The entrance through which Katie McGinty will enter this evening at 1900 K Street provides the perfect metaphor for her candidacy: a revolving door.
Upon announcing her Senate bid, McGinty was described as a "revolving-door drug lobbyist." Tonight, McGinty will be back in Washington to fundraise at a DC lobbying firm with her business partner, Ed Rendell.
The outright loser of last year’s Democratic gubernatorial primary has an unfortunate history of putting politics before the people of Pennsylvania. In July, McGinty was hobnobbing with party bosses and lobbyists at a DSCC retreat in Martha’s Vineyard instead of working hard for the still unresolved budget impasse in Pennsylvania.
BACKGROUND:
McGinty Joined Lobbying Firm Troutman Sanders In 2000
In April 2000, McGinty Joined The Washington, D.C. Office Of Troutman Sanders To Advise Clients On Environmental Matters, Biotechnology And International Economic Development. “Troutman Sanders: The Atlanta law firm said Kathleen A. McGinty, former environmental adviser to the White House, has joined its Washington practice. Her duties will include advising clients in environmental matters, biotechnology and international economic development.” (“Executive Portfolio,” The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, 4/8/00)
Troutman Sanders Has Been Described As “A Notorious DC Law Firm With A Reputation For Defending The Worst Corporate Polluters And Using Its Lobbying Might To Carve Up Environmental Legislation.” “McGinty returned to the states in this winter. It didn’t take her long to find a job. Not with the Gore campaign, but as the legislative affairs director of Troutman Sanders, a notorious DC law firm with a reputation for defending the worst corporate polluters and using its lobbying might to carve up environmental legislation. One of the firm’s star litigators, Daniel Reinhardt, successfully defended Mobil Oil Company in one of the first cases involving leaking underground gas storage tanks. Reinardt has also been retained on various matters by the Georgia Power Company defending it, as Reihnhardt notes in his bio, ‘in matters as diverse as alleged negligence in connection with electrocution injuries and death to alleged property damage to crops as a result of early defoliation allegedly caused by emissions from Georgia Power Company facilities.’ Then there is Eric Szweda, who boasts of ‘defending a client against a Clean Water Act citizen suit brought by the Sierra Club in the Middle District of Georgia’ over ‘alleged violations of industrial waste water permit limits for thermal discharges.’ Szweda also claims that he ‘achieved dismissal of a client from a class action lawsuit comprised of landowners adjacent to Georgia’s most high profile Superfund site.’” (Alexander Cockburn And Jeffrey St. Clair, “Katie’s New Gig,” Counter Punch, 10/23/00)
In 2000, McGinty Lobbied The EPA On Behalf Of Pharmaceutical Company Glaxo Wellcome To Stop The EPA’s Planned Ban On A Key Chemical Used In Their Inhalers
On June 28, 2000, Kathleen A. McGinty Registered To Lobby With Troutman Sanders LLP On Behalf Of Glaxo Wellcome, Inc., A Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturer, To Lobby On Environmental Policy And Regulatory Compliance Issues. (Lobbying Disclosure Database, Secretary Of The Senate, Posted 6/28/00)
On August 11, 2000, Troutman Sanders LLP Reported Being Paid $40,000 By Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. For McGinty To Lobby The EPA On “EPA Rule On Chlorofluorocarbon Allotments.” (Lobbying Disclosure Database, Secretary Of The Senate, Posted 8/11/00)