Feb. 28 (Bloomberg) — The Clinton White House used the Democratic National Committee and government agencies to target and lobby a list of "on the fence" Democrats and Republicans to build support for its failed 1993 health-care legislation, according to files made public for the first time today.
The memos show that the Department of Health and Human Services, the White House intergovernmental affairs office and the DNC worked together to pressure lawmakers.
"The targeting effort is now well under way. Several weeks ago, in consultation with HHS, the DNC, Intergovernmental Affairs and other task force members, we compiled a list of possible Republican senators and vulnerable Democrats," White House aides Steve Ricchetti and Chris Jennings, both of whom later worked in the Obama administration, wrote in an April 1993 memo to an unspecified distribution list.
The revelation of coordination among the White House, HHS, and the Democratic Party's national political arm is just a slice of a trove of strategy documents outlining just how President Bill Clinton and then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton pursued an expansion of health insurance in vain.
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