New Pro-Gun Group Hopes to Draw From the NRA

So there, Ray Schoenke! Better watch out for the crossfire in this, the latest gun war.

Big Issue for Small Businesses

The National Federation of Independent Business is famous for saying no. It pressed to repeal the death tax (better known as the estate tax) and once pushed to end the entire tax code. It also helped lead the charge against President Bill Clinton's health-care proposal 15 years ago.

Now under new management, it is taking a very different tack. The leading small-business lobby last week launched a multimillion-dollar campaign to convince Washington decision makers that, with health costs out of control, they should pass an overhaul of the health-care system.

"Small businesses have reached a breaking point," said Todd Stottlemyer, the new president of the NFIB. His Solutions Start Here effort will host forums, buy ads, conduct research and contact candidates from both political parties -- a relatively novel exercise for the once-Republican-leaning organization -- to show that small-business owners need help to afford health insurance.

But exactly what NFIB supports is hard to decipher. Beyond gaining the same tax incentives as big businesses and allowing associations (such as the NFIB) and others to sell pooled insurance to small businesses, the group's principles are pretty vague. "The trouble with health care is that we can all agree on the concepts, but as soon as you go a layer down, things start to splinter," said Charles N. "Chip" Kahn III, president of the Federation of American Hospitals.

Ethics Office Quandary

The House's decision last week to establish an ethics office instigated plenty of complaints by lawmakers that any outsider with a grudge will be able to stage a witch hunt against them.

But several reform groups say the opposite is true. The new independent body has no subpoena power and can't even put people under oath. "It's a very toothless entity," said Craig Holman of Public Citizen, a liberal advocacy group. Mary G. Wilson, national president of the League of Women Voters, added: "This proposal will prove to be inadequate and will have to be revisited, probably when the next wave of public scandals arrives."

Retirement of the Week

The dean of lobbyists for the financial services industry is retiring. Bruce E. Thompson Jr. has headed the Washington office of Merrill Lynch for 22 years and last week announced he was stepping down.

Thompson, 58, joined Merrill in 1986 after rising to assistant secretary of Treasury for legislative affairs. He previously worked for the late Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.) and was at the center of many tax-cutting battles, both on and off Capitol Hill.

But Thompson will not be going far. He will continue to work for Merrill as a consultant.

Hire of the Week

Dawson & Associates, which just named a retired general from the Army Corps of Engineers as its chief operating officer, is still on a high-level hiring spree.

Among its new additions is retired Maj. Gen. James W. van Loben Sels, who commanded three Corps of Engineers divisions -- North Atlantic, North Pacific and Europe. He also is a former director of the California Department of Transportation.

Please send e-mail tokstreet@washpost.com.