Category: Susanna Vagman
Portsmouth Native Lives and Breathes The District
WASHINGTON—When Portsmouth native Jeffrey Taylor looks back over his career as a Washington lobbyist, he considers his most rewarding moment to be helping survivors of a 1985 Middle East hijacking obtain compensation from the Iranian government.
The hijacking was fictionalized in the 1986 Chuck Norris movie, “The Delta Force,” in which Palestinian terrorists hijacked a plane full of American citizens in the Middle East. In the movie, Norris and the U.S. Army’s Delta Force rescued them.
“Well, that’s a true story,” Taylor, 41, said, “and the people who were on the plane were my clients.” The big difference, he added, was that “Chuck Norris didn’t show up.”
In the real-life hijacking of TWA Flight 847 in June 1985, Hezbollah terrorists held 153 passengers and crew members hostage for 17 days and killed a U.S. Navy diver on the plane, dumping his body on the tarmac.
In October 2001, a U.S. federal court ruled that Iran had supported the hijackers and that six Navy divers who survived were entitled to compensation from the Iranian government. The catch was that there was no way to get the money, even though the U.S. government had frozen Iranian assets in this country, according to Taylor.
So Taylor, who works for the Washington office of the law firm Barnes & Thornburg, along with Joe Chapelle, a litigator for the firm, lobbied for legislation to make the frozen Iranian assets available to pay compensation to the victims.
When the legislation became law, Taylor said, “It was just a great feeling to be able to call them [the victims] and say, ‘Got it!’ ”
Even before attending Portsmouth High School, Taylor knew he wanted to do something in politics and government. His father, Cliff Taylor, recalled talking about current events at the dinner table and taking several trips to Washington with his son.
After that, the younger Taylor quipped, “I kind of thought high school was a complete impediment to my future and I knew it from the start.”
During the weekends, Taylor earned money as a “classic fill-in” for the disc jockey at local radio station WHEB, where his father was general manager. He climbed the ladder from mowing the station’s lawn to taking out its garbage to running the controlboard for the DJ. “It was fun and glorious, but I knew I was never going to be a stud in broadcasting.”
Although he considers himself “more conservative than I think my parents are,” Taylor graduated in 1984 from Assumption College in Worcester, Mass., a “very liberal city.”
“Even though Assumption is a small, Catholic school, liberalism does permeate,” Taylor said. “During those years, which would be the early Reagan years, I think there were only five Republicans on campus.” The more liberal the student body got, the more he pulled back and learned about Republican viewpoints.
“There’s nothing too liberal about Jeff,” said his father. Cliff Taylor, who grew up in a Democratic family in Fall River, Mass., said he now leans Republican – but not with the same vigor as his son.
After college, Taylor was a personal assistant to then-Sen. Gordon J. Humphrey, R-N.H. “It wasn’t a sexy title,” Taylor said. “I was his driver.” Taylor, who at 7 a.m. had been used to “rolling over for another three hours of sleep” suddenly found himself working for someone “who actually liked to get up at four o’clock in the morning and be in Logan Airport at 7 a.m.”
In the late 1980s, Taylor was a field director for then-Vice President George H.W. Bush’s presidential campaign. His job was to make sure supporters came out on election day and that “everything ran like clockwork.” He remembered how Bush came in third in the 1988 Iowa caucuses and seemed to have his back to the wall in New Hampshire a week later. Bush won New Hampshire and went on to victory in the primaries and the general election. Later, he said, “Thank you, New Hampshire.”
During the 1988 New Hampshire primary campaign, Taylor befriended Bill Cahill, who was Bush’s communications director in the state.Cahill, who now runs Cahill Communications and lives in North Hampton, recalls that when, “for a brief period” in 2002, he was an undeclared candidate for the U.S. House, Taylor “immediately offered to help me find some contacts” and set up a fund-raiser.
Today, Taylor’s 12-hour workday begins at 8 a.m. He chairs his law firm’s federal relations group, serving clients ranging from pharmaceutical companies to health care to manufacturers. “One minute we are working on appropriations, the next minute we are working on a tariff issue,” Taylor said.
On March 17, for example, Taylor attended several meetings with the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, which is seeking federal permission to build a casino in Beloit, Wis. The tribe already owns a lodge and gambling casino on its 124,334-acre reservation in Odanah, Wis.
Taylor spoke to a congressional aide and slipped her his business card as he strolled through the Capitol complex with the chairman of the tribe, Donald Moore, and Moore’s advisers to a meeting with Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis. Taylor warned that they might have only a few minutes with Baldwin. Taking charge, he asked the triballawyer, Kevin Osterbauer, to inform Baldwin about the Justice Department’s suggestion that the tribe submit an environmental impact statement to prevent lawsuits later on. Baldwin was concerned that the statement would cause a delay and wanted reassurance that it would be completed by late fall.
At a meeting with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Taylor predicted correctly that Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Aurene Martin, a member of the Bad River tribe, would come in only to say hello and welcome the group. Taylor said it was “BIA policy that officials recuse [themselves] from matters that directly impact their tribe.”
Taylor obtained the tribe as a client as a consequence of his work on the TWA 847 hijacking case. Kurt Carlson, one of the surviving Navy divers, is a developer who owns land in Beloit and supports the casino as a way to bring business to the area. He told the tribe that Taylor would provide valuable help, Taylor said.
The keys to success in the world of Washington lobbying are to build a list of contacts, participate in political campaigns and work on Capitol Hill, Taylor said. Before becoming a lobbyist, Taylor was an aide to Rep. David McIntosh, R-Ind. “You won’t necessarily start to make a big splash until you start bringing in clients,” he said.
Although a lobbyist’s life is not as glitzy as it appeared on last year’s HBO show “ K Street ,” Taylor said, “there are some very sexy times in the law firm.” By sexy, he means achieving a goal for a client and getting someone elected. Taylor, who occasionally attends fundraisers, said he doesn’t understand how Hollywood celebrities can do so on a regular basis because “after a while, you really want to go home and watch Seinfeld and be with your child and be with your wife.”
Taylor, who has been married for almost 12 years to Julie Taylor and has a four-year old daughter, Morgan, says he hasn’t forgotten where he came from even as he relishes where he is now. Hanging on his office wall is a picture of the current President Bush alongside Taylor during the New Hampshire primary 16 years ago, and behind his chair are framed pictures of Portsmouth, St. John’s Church and the Isle of Shoals.
“I actually keep New Hampshire very close to my heart,” he said.
