Please find attached excerpts from editorials and columns from all around the country describing the current ethics and lobbying reform bill the House of Representatives is set to pass tomorrow (MAY 6, 2006):
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Missouri)
April 30, 2006
A race to the bottom
Republicans in the U.S. House have decided that there's a bright side to high oil prices and continuing problems in Iraq: They distract constituents from getting too worked up about lobbying and ethics scandals.
Figuring the voters won't care, the GOP last week gutted the ethics reform bill that the House is scheduled to consider on Tuesday. Gone is any mention of an independent Office of Public Integrity. Gone is a permanent ban on accepting free plane rides and other gifts from lobbyists. Gone is extending the time that former members have to sit out before returning through the revolving door to lobby their former colleagues.
What's left of the House lobby reform bill is barely worthy of the name. Lobbyists would have to file disclosure reports four times a year instead of two, and they would be subject to larger fines for failing to disclose their activities. Privately funded travel would be banned, but only for the rest of this year. Earmarks - those pet projects inserted in spending and public books - would not be banned, but they would have to be publicly disclosed. Lawmakers convicted of corruption would lose their retirement benefits.
The Houston Chronicle
April 30, 2006
When guys on Capitol Hill look like Beavis, Butthead
The House Republicans' designated point man on lobbying "reform," Rep. David Dreier of California, was wending his way mendaciously through an opening statement.
Dreier said the bill he was trying to cudgel into consideration by the full House was "bipartisan." It is not.
He said it was "thorough." That's a joke.
He said it was "bold, responsible, common-sense reform." Wrong on all counts.
The New York Times
April 30, 2006
Now You See It, Now You Don't
The inclusion of something termed ''ethics training'' in the House Republican majority's pending lobbying reform bill is the ultimate touch of drollery. It is a public relations kiss-off acknowledging growing concern about the appearance of scandalous money ties between Congressional campaigners and their claques of loyal lobbyists. At the same time, it is clear notice that this ethically challenged Congress has no intention of doing anything serious about reform. The House majority leader, John Boehner, conceded as much in observing, ''The status quo is a powerful force.''
As it is, Mr. Boehner has had to drag his members kicking and screaming to a vote this week on the cut-and-paste figments of reform that the House G.O.P. will be peddling to the voters this fall. The bill is even weaker than the Senate's half-hearted measure. Rather than banning gifts and campaign money from lobbyists, the bill embraces disclosure - the equivalent of price lists for the cost of doing business with a given lawmaker. A bipartisan attempt at true reform was squelched as non-germane, as if the need to create an independent ethics enforcement body is not obvious by now after the lobbyist corruption story of Jack Abramoff and his back-door power over lawmakers.
The Democrats are right to oppose the measure. Some Republicans, worried that it will be properly perceived as the Bill to Nowhere, did point out loopholes in the proposal to rein in the pork-barrel earmark gimmickry dear to lawmakers and lobbyists. But no credible fix was made.
Mississippian via University Wire
April 28, 2006
House fails to deliver reform
When House politicians resume the debate over lobbyist reform, they must add "teeth" to the bill. The bill that was removed yesterday morning was far from adequate. The biggest measure to limit the influence of lobbyists on politics was the requirement of quarterly reports from all lobbyists instead of the current requirement of biannual reports.
Somehow, I doubt another two pieces of red tape per year will alter our government for the better. In addition, the bill takes retirement benefits away from Congressmen and women who were convicted of corruption. Frankly, I am shocked that measure was not already in place.
The bill's shortcomings were significant. Currently, if a Congressperson retires, they must wait one year before becoming a lobbyist. This one-year ban needs to be longer, as former Congressional officials are more likely to use personal favors to persuade if they are allowed to lobby just one year after retiring.
The bill would have banned lobbyist-sponsored travel until November, but it would not have addressed the perks that officials receive from flying on private, chartered flights with the lobbyists. As it stands now, members of Congress only consider private flights with lobbyists equivalent to first-class flights. Congress should be required to pay for those flights based on their worth as chartered flights.
The new bill should outlaw lunches bought by lobbyists for politicians, as the old bill only limits the amount a lobbyist can spend on lunch. It should also address the need to disclose lobbyist-organized fundraisers for candidates and any campaign work done by a lobbyist on behalf of a candidate.
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
April 27, 2006
In honor of Abramoff
Washington lobbyists lobbied for a weak lobbying reform bill. They got what they lobbied for. Shouldn't that be proof enough that most lobbyists - Jack Abramoff comes to mind - have too much power?
Not, apparently, for the Republican leadership that is pushing a watered-down version of already watered-down reform. The House could vote on it today.
Paul Miller, president of the American League of Lobbyists, told The Associated Press that requiring lobbyists to report every contact with lawmakers, as one version of the legislation did, would make it too hard to work with members of Congress to set up charity basketball games. "I'm probably not going to do that anymore."
What a tear-jerker. And what a load of hooey. If members of Congress can't keep getting lobbyists' "charity," needy kids can't, either?
Insincerity is rampant in the watery House proposal. It would ban private groups from paying for junkets, but only until after this November's election. It would allow members to keep traveling on private, corporate jets while paying only the much lower cost of a commercial ticket. It would prohibit lobbyists from spending more than $50 on gifts to members of Congress, but it would allow lobbyists to spend thousands of dollars on parties with the stated purpose of "honoring" members at party conventions. It would take the already skimpy one-year moratorium on ex-lawmakers lobbying their former colleagues and ... leave it exactly as it is.
