Daschle was in a strategy meeting earlier this week with top Senate and White House officials, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, and HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who was Obama’s second choice for the job after Daschle withdrew. It was his second such high-level meeting in Reid’s office in the past few weeks.
“He is an expert in health care,’’ Reid told reporters. Reid spokesman Jim Manley said Daschle’s role in working the Senate on the health care bill was Obama’s idea, and that the president also dispatched two other former senators, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Vice President Joe Biden, to Capitol Hill.
The difference is that unlike the others, Daschle is no longer a government official, elected or appointed. He works for a prominent lobbying firm, DLA Piper, though he himself is not a registered lobbyist and has said he is more comfortable being described as a “resource’’ for former colleagues and others.
Daschle’s involvement in the health care talks might seem to present a conflict of interest problem for an administration that’s vowed to keep lobbyists at arm’s length. Republican Senator John Cornyn of Texas criticized Daschle’s role, saying yesterday it “raises serious ethical concerns and sends a clear message to the American people that special interests, not their interests’’ are being represented in the development of health care legislation.
