Lust for Life: The most effective lobbyist in Washington.(Douglas Johnson)

In the last week before Congress closed down for summer vacation, tensions were high. GOP leaders were facing high-stakes House votes on a patients' bill of rights and President Bush's energy bill; they had to pick their fights very carefully, because there was little margin for miscalculation. But they decided to bring up one particular contentious issue-cloning-and risk a humiliating defeat on it, based on a single lobbyist's assurance that they would win the crucial vote. A top GOP aide explains that only one outsider has earned that level of confidence. After the nerve-racking winning tally, the aide declared: "That settles it. Doug Johnson is the best lobbyist in town."

The supposed access and influence bought by big money-the stuff of nightmares among would-be campaign-finance reformers-pale by comparison with Johnson's clout. Since 1981, when he was named legislative director for the National Right to Life Committee (NRLC), Douglas Johnson has been building relationships, voting profiles, media files, and a level of influence that money can't buy. A former House staffer, who was used to lobbyists jostling each other to pick up her restaurant tabs, worked closely with Johnson for four years and laughingly recalls, "I don't think Doug ever bought me a cup of coffee."

On an unfashionable block in downtown Washington, in an office one blunt visitor describes as a "dump," Johnson directs the efforts of a couple of young assistants who spend the bulk of their time on the Hill, as well as the lobbying activities of his counterparts in the NRLC's state affiliates. The bookish father of four, including three adopted children, was labeled the "unlobbyist" by a capital veteran who "doubts that he even has an expense account." Lobbying is a lucrative business for Washington's top practitioners, but no one on the committee's staff makes six figures. While his well-heeled counterparts are enjoying leisurely lunches in the city's fanciest restaurants, Johnson is at his desk, sporting one of his signature short-sleeved shirts and the peculiar colored glasses he's taken to wearing over his regular glasses owing to a frustrating eye disorder. The "power lunch" is not a regular part of his schedule. Nancy Ruiz, a former lobbying aide, explains: "Doug used to say that he looked forward to the day when food pellets were invented so he could eliminate the bother of eating."

GOP leadership staff found Johnson at his desk, working multiple phone lines, when they called him at 1:30 p.m. on July 31. They had just learned that as many as 18 of their liberal members, recognizing that the pro-cloning bill they favored was going to be defeated, were threatening to vote against the leadership's rule governing the consideration of the alternative bills. Rules typically pass on strictly partisan votes, and being defeated on a rule usually amounts to a humiliating loss for House leaders; in this case, it would also block a vote on the cloning ban the GOP favored. "Can you get enough Democrats to pass the rule?" Johnson was asked. "Only if you hang up and let me try," was his (customarily curt) reply. Within the hour, Johnson reported that he thought he had lined up enough support for the rule, and the leadership went ahead with the vote, based on his estimate. Johnson's close relationships with sympathetic Democratic members wound up producing more than twice as many Democratic supporters for the rule as Republican defectors (34 to 15). "We gambled everything on Doug's count," says a GOP aide. The House then passed a total ban on cloning, 265-162.

Johnson, 50, has been winning the respect of Washington's political class for 20 years. One lobbyist who used to be a Senate aide-and worked with Johnson at the time-marvels that on an issue as emotional as abortion, the pro-life lobbyist is able to avoid a common pitfall: "Doug won't kid himself into thinking that he has the votes. He carefully picks his battles, then goes off and gets the votes he needs." Ruiz says that she considered her attention to detail a particular strength, until she worked with Johnson in the early 1990s and saw a man devoted to a metaphysical standard of accuracy. Another former lobbying aide, Nancy Lataif, recalls Johnson as a "compulsive ...