The version that has passed the Senate is slightly better; for example, it would ban gifts, permanently restrict privately financed travel and increase the revolving-door wait to two years. Neither bill, however, would set up a much-needed independent ethics panel. Captive ethics committees have been toothless, particularly in the House, where even the Abramoff scandal, the prison sentence given Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif. - imposed for accepting bribes from a lobbyist - and the decision by Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, to skulk out of Congress as he and his aides sink into their own lobbying scandal, could not move the ethics committee to action.
Skeptics guessed that the House wouldn't have the stomach for true reform when the two main candidates to succeed Rep. DeLay as majority leader had their own lobbying problems. Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, who won the job, once passed out checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor. There also was hope, though, that scandals had become so blatant that Congress would have to do something meaningful. Unless the better proposals and amendments that have been shunted aside are revived at the last minute, that hope is dead.
Turns out it doesn't pay to bet on the honor of lawmakers. They are used to getting paid by lobbyists who expect them to have none.
The Providence Journal (Rhode Island)
April 27, 2006
Worse than window dressing
Today the U.S. House is expected to take up the lobbying - and ethics - reform bill that has been in the works since the Jack Abramoff scandal first broke. If all goes according to GOP-leadership plan, House members will approve legislation so ineffectual as to be almost a parody of itself. Then, behind closed doors, House-Senate conferees will hash out the differences between that bill and a slightly (only slightly) better Senate version; President Bush will sign it into law; and voilà! Members can return to their districts and say they've taken care of lobbying reform.
The problem is that the process so far illustrates exactly the kind of congressional disingenuousness that makes 80 percent of Americans think that bribery and other corruption are widespread in Washington. For example, for all the talk of need for transparency and openness in government, House GOP leadership is expected to bring the lobbying-reform bill to the floor in a way that would limit debate and prevent members from offering any amendments.
The House bill itself, meanwhile, is a masterpiece of subterfuge. It promises to ban privately funded travel - but the ban expires in December. It requires lobbyists to disclose fundraising events - but then defines fundraising events so narrowly (only events specifically billed "to honor" a member of Congress) as to render the provision meaningless. About all the House bill does is slightly increase disclosure of lobbying activities and "earmarks" in spending bills.
That this will only tell us more about what we already know is a colossal problem. It is as if a doctor attending to a dying heart-attack patient recommended another round of tests, instead of life-saving surgery.
Common Cause President Chellie Pingree , who called the Senate bill "largely window dressing," has rightly tabbed the House version "worse than window dressing." At least the Senate bill has some provisions to increase disclosure of fake "grassroots" lobbying, and mandates a two-year "cooling-off" period between a Capitol Hill or White House job and a lobbying job, instead of the current one year.
Neither bill, however, would create an independent ethics-oversight committee, which good-government types have been calling the most important reform, on the premise that if you ask members to police themselves, you get the broken ethics-oversight process we have now. Nor does either bill make any attempt to limit the amount of private money in campaigns - which is what gives the lobbyists much of their influence. Turn to full public funding of elections (as some, including Rep. Barney Frank [D.-Mass.] and David Obey [D.-Wis.], have proposed), and suddenly members of Congress would surely feel much less obligated to sit down with every lobbyist who comes a-knocking.
Asking Congress to pass lobbying and ethics reform is a difficult task. Most members probably don't think of themselves as unethical people, and would no doubt bristle at the suggestion that they could be bought off for a steak dinner or a ride on a corporate jet. (House Majority Leader John Boehner [R.-Ohio], for example, called a private-travel ban "childish.") But what matters is not the specific trips or meals or fundraisers, but the aggregate: that too many lawmakers let themselves - often without thinking - become constantly surrounded by lobbyists, because there is so much lobbyists can and do provide for them.
Perhaps the House will suddenly get religion and approve something resembling meaningful lobbying reform. More likely, though, Sen. John McCain (R.-Ariz.) will have been proven right when, after approval of the Senate bill, he proclaimed: "The good news is there will be more indictments, and we will be revisiting this issue."
The New York Times
April 26, 2006
The Lobbyist Empowerment Act
The House Republican leaders managed a new feat of cravenness during the recent recess, hollowing out their long promised ''lobbying reform'' bill to meet the dictates of - who else? - Washington's power lobbyists.
During two weeks of supposed inactivity, the leadership bill was chiseled down at the behest of K Street to an Orwellian shell of righteous platitudes about transparency and integrity. The measure to be debated this week has been stripped of provisions to require full disclosure of lobbyists' campaign fund-raising powers and V.I.P. access in Congress. The measure buries all attempts at instituting credible ethics enforcement in the House.
The nation should not be fooled. The proposal is a cadaverous pretense that Congress has learned the corrupting lessons of Jack Abramoff, the disgraced superlobbyist; Representative Tom DeLay, the fallen majority leader; and Duke Cunningham, the imprisoned former congressman. It makes a laughingstock of the pious promises of last January to ban privately financed junketeering by lawmakers. Instead, these adventures in quid pro quo lawmaking would be suspended only temporarily, safe to blossom again after the next election.
