A former senior Biden administration official is being investigated as the latest example of the “revolving door” of political officials oscillating between the government and outside special interests by allegedly lobbying for their former agency shortly after leaving their position.
Clare McCann, who served for over a year as a Senior Policy Advisor at the US Department of Education, is now a Higher Education Fellow at Arnold Ventures, a limited company. In that capacity, she wrote to the department urging it to implement policy changes that could have a profound impact on online education.
However, McCann, who was first appointed in spring 2021, left her post in the Biden administration last August, just seven months earlier. Her quick transition from working for the Education Department to attempting to influence its policies from the outside caught the attention of a conservative watchdog.
“When politicians wonder why Americans don’t trust Washington, people like Clare McCann are precisely the reason,” Tom Jones, president of the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), told Fox News Digital. “She spent a year and a half in a senior position at the Department of Education in one of the most politicized bureaus and then turned that job into a position with an advocacy group to lobby for the issues she used to regulate. The revolving door at the Department of Education must be closed immediately and those who have abused the system must be held accountable.”
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AAF filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Department of Education to obtain McCann’s communications during her administration that are relevant to her alleged lobbying work.
In particular, McCann and a colleague from Arnold Ventures authored a 14-page op-ed submitted to the department March 16, urging regulators to take action that would allow the Biden administration to crack down on private companies, contracting with colleges and universities to support the schools conduct their online educational programs.
The Department’s guidance under review states that Online Program Managers (OPMs), which are outside contractors who recruit and operate students into schools’ online academic programs, officially act as third parties or participate in the management of “every aspect” participating companies apply. federal study grant for a university.
As a result, these companies may be subject to tighter federal oversight, which critics say is bad for schools and contractors, but ultimately for the students they serve.
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Contrary to AAF’s charges, a spokesman for Arnold Ventures’ philanthropy issued a statement to Fox News Digital dismissing the notion that McCann did anything wrong.
“MS. McCann co-signed a letter in response to the Department’s request for public comment on the proposed guidance for external service providers and institutions,” the spokesman said. “MS. McCann did so in full compliance with her post-employment obligations. . . . While the Biden administration’s ethics pledge prohibits acting as a registered lobbyist for the rest of the administration, is making a public comment categorically not “lobbying” under 2 USC? 1602(8)(B) and therefore cannot establish a lobbyist registration requirement for Ms. McCann.”
Pursuant to the administration’s “ethics pledge,” which President Joe Biden signed into law as an executive order on his first day in office, political officers who leave government service agree “for the remainder of the administration or two years after the end of my appointment, depending on which point in time is later.”
The Department of Education similarly dismissed the notion that McCann had breached the government’s promise of ethics.
“Public comments on a Federal Registry notice addressed to the agency’s designated official do not violate the ethics pledge nor alter the fact that this administration continues to hold its employees to the highest ever standards of ethics,” a department spokesman told Fox News Digital.
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According to experts speaking to Fox News Digital, McCann’s activity was not technically lobbying and therefore would not violate the ethics pledge.
“In general, submitting comments in a rulemaking does not violate Biden’s ethics pledge. Nor would it have violated Trump’s ethics pledge,” said Robert Kelner, chair of the law firm Covington and Burlington LLP’s Election and Political Law Practice Group. “There are rare types of rulemaking that relate to just one or two companies that might be an exception, but I’ve never encountered one.”
Public Citizen executive vice president Lisa Gilbert added that comment would not constitute lobbying because comment is made public and does not necessarily involve personal contact, comparing it to a former official who commented in a writes newspaper.
Still, the idea of a “revolving door” of DC elites moving from government positions to jobs as lobbyists, consultants and strategists capable of influencing public policy – and vice versa – has drawn a bipartisan outcry. Groups like the Revolving Door Project and others say their explicit mission is to ensure executive appointees use their positions “to serve the broader public interest, rather than to consolidate corporate power or seek personal advancement.” “.
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Arnold Ventures is led by Texas billionaire John Arnold, a former Enron executive and hedge fund manager who has backed tens of millions of dollars to left-wing organizations and initiatives.
Before working for Arnold Ventures and the Biden administration, McCann worked for New America, a leftist think tank, and the Obama administration as senior policy adviser in the Department of Education.
The Department of Education issued its controversial guidance last month, initially giving colleges and universities until May 1 to report details of their OPM arrangements to the government and 30 days to submit comments on the changes. However, after widespread outcry, the department said the guidance would not take effect until September 1, rather than immediately as of last month, in response to “confusion”. It also pushed back the end date of the public comment period to March 29, about two weeks after Arnold Ventures submitted its own comment on the matter.
OPMs have long been the target of congressional Democrats and consumer groups who believe that through their contractual arrangements, companies can drive up the prices of higher education and lure students into low-quality academic programs.
In the Arnold Ventures commentary, McCann and a colleague argue that OPM university agreements need to be turned on their head “to preserve the integrity of student assistance programs and ensure compliance and compliance with the law.” They added that the Department of Education “will clarify that no form of incentive compensation for recruiting students or securing financial aid is permissible — as Congress intended many years ago.”
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However, many colleges and universities do not have the in-house funding and expertise to develop the online programs they need and need outside help, according to experts familiar with the topic.
Critics also slammed the Department of Education’s guidance as over-regulation, noting that the department has sweeping investigative powers over third-party providers, which are also subject to periodic federal scrutiny, which now applies to OPMs.
“The growth of technology and its applications in providing a well-rounded education to students is exciting and should be commended,” Rep. Virginia Foxx, RN.C., chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, recently told Fox News Digital . “More options for students mean more chances of success. That the Department links access to online education to rising government student loan debt diminishes that fact and ultimately damages partnerships between institutions, innovators, and the students they serve.”
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“The department seems more interested in controlling the actions of private companies and creating unnecessary headaches for institutions than in ensuring students have all the tools to succeed academically,” Foxx continued. “I urge the Biden administration to reverse course on this damaging guidance.”
Third-party providers are required by law to sign a contract with their education partner to be “jointly and severally liable” to the Department of Education for any federal violations, which creates new hurdles as OPMs and schools would have to redo or even cancel their contracts to accommodate the new ones changes to be taken into account. Some believe this process is necessary for reasons of transparency and to prevent private companies from exploiting and profiting from student education. Others view it as disruptive to the delivery of online education and argue that it will negatively impact student learning and the quality of higher education downstream.
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OPMs aren’t the only ones to be hit by the Department of Education’s proposed rules, which critics argue will have wider negative repercussions than government officials may realize.
Local police departments, which help compile and analyze campus crime statistics, and hospitals, which provide clinical experience and “the related educational program for nurses and other medical professionals,” are among the outside entities that support schools through contractual agreements that accordingly, as third-party providers apply to the American Council on Education.
