State Bureau

D.C.'s 'revolving door' of lobbyists

Between 1996 and early 2007, 12 of Baucus' highest-paid staff quit to become lobbyists. Of those, 11 took contracts for companies likely to have business before Baucus' influential Senate Finance Committee.

Here's a look at who they are and where they went:

David Castagnetti - Chief of staff until February of 1998, when he quit to become a lobbyist. In 10 years as a lobbyist, Castagnetti has had dozens of clients. Here's a sampling: PhRMA; drug companies Merck, GlaxoSmithKline and Amgen; America's Health Insurance Plans; Bank of America; and WalMart.

JoAnne Cunningham - Legislative assistant until January 1997. Registered lobbyist for the Healthcare Association of New York from 1998 until the middle of 2006. Cunningham has not reported any lobbying activity since then.

Mark H. Smith - Baucus' legislative director until March 1997. Registered lobbyist since 1998. Smith's clients include drug company Amgen, Health Choice Network, the Detroit Medical Center and the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.

Roger Blauwet - Tax lawyer until January 1997. Registered lobbyist since 1998. Blauwet's clients include drug companies Merck and Pfizer, Mutual of Omaha insurance and Wells Fargo Bank.

Brian Cavey - Baucus' legislative director and acting chief of staff until December 1998. Registered lobbyist since 2000. His clients include the Washington Group International, Microsoft and Barr Laboratories, which makes both its own and generic prescription drugs.

Curtis Rich - Legislative assistant until December 1996. Registered lobbyist since 1998. Rich's clients include The Sisters of Leavenworth hospitals in Montana, which includes facilities in Billings, Butte and Miles City; the Blackfeet Tribe; and the City of Tacoma, Wash.

Timothy Warner - Press secretary until January 1997. Registered lobbyist since 2003. Warner's clients include Yuko Oil and Bausch & Lomb.

Maria Freese - Legislative assistant until December 2000. She later worked as a tax lawyer for Baucus on the Senate Finance Committee. She quit the Finance Committee in March 2003. Since 2004, Freese has been an in-house lobbyist for the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

Scott Olsen - Legislative assistant until 1998. From 2001 to 2004, he was an in-house lobbyist for PhRMA. Since 2003, he has been a lobbyist for Amgen, a drug company.

Zak Anderson - Legislative correspondent, assistant chief of staff and legislative assistant from February 1997 to January 2005. Registered lobbyist since 2005. His clients include St. Peter’s Hospital and Microsoft. Since 2006, he has worked as an in-house lobbyist for Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway.

Jeff Forbes - Baucus' chief of staff from November 1999 until January 2003, when he left to work for the Finance Committee, where Baucus remained his boss. In November 2003, Forbes quit his committee job. He registered to lobby in early 2004. Forbes' clients include PhRMA, drug companies Amgen and Merck and the Ford Motor Company.