The bill's cosmetic requirements for limited disclosure are overshadowed by the brazen refusal to plug the loopholes for lobbyists' gifts or to end their lavish parties for ''honoring'' our all too easily seduced lawmakers. The G.O.P. leaders can't even marshal the courage to rein in the shameful use of corporate jets by pliant lawmakers.
It's hard to believe that members of Congress mindful of voters' diminishing respect would attempt such an election-year con. One Republican proponent had the gall to argue that we mustn't ''chill'' the right of lobbyists, the ultimate insiders, to petition government.
The true measure of the debate will be whether the House continues to suppress a bipartisan package of vigorous reforms offered by Martin Meehan, the Massachusetts Democrat, and Christopher Shays, the Connecticut Republican. These measures would at long last galvanize ethics enforcement and crimp the disgraceful symbiosis of lobbyist and lawmaker on Capitol Hill.
Roll Call
April 26, 2006
Bogus 'Reform'
Did we miss a surge in public approval of Congress that enables Republican leaders to think they can blow off serious lobbying reforms this year? Or do they think that, notwithstanding a dismal 23 percent Gallup approval number, voters are so inattentive that they will accept anything labeled "reform" as a real change in the way Congress and K Street go about their business?
The House GOP leadership's bill, the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, certainly seems based on the latter assumption. After promising major reform at the beginning of the year - when the scandals involving former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Calif.) were first in full blush - GOP leaders produced a weak preliminary proposal in March that now has become almost laughable as it moves to the House floor this week.
The bill makes a mockery of its own title. Beyond increasing the frequency of lobbyist reporting requirements and upping penalties for violations, it imposes neither accountability nor transparency on the lobbyist-legislator relationship. Congress ought to require timely reporting of every contact between a lobbyist and either a Member or a staffer at which legislative business is discussed. Neither the House proposal nor the Senate-passed measure contains such a provision.
Unlike the Senate bill and a House Democratic alternative, the House GOP bill also includes no disclosure provision for "grass-roots lobbying" - the euphemistically named coalitions that special interests use to generate mass mailings in the hopes of affecting legislation.
The bill bans lobbyists from flying aboard corporate jets with lawmakers, but - again, unlike the Senate bill and the Democratic proposal - it contains no requirement that Members report such travel or the identity of non-lobbyist corporate officials who might be aboard. The bill requires Members to reimburse companies at the first-class commercial rate for the distance, not the more-appropriate charter rate.
We don't favor a total ban on privately funded travel by Members, as the Democrats call for, but we would like to see full reporting of such travel. The House bill stops such travel until Dec. 15 - after the election, of course - until a study is produced by the House ethics committee on the rules that should apply.
Under the House bill, it will be marginally easier than it is now to determine what campaign contributions lobbyists have made to Members, political action committees, party committees and Member-connected charities. But there's no requirement – as the Senate bill and the Democratic proposal would have it - to report fundraising efforts by lobbyists.
Although there's been extensive talk about bringing special-interest earmarks under control, the House bill merely makes it out of order for an appropriations bill not to include a list of such projects and their sponsors. And nothing is done about earmarks hidden in authorization bills.
Moreover, there's no requirement that bills be available online 24 or 48 hours prior to floor action so that Members and the public know what's in them.
This bill all but shouts to voters that the GOP is not serious about reform and that it values its ties to K Street more than the public's trust. There will be consequences.
USA TODAY
April 25, 2006
Snow job on lobbying
Congress still doesn't get it. After more than a year of negative headlines about political corruption and money-soaked alliances with lobbyists, House leaders are weakening their already anemic excuse for reform. They hope to pass the plan this week and then, with the glowing pride of grandees doling pennies to the poor, con the public into believing they're actually giving up enough of their prized perks to make a difference.
The plan - pushed by Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier and Majority Leader John Boehner - contains a few enticing illusions, such as modest changes in disclosure rules and pork-barrel spending restraints. But it's far from anything lobbyists might fear. In light of the tawdry political culture exposed by the sprawling case of super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, awaiting sentencing in Washington, the measure is most noteworthy for what it would fail to do:
* Cushy travel paid for by private groups - a device lobbyists use to buy favors - would be banned, but only until after the election. Next year, it would be back to business as usual.
* Lobbyists would be barred from flying on corporate jets with members of Congress, a response to calls to abolish this cozy form of special-interest access. But nothing would prevent executives who aren't registered lobbyists from continuing to do the same thing. And nothing would alter the practice of routinely making these planes available for members' political or personal trips at deeply subsidized fares.
* There's no provision for creating a much-needed independent, non-partisan Office of Public Integrity to give credibility to probes of ethics complaints. Ethics committees of the Senate and House of Representatives have proven inadequate for the task.
* House Republican leaders have dropped proposed requirements that lobbyists disclose which lawmakers and aides they have contacted and how they have raised money for politicians. As a result, lobbyists banned from paying $100 for a congressman's restaurant dinner would remain free to pay $25,000 or $50,000 to underwrite a fundraising party to "honor" the member.
* Most rules allowing members of Congress and their staffs to accept gifts from lobbyists would remain unchanged.
