Cleaning Up Congress

Craig Holman

May 05, 2006

Craig Holman is a legislative representative for Public Citizen’s Congress Watch.

With one member of Congress already in prison, others waiting indictment, and several lobbyists working with the feds in January of this year pointing at who they bribed and when, expectations were high that a frightened Congress would pass meaningful lobbying and ethics reform and finally clean up its act.

That was then; this is now.

While lobbying reform legislation raced on the fast track, several months passed and no further indictments of lawmakers materialized. Congress grew increasingly comfortable. You could feel the momentum for sweeping reform fade away. Weak reform proposals replaced bold ones, and then were whittled down even further in committee.

On March 29, the U.S. Senate failed the American people with a lobbying and ethics reform bill that did very little of either. The House bill that finally emerged on Wednesday is even worse.

The “Lobbying Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006″ (H.R. 4975)—approved by a thin margin of 217-to-213 on May 3, with 20 Republicans joining nearly all Democrats in voting “no” (eight Democrats defected and voted “yes”)—began as a woefully inadequate response to the most significant ethics and lobbying scandals that have swept Capitol Hill in nearly three decades. The bill fails to restrict campaign fundraising activities by lobbyists, ban gifts from lobbyists, curb revolving door abuses or create an independent oversight and compliance office. It temporarily restricts privately sponsored travel—but only until June 15. In the meantime, corporations and special interest groups can pay for travel junkets for members and staff, if approved by a two-thirds vote of the toothless House ethics committee.

This legislation not only is inadequate, it makes a mockery of the lobbying reform drive.

When asked how significantly the House lobbying reform bill will impact the lobbying profession by The Buffalo News, Paul Miller, president of the American League of Lobbyists answered: “That little thing?”

Hope for fundamental reform no longer lies with this Congress.

But there is hope. The lobbying reform drive for the time being has left the legislative arena and has now been thrust into the electoral arena.

Make no mistake about it: corrupt influence peddling on Capitol Hill is a systemic problem and it is not the sole province of one party or the other.

Nevertheless, it is the majority party—the Republican party—that is in control. As a result, Republicans received most of the money and perks from lobbyists involved in the current scandals. And it is the Republican congressional leadership that proposed and whipped this pathetically weak legislation through Congress.

Public Citizen will not allow this fraud of “lobbying reform” legislation be the last word on the subject. We have no intention of letting Congress close the door on the public’s legitimate fears that Congress is for sale. We will continue knocking at the door until Congress finally answers.

Public Citizen will be conducting a pledge drive to carry the issue of genuine lobbying reform into the 2006 elections. We will be asking all congressional candidates to pledge to support the six benchmarks of genuine lobbying reform. These benchmarks are:

1. Break the nexus between lobbyists, money and lawmakers by prohibiting lobbyists from arranging or soliciting campaign contributions.
2. Prevent private interests from financing trips and from subsidizing travel for members of Congress and staff and executive branch officials and federal judges.
3. Ban gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress and staff.
4. Oversee and enforce ethics rules and lobbying laws through an independent congressional Office of Public Integrity and increase penalties for violations.
5. Slow the revolving door by prohibiting former public officials from conducting lobbying activity for two years after retiring from public service.
6. Let the sun shine on lobbying activities and financial disclosure reports by making them public and accessible.

We will then hold those who are elected to Congress accountable for their pledge to clean up Washington.

The future of lobbying reform is in the hands of the voters. It will not take a wholesale changing of the guard in Congress to bring genuine lobbying reform back. Voters only need change the seats of six or seven incumbents opposed to cleaning up Washington with those who are pledged to reform in order to make the difference.

Expect a few more indictments of lawmakers as we enter the hot summer. Couple this with the pledge campaign to keep the issue of lobbying reform alive and well into the elections. If there is sufficient voter backlash in 2006 to change just a handful of seats, we will get serious lobbying reform front and center on the legislative agenda.