‘You have to do everything:' Harvard's high-powered D.C. lobbyists an essential part of plan to counter Trump

Boston Globe

2 days ago

While
Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
The university's hiring of Ballard, perhaps the most sought-after lobbyist in Trump's Washington, was a clear early indicator of its strategy. A former lobbyist for the Trump Organization, and a prodigious fund-raiser for the president's campaigns, Ballard counts several top administration officials as close allies, most notably Susie Wiles, the White House chief of staff, who once worked for Ballard's firm.
Advertisement
Harvard also maintains an office in Washington with three lobbyists who advocate its priorities full time, led by Suzanne Day, who has worked for the university since 2000. On top of that, Harvard has long contracted with a boutique D.C. firm headed up by Kip O'Neill — son of the late Massachusetts legend and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill — to augment its federal relations work.
Advertisement
All that wheeling and dealing doesn't come cheap. In 2024, Harvard spent $720,000 on federal lobbying,
With its unparalleled resources, Harvard is likely positioned better than any other university to fund a multi-pronged defense against Trump. According to lobbyists and experts on the industry, a strong D.C. influence operation should be an essential element of that response.
'They're in a uniquely challenging situation,' said Steve Elmendorf, a veteran Democratic lobbyist. 'They need to use high-level relationships to get information, advocate, get access, but they also need to work to change the political dynamic in individual states and congressional districts.'
'If you're in the kind of situation Harvard and many other universities are either in, or are going to be in,' Elmendorf said, 'you have to do everything.'
The thornier question is how exactly Harvard's high-powered, scaled-up lobbying team will influence specific outcomes with Trump. Publicly, the president has not signaled any intent to back down in his campaign against the university, saying last week that while he wanted it to 'be great again,' he believed 'all they're doing is getting in deeper and deeper and deeper.'
David Tamasi, a longtime GOP lobbyist, said 'it's become an unfair fight' for Harvard in Washington. He noted that Harvard's strongest advocates have historically been in the Massachusetts congressional delegation, which has been all-Democratic since the 1990s, leaving the university less equipped to handle a Republican administration.
Advertisement
'The challenge for Harvard is you were caught off guard, or perhaps lulled about the way the world was before … now, all of a sudden, you're taking real incoming fire, and you don't have any or very limited Republican political capital to deploy,' Tamasi said. 'The issue is not how do you manage it now — the issue is, what should you have done before?"
Still, lobbying industry experts said Harvard's influence campaign could have meaningful impacts worth the return on investment.
'A lot of what lobbying is is very unsexy — sanding off the edges, crafting language, softening attacks,' said Lee Drutman, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank who studies the lobbying industry and wrote a 2015 book on the subject.
'It's not going to make people jump and shout, but it's the small game of inches on which political wins and losses are judged,' he said. 'In many ways, it's like advertising. You don't know what works and what doesn't. But you know if you're not doing it, you really have no chance of success.'
Harvard did not make any of its lobbyists available for an interview. In response to detailed questions from the Globe about its advocacy in the capital, Harvard spokesman Jason Newton said that the university 'is active in Washington in support of its educational and research mission.'
'Beyond direct engagement, the university also works in partnership with leading higher education and scientific societies, peer institutions, and various advocacy partners to advance support for the federal university partnership,' Newton said.
Advertisement
Neither Ballard Partners nor O'Neill's firm responded to requests for comment.
Lobbying has long been a billion-dollar business in Washington, with spending totals continuing to climb each year. Overall spending on federal lobbyists topped $1.2 billion in the first three months of the new Trump administration, according to the database OpenSecrets. That total was $867 million in the same period during the first Trump administration.
Universities and higher education organizations have accounted for a growing share of lobbying business, said Drutman. Harvard was not the only institution of higher education to scale up its D.C. influence apparatus as Republicans seemed eager to go after universities over their handling of Gaza campus protests and other contentious matters.
In January, Columbia University, which eventually bowed to Trump's demands in order to restore $400 million in federal funding, hired the Washington firm BGR Group. Yale University enlisted the firm Akin Gump in March. And the Association of American Universities, a group that advocates on behalf of the country's most prestigious and significant research universities, including Harvard, Tufts, and Boston University, hired the firm DLA Piper in April.
All rank among the top Washington lobbying shops. But Harvard was the only one to nab Ballard Partners. During the first Trump administration, Ballard established himself as the eminent Trump-whisperer on K Street, where many Washington lobbying firms are located.
The distinctly Floridian nature of Trump's power circle in his second administration was a boon for Ballard, who remains rooted in Tallahassee politics. In addition to Wiles, Ballard counts Attorney General Pam Bondi, the former Florida attorney general, as a former colleague at his firm. He was also a major fund-raiser for former Florida senator and now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Advertisement
Those connections, plus Ballard's own longstanding relationship with Trump, had Fortune 500 companies clamoring to hire him; in addition to Harvard, the likes of Chevron, JP Morgan, and Netflix have become Ballard clients since the November election.
The business bonanza reportedly created some strife:
According to Steve Schale, a veteran Florida Democratic operative and occasional lobbyist who has known Ballard for years, he will likely be a strong asset for Harvard. His impact may be felt less through placing a decisive call to the White House at a key moment and more in the knowledge he can provide to Harvard's team about Trump and his orbit, Schale said.
'The public perception that you pick up the phone and call Susie Wiles and Donald Trump and [say], 'make this go away,' that's just not how it works,' he said. 'Where Brian is super helpful to Harvard is, just explaining the people and motivations and what the art of the possible looks like.'
'There is a point where relationships are not ever going to trump the politics of something,' he added. 'But having an open line of communication, helping the client understand … the public official wants to do X, but there's a lot of gray space around that, how do we navigate that?'
Just as important, lobbying experts said, is enlisting allies to help make Harvard's case to the administration and Republicans in Congress. Framing the elimination of federal funding for the university as a major blow to economic growth and health care innovation on a national level could help, especially if Harvard can enlist unexpected advocates to take up the case, said Drutman.
Advertisement
'That's what successful lobbying often looks like,' he said. 'Building coalitions so you reach people with arguments that they may not necessarily be receptive to if it were coming from Harvard.'
Sam Brodey can be reached at