The sorry record of this Congress cries out for real reform, not a toothless sham. One member has been sent to prison for extorting bribes from lobbyists and favor-seekers. Former House majority leader Tom DeLay is under indictment on political money-laundering charges, two of his former aides have pleaded guilty to corruption charges, and he's quitting because he fears the voters' backlash. At least a half-dozen other members, from both parties, are under investigation by various federal agencies on everything from bribery to insider trading.
Not coincidentally, polls show public disillusionment with Congress at the highest levels in more than a decade. This is fueled in part by the lobbying and corruption scandals that show special interests and self-interest trumping the public interest.
If the self-righteous incumbents can't do better than this outrageous substitute for needed reform, they will deserve to be defeated in November.
The Washington Post
April 25, 2006
Sham Lobbying Reform; Jack? Jack Abramoff? No, the name doesn't ring a bell.
DO YOU remember, back when the spotlight was on Jack Abramoff, how House Republican leaders pledged to get tough on lobbyists? Well, you may; apparently they don't. The House plans this week to take up the Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, a watered-down sham that would provide little in the way of accountability or transparency. If the Senate-passed measure was a disappointment, the House version is simply a joke - or, more accurately, a ruse aimed at convincing what the leaders must believe is a doltish public that the House has done something to clean up Washington.
Privately paid travel, such as the lavish golfing trips to Scotland that Mr. Abramoff arranged for members? "Private travel has been abused by some, and I believe we need to put an end to it," said Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). But that was January; this is now. Privately funded trips wouldn't be banned under the House bill, just "suspended" until Dec. 15 (yes, just after the election) while the House ethics committee, that bastion of anemic do-nothingness, ostensibly develops recommendations.
Meals and other gifts from lobbyists? "I believe that it's also very important for us to proceed with a significantly stronger gift ban, which would prevent members and staff from personally benefiting from gifts from lobbyists," said Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) in - you guessed it - January. Now, Mr. Dreier's bill would leave the current gift limits unchanged.
Flights on corporate jets? No problem; the bill wouldn't permit corporate lobbyists to tag along, but other corporate officials are welcome aboard while lawmakers get the benefits of private jets at the cost of a first-class ticket.
Mr. Dreier's Rules Committee took an already weak House bill and made it weaker. From the version of the measure approved by the House Judiciary Committee, it dropped provisions that would require lobbyists to disclose fundraisers they host for candidates, campaign checks they solicit for lawmakers and parties they finance (at conventions, for example) in honor of members.
The bill would require more frequent reporting by lobbyists and somewhat more detail. Lobbyists would have to list their campaign contributions – information that's available elsewhere but nonetheless convenient to have on disclosure forms. And some additional information would have to be disclosed - meals or gifts that lobbyists provide to lawmakers, along with contributions to their charities. Some lawmakers want to strengthen the bill. But will the Rules Committee allow their proposals to be considered? Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) would require lawmakers to pay market rates for corporate charters. Mr. Shays and Rep. Martin T. Meehan (D-Mass.) would supplement the paralyzed House ethics committee with an independent congressional ethics office - needed now more than ever. House Democrats have a far more robust version of lobbying reform that deserves an up-or-down vote. Having produced a bill this bad, the Rules Committee ought at least to give lawmakers an opportunity to vote for something better.
KRTBN Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News - The Olympian
April 24, 2006
Legislators should not be for sale
When members of Congress return from their Easter recess this week, they must adopt meaningful election reforms, not the watered-down legislation prepared for them by Republican leaders.
Congress should not be for sale to the highest bidder - the lobbyist with the most free gifts, corporate jet trips around the country and golf outings to the British Isles.
The proposed reforms do nothing to solve the problem of an ineffectual and useless House Ethics Committee. The committee has been in partisan gridlock for a year - sitting idly on the sidelines as Majority Leader Tom DeLay was driven from power by scandal and as lobbyist Jack Abramoff was charged and admitted guilt in a congressional influence-peddling case that has majority Republicans ducking for cover and promising reforms.
Their promises are empty, however.
Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Martin Meehan, D-Mass., by contrast, have proposed an enlightened amendment to HR 4975 to establish an independent Office of Public Integrity to work with the Ethics Committee and assist in enforcing the House ethics rules. But there's discussion that the Shays/Meehan amendment won't even be voted upon.
That's not ethics reform. That's railroading.
Fresno Bee (California)
April 23, 2006
Congressional oversight; Give lobbying enforcement to Federal Elections Commission
Despite multiple lobbying scandals, Congress is poised to enact piddling reforms. The Senate voted on the issue in March; the House votes Tuesday.
The one reform that would matter is missing: Handing oversight and enforcement to an independent agency. Both the House and Senate continue to rely on a failed self-regulation model in which members of Congress are supposed to police their colleagues. This "fox-guarding-the-henhouse" approach is what needs fixing most.
The Baltimore Sun
April 13, 2006
Sullied Congress needs an extreme makeover
WASHINGTON - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay may be gone, but Congress' problems are not.
It's obvious to everyone outside the coddling confines of the Washington Beltway that Congress' bad image is grounded squarely in the reality of its bad behavior - behavior that, like the image, is shared by Republicans and Democrats alike. Perceptions won't change until the facts do.
Cosmetic - or, depending on your perspective, comical - half-measures such as a proposal to ban registered lobbyists from the congressional gym only reinforce the public's accurate sense that legislators live in an alternate ethical universe. Congress can't get its house in order with new drapes and a fresh coat of paint. And the weak lobbying reform efforts wandering out of the House and Senate won't cut it. It's time for Extreme Makeover: Congressional Edition.
In the age of transparency - when cable news is on the air 24/7 and any blogger with a modem has a global audience - image and reality have converged. Bad news has nowhere to hide. Congress' problem isn't that the public doesn't understand the facts; it's that people know exactly what's going on.
Yet elected officials, unwilling to confront the reality that they are too readily influenced by money, are attempting to paper over what they regard as a cosmetic problem with superficial fixes.
Republicans and Democrats alike congratulated themselves for proposing a ban on lobbyist-funded travel such as the Scotland golfing adventures that launched the current wave of scandals.
Many Americans reply: Did you actually need a rule to tell you that was wrong? The answer, evidently, is "yes," as some members of Congress are unable to imagine a world in which they buy their own plane tickets or pay their own greens fees.
The reforms embraced thus far are a spin doctor's prescription, not the tough medicine the situation requires. They're good for a press release, but they do little to change the underlying facts.
Congress needs to join most Americans in a world of ethical absolutes: no gifts, no trips, no meals - no exchanges of anything of value beyond a handshake.
The Washington Post
April 13, 2006
Real Lobbying Reform; A House committee tackles the nexus between campaign cash and
legislative influence.
DON'T HOLD your breath for this to turn up in the final version of lobbying reform, but the House Judiciary Committee approved an amendment last week that would help shed light on the symbiotic relationship between lobbyists and lawmakers. Offered by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the provision would require lobbyists to report not just the campaign contributions they gave directly to lawmakers but also the campaign checks they solicit for or deliver to lawmakers - in other words, a measure of the real influence they wield. Astonishingly, this proposal passed the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 28 to 4 - along with the underlying bill, a proposal that started out weak and was watered down from there.
We're almost reluctant to flag this provision for fear that it will be shot down all the more quickly, but in fact no other disclosure requirement would be more useful in explaining the way Washington does business than this one. That may help explain why, until now, it hasn't been a part of any of the major proposals. The central role that lobbyists play in hunting, gathering and delivering campaign cash – rather than the checks they write directly - is the true source of their power. But while both sides in the transaction are well aware of how much Lobbyist X has raised for Representative Y, the media and the public are - at least based on the required disclosures - in the dark.
Presidential candidates - first George W. Bush and after that Sen. John F. Kerry and other Democrats - have shown that it's feasible to provide information about the amounts bundlers have raised for them; their voluntary disclosure has added significantly to public understanding. If lawmakers are serious about effective reform, making certain the Van Hollen amendment survives would be a good way to demonstrate their commitment.
The Dallas Morning News
April 12, 2006
Not Good Enough Let's hope House gets real about ethics reform
There's reform, and then there's what Congress considers reform.
Ninety senators voted last month for an ethics bill that will mop up some of Washington's mess but won't wipe away all of the slop. Never mind that ex-Tom DeLay aides and superlobbyist Jack Abramoff have owned up to using bribes and other wonderful means to achieve their goals. The Senate mostly ducked from the tough stuff...
The prospects for change don't look any better in the House. GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert has had a tough time bringing up his own lobby reform plans. The country also is smack-dab in the middle of a historic immigration debate, and House members have bolted from the Capitol, off on another one of those two-week breaks. That's especially unconscionable, given how hard it is to gain momentum on issues like this. We can only hope that representatives, including the lawmakers representing North Texas, get religion on this subject. For example, House members should insist on an independent office to investigate ethics violations.
Copley News Service
April 3, 2006
Half-baked, but pass it
It's easy to understand why Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., voted against a grotesquely misnamed "lobby reform" bill last week. The bill is only a reluctant and halfhearted response to the urgent need for far-reaching changes in the relationship between lobbying and lawmaking in Washington. The bill is not entirely worthless, which is the only reason it should be enacted.
The need for change was dramatized by the career of Jack Abramoff, the Washington lobbyist who passed out freebies - trips, lavish meals, tickets to sporting events - to members of Congress. Last week, Abramoff got his comeuppance when he was sentenced to prison on fraud charges.
But while the judicial branch of government moved against Abramoff, the legislative branch has been sitting on its hands. The bill that cleared the Senate last week by a vote of 90-8 is more notable for what it does not contain than for what it does.
It does not, for example, create an independent Office of Public Integrity to investigate accusations of abuse by lawmakers. Nor does it limit lawmakers' ability to fly on corporate jets at discounted rates, a practice that gives the lobbyists who go along on these flights plenty of face time with lawmakers.
The Record (Bergen County, NJ)
April 2, 2006
Congress still for sale; Lobbying reform falls far short
Probably the best thing that could happen now in Washington is for a few members of Congress to be implicated by Jack Abramoff.
Only a scandal of such magnitude might shake Congress out of its stupor regarding the need for tough lobbying restrictions. Only indictments of a few of their fellow senators or House members might impel representatives to go beyond the mostly superficial reforms they have passed so far.
As it is, the ethics measures passed by the Senate last week and under consideration by the House do little more than give congressional representatives cover for this year's elections.
Senators who are most serious about reform know that. That's why eight of them, including Republican John McCain of Arizona and Democrat Barack Obama of Illinois, voted against the Senate measure even as the overwhelming majority of their colleagues voted for it.
Mr. McCain rightly punctured the balloon of self-congratulation that his fellow senators sent up after the vote. The bill's provisions, he declared, are "very, very weak."
Or, as another Republican senator, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, put it: "What ethics bill?"
Just consider:
* The Senate voted down a bipartisan proposal to establish an independent Office of Public Integrity to enforce congressional ethics rules. Senators apparently aren't all that interested in having their relationships with lobbyists and campaign donors subject to real scrutiny.
* The Senate bill also fails to add any new restrictions on members of Congress taking discounted trips on private planes owned by lobbyists and other moneyed interests. It seems these subsidized junkets are just too hard for lawmakers to resist.
* And the Senate vote to ban gifts and meals from lobbyists to members of Congress is hollow, for the bill does nothing to stop the organizations that employ lobbyists from giving such gifts or from throwing lavish parties for senators and representatives.
Perhaps most damaging is that the Senate imposed no new rules on campaign contributions by lobbyists or their clients. Such fundraising is one of the chief ways that today's lobbyists win the loyalty of elected officials. Mr. Abramoff and his lobbying clients alone contributed a whopping $22 million to federal candidates for office, their political action committees or political parties, according to a new report by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.
Nearly every senator and most House members benefited from the largesse of this single lobbyist and his clients. Just imagine the cumulative effect of the money from all lobbyists and their clients.
But there is still hope that Congress will be prodded to institute some of these much needed reforms.
Ironically, that hope may lie with Mr. Abramoff.
Chicago Tribune
March 31, 2006
Congress keeps 'for sale' sign
A few months ago, Congress came down with a sudden case of reform fever. GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff had just pleaded guilty to fraud and conspiracy charges, and his ties to former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and others in Congress were getting increased scrutiny. Fearing a voter backlash, lawmakers anxiously started talking about restricting an array of perks such as privately financed golfing trips and lavish meals. Some said lobbyists should be barred from giving them anything worth more than $20.
That was too much for Sen. Trent Lott. "Some of these things would be ludicrous," the Mississippi Republican complained. "... We're going to cut meals to $20 a meal. Where are they going to eat? McDonald's?" Perish the thought.
Lott's mind-set pretty much sums up Washington these days. The Senate on Wednesday passed a lobbying bill that was weak enough to keep everybody in the capital – those who buy and those who sell influence - feeling good.
How weak is it? Gifts and meals would be out, but the members could still take trips to faraway places that are funded by special-interest groups. They could still slip special funding requests - the infamous 'earmarks' - into legislation, though it would be slightly more difficult to get them passed.
And at that, the Senate has done more than the House. A reform package pushed by House Speaker Dennis Hastert has been sliced and diced by his own party's members. The speaker may not even get his own legislation to a floor vote. Most likely the House will try the same ploy as the Senate - let members vote on some weak legislation so they can go home and tell us they did the noble thing. Then the House and Senate will bury the whole issue.
The Miami Herald
March 31, 2006
Taking baby steps toward lobby reform
It was just a coincidence that the Senate approved a lobbying reform measure on the same day that a federal judge in Miami sentenced über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff to nearly six years in prison, but the two events have a cause-and-effect connection.
Public outrage generated by Abramoff's influence-peddling schemes in Washington forced an otherwise apathetic Senate to respond by making a show of cleaning up its act. But no one should be fooled - the Senate's action is little more than a shrewdly calculated effort to appease the electorate while doing as little as possible to change the rules of the game.
The New York Times
March 31, 2006
Lobby Reform Lite
With the ghost of Jack Abramoff, the recently sentenced rogue lobbyist, wafting above the debate, the Senate has voted for a halfhearted package of reforms that would come nowhere near curing the easy money, quid pro quo culture that now bedevils the Capitol.
Facing voters' flagging confidence, the Senate chose to emphasize greater disclosure by lobbyists while rejecting such vital reforms as the creation of an independent office to investigate ethics abuses. The instinct to protect privileged clubbiness carried the day, most glaringly when the Senate spiked any idea of ending lawmakers' shameless use of the executive jets so eagerly offered by corporate officials bent on insider access.
Constituents who are grateful to see even the slightest sign of reform will be happy that the senators have voted to extend to two years the mandatory waiting time before a former lawmaker can strike it rich as a lobbyist. The current wait is one year. The bill also takes the first steps toward uncovering the stealthy world of grass-roots lobbying investments in lawmakers' home districts.
The Senate bill would make it harder - but by no means impossible - for members to quietly ''earmark'' pork projects in the budget at the behest of lobbyists. But even such an obvious reform as banning meals and gifts from lobbyists came equipped with a gaping loophole so the corporate employers of lobbyists could still pick up those checks.
The unfinished ethics agenda begins with the most critical issue of all: an end to the pervasive role of lobbyists as campaign finance brokers and money bundlers for incumbent politicians. It's reached the point where the people's representatives blatantly designate lobbyists to head their fund-raising teams. This moneyed back-scratching is the seedbed for scandal, but neither house shows any appetite to confront it.
Also ignored was a ban on lawmakers' junketeering at the expense of special-interest check writers. The Senate chose instead to require prior approval of private trips by its spineless ethics committee, a step that would hardly mitigate the cheesiness. Taxpayers, not corporate sponsors, should pay for global fact-finding.
For all its shortcomings, the Senate is a light-year ahead of the House. There, reform proposals have been parceled out to committees for indefinite marination as Republican leaders face rebellious members who want no part of real reform. The chances seem slim for two-house action that truly dents the clout of the booming lobbying industry.
Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania)
March 22, 2006
Meaningful lobby reform is overdue
After a fast start, lobbying reform in Congress is sputtering - and may not even make it to the finish line. A proposal offered in the U.S. House on Thursday only slightly resembles the aggressive measure circulated previously by House Speaker Dennis Hastert. Hastert, in the wake of the political fallout from the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, had urged permanently banning members of Congress from accepting privately financed trips on corporate jets, overseas junkets and gifts worth more than $20, such as meals or tickets to sporting events. He also wanted to ban pork-barrel spending or "earmarks" and strip former members of their visiting privileges to the House floor or in the House gym if they became lobbyists.
Hastert said the new rules were needed to restore Congress' tainted reputation. Yet, the proposal failed to gain traction in the House, with both Republicans and Democrats reluctant to sever ties with the $10 billion-a-year lobbying industry. The House now proposes to suspend privately financed travel for members of Congress, but only until this year's congressional elections. It would put off a decision on a permanent ban of travel, meals or other gifts until after the election.
Also, the latest proposal would require lobbyists to disclose their activities more frequently, but includes few safeguards to ensure compliance. The latest House proposal would do nothing about pork-barrel spending. Nothing to discourage lobbyists who are former members of Congress from mingling with current lawmakers on the House floor or in the House gym. Nothing about lengthening the period in which former members or their staffs are prohibited from lobbying their former colleagues - all which came to light in the Abramoff scandal.
Things aren't much better in the Senate. Legislation there would bar lawmakers from accepting meals and gifts, such as sports tickets, from registered lobbyists. But, that's about it. The Senate would do nothing about campaign funding, which gives lobbyists their strongest clout. The House version puts limits on contributions from independent groups known as 527s but, without Senate support, it goes nowhere. As a result, lobbyists will still be able to contribute to lawmakers' campaigns, organize fund-raising events and arrange trips subsidized by their clients, just as they do now.
The Senate and House must get their acts together, if meaningful lobbying reform is to have a chance. The challenge is huge: Some of Washington's top lobbyists are already saying they'll find ways around any new restrictions. For example, if meals are restricted or banned, executives from the home office could pick up the tabs because, technically, they're not lobbyists.
"There are lots of ways will can still get our cases before members of Congress," says J. Steven Hart of the lobbying firm of Williams & Jenson. Also, lobbyists are employing even more sophisticated tactics to spread their influence. They're widening their use of the Internet to mobilize voters and donating large sums to think tanks and charities affiliated with some of Congress' biggest names.
Some say the Dubai ports controversy, among others, diverted the attention of Congress - and the public - away from lobby reform. That's only partly true. Actually, Congress has been backpedaling on lobby reform almost from the earliest days of the Abramoff scandal. One indication was the House's rejection of Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona as majority leader. Shadegg had promised to crack down on lobbyists.
The Abramoff scandal is just the latest one to draw attention to Congress' insatiable appetite for lobbyist dollars. More scandal is on the way, unless tough restrictions on lobbyists are imposed. Congress must recognize this, and act decisively to get lobby reform back on track.
The Columbus Dispatch (Ohio)
March 12, 2006
Ethics legislation warrants better response than some give it
Voters already are disgusted with lawmakers in the wake of revelations about disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his ties to members of Congress, including Rep. Bob Ney, R-Heath, and after now former GOP Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of California admitted taking millions of dollars in bribes from defense contractors.
Lawmakers in the House and Senate are scurrying to get ahead of voter anger by tackling lobby-reform bills, considering everything from banning privately funded travel to all lobbyist-bought meals and gifts.
But Republican Sen. George V. Voinovich of Ohio helped lead an effort to kill the independent ethics-office proposal when a bipartisan lobby-reform bill moved through the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee recently. And Voinovich, chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, again is leading the charge against establishing the independent office as the lobby-reform bill is debated on the Senate floor, and perhaps voted on this week.
Basically, Voinovich claims that the Ethics Committee does a good job probing alleged transgressions, even if it is behind closed doors and with virtually no transparency. Senators, Voinovich says, should police themselves.
He says he would love to talk more about the work that goes on to ensure that fellow senators stay on the ethical straight and narrow, and says the committee could satisfy the desire for more openness with an annual report providing such information as the numbers of complaints investigated and admonitions issued - without naming names of course.
Voinovich endorses many of the proposed lobby reforms, but insists that "creating an unnecessary and duplicative independent counsel within the Senate, which results in the undermining of the bipartisan enforcement work that has, and continues to take place with the Senate Ethics Committee, and does not address the issues that resulted in the current scandals, should not be part of . . . any sensible lobby reforms."
There it is again: Trust us.
House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, who will play a large part in deciding what House lobby-reform bill reaches the floor, showed a similar mind-set when asked last week about a proposal by several House members to set up an independent ethics office.
"I think members are in the best position to judge other members," Boehner said, according to the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call. "I have never been for that (an independent ethics office) and won't be, and I don't expect it to be part of our (lobby-reform) package."
Actually, voters are in the best position to judge lawmakers, at least when it comes to deciding whether they should continue to represent them on Capitol Hill.
Charleston Gazette (West Virginia)
February 23, 2006
Scandal without reform is a waste
Cynics are fond of meditating on the evil done in the name of reform. I'm a great believer in perpetual reform myself, on the theory that political systems, like houses, are always in want of some fixing. However, I have seen some pluperfect doozies passed off as reform in recent years, starting with "Social Security reform."
Conservatives used to oppose reform on principle, correctly regarding it as a vile plot by goo-goo good government forces to snatch away their perks. This once led to a colorful scene in the Texas legislature in which the letters appeared on the rear ends of six female members of a baton drill team, who turned and perched their derrieres pertly on the brass rail of the House gallery.
Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times when it appears we may not get a nickel's worth of reform out of the entire Jack Abramoff saga. Sickening. A real waste of a splendid scandal. When else do politicians ever get around to fixing huge ethical holes in the roof except when they're caught red-handed? Do not let this mess go to waste! Call now, and demand reform!
Sheesh. Tom DeLay gets indicted, and all the Republicans can think of is a $20 gift ban. Forget the people talking about "lobby reform." The lobby does not need to be reformed, the Congress needs to be reformed. This is about congressional corruption, and it is not limited to the surface stuff like taking free meals, hotels and trips. This is about corruption that bites deep into the process of making laws in the public interest. The root of the rot is money (surprise!), and the only way to get control of the money is through public campaign financing.
Wausau Daily Herald (Wisconsin)
February 15, 2006
Reform must begin with people
Often it takes serious failure or scandal to force meaningful reform in Washington.
With plenty of each to go around these days in the wake of "super-lobbyist" Jack Abramoff's guilty plea on multiple counts of fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy to bribe public officials, the time is ripe for meaningful lobby reform. The good news is that several such proposals are under consideration in congressional committees. Among the most promising are twin offerings by Sen. John McCain (S 1398) and Rep. Christopher Shays (HR 4575).
Serious legislation must include six changes to make reform meaningful:
* Create a free searchable online lobbying disclosure Web site.
* Make transparent specific government officials who are lobbied.
* Report grassroots lobby efforts including mail-in campaigns to lawmakers.
* Extend to two years of the ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and staffers.
* Implement strict travel guidelines including a ban on or repayment for privately funded travel.
* Impose a ban or serious limitation on lobbyist gift-giving.
But the most important component of good legislation, clear enforcement mechanisms, are lacking from all proposed lobby reform bills.
The Pantagraph (Bloomington, Illinois)
February 8, 2006
More than superficial ethics changes needed
U.S. Rep. Ray LaHoods message to lobbyists who have raised money for him may be unique, but it will be among many ideas as lawmakers try to distance themselves from tainted lobbyist money in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal.
LaHood, a Peoria Republican, has told 23 lobbyists that he has hired a professional fund-raiser and no longer wants their help in sponsoring fund-raisers for him.
Although LaHood couldnt say for sure how much they raised last year, the total likely exceeded $1 million for his congressional campaign and his exploratory run for the governors job in Illinois.
Republicans are the ones moving quickly with ethics reform ideas because Abramoff was recognized as a "Republican lobbyist," although some of the firms and clients he worked with also donated money to Democratic campaigns.
So, Republican moves to tighten lobbying restrictions will be portrayed by Democrats as election-year moves to garner votes.
The question is whether any of the moves will really change "politics as usual" in the nations capital.
Lawmakers code of ethics already says any person in government service should – not must, but "should" - "Put loyalty to the highest moral principals and to country above loyalty to government persons, party or department." It also says they should, "Never discriminate unfairly by the dispensing of special favors or privileges to anyone." Apparently lobbyists have never counted.
For any changes to be effective, they must hit lawmakers where it hurts – crippling their chances for re-election or denying them pension benefits. Members of Congress now have to be convicted of breaching national security or virtually committing a felony against a person before their pension benefits "may" be affected.
Last week, Republicans trotted out changes they expect the public to praise: Requiring two years instead of one before a former member of Congress or staff can join a lobbying firm; not allowing former members or their spouses who work in lobbying to use the congressional gymnasium. Whoop-te-do! Now that's getting serious.
The problem with most proposed changes coming down the pike will be enforcement. Expecting a member of Congress to seriously sanction another member is akin to asking the fox to guard the hen house.
To that end, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., has joined with two fellow Democrats in promoting legislation to create an independent office to enforce rules on members. That sounds like an ideal solution, but we have no faith in any "independent" office in a politically charged capital.
"We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to adopt genuine and far-reaching lobbying reform," Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., told The Associated Press.
What he has unintentionally implied is that this generation of members of Congress hasn’t always acted ethically in their dealings with lobbyists. To that we agree.
Congress wants to kill the perception that lobbyists run Washington. We have yet to see tough legislation that would make that happen.
Public financing of congressional campaigns could address that problem. However, the way people are so fed up with the political chicanery in Washington now, we wonder if there would be enough volunteer contributions to even finance campaigns.