Congress Continues to Debate New Lobbying Rules

KWAME HOLMAN:

Joel Wood lobbies the federal government on behalf of the Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers, one of Washington's most powerful trade groups.

JOEL WOOD:

How much do people know about what a guy like me does, in terms of interacting with members of Congress and with their staffs? And I think on that front it would be disingenuous to suggest that the system has worked perfectly; I think that there's lots of room for disclosure.

KWAME HOLMAN:

How much lobbyists and politicians should disclose about their activities and whether they should be limited is what members of the Senate have been grappling with for the last few weeks.

SEN. DANIEL INOUYE:

I believe our reputations are at stake.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Fresh in their minds are two scandals that recently have rocked Capitol Hill. There was former lobbyist Jack Abramoff's admitted scheme to bribe members of Congress and former Congressman Duke Cunningham's sentencing to eight years in prison on bribery charges.

SEN. BILL FRIST, Senate Majority Leader:

It is time for us to reexamine the rules so that bad apples are exposed before they spoil the whole lot.

KWAME HOLMAN:

And so two committees' worth of senators reviewed those rules and came up with a list of changes and reforms. In crafting new legislation, they all agreed that lobbyists' gifts to members, including free meals, must be restricted.

Abramoff himself recently was quoted as saying one senator, Montana's Conrad Burns, and his staff, using his Washington restaurant, called Signatures, as their cafeteria. Lobbyist-paid meals accepted by members and staff would have to be reported within 15 days under one committee's bill. But the full Senate went even further, banning all gifts, including meals.

Connecticut's Chris Dodd was a co-sponsor of the measure.

SEN. CHRIS DODD:

There's nothing inherently corrupt about it, but the meal is paid for. And the perception is that there is an undue advantage given to those who are able to take a member or a senior staff member out for a meal to then ask for them to support a particular provision or oppose something.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Rules Committee Chairman Trent Lott opposed the all-out ban but went along with it. He warned it could cause problems every time a lawmaker attended a reception where food was available.

SEN. TRENT LOTT:

Are we going to stop eating? Might be a good idea for some of us, but, you know, I've been going to meals where you talked about issues since I was in, you know, elementary school.

Having said that, it's clear that in a bipartisan way the Senate wants to do this, so so be it. I'll be eating with my wife, and so will a lot more senators after we pass this one.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Among several other provisions members agreed to: increase from one year to two the amount of time a retired member must wait before he or she may lobby former colleagues; bar a lawmaker's relatives from lobbying that member; and stop the practice of members urging firms to hire people based on their political affiliation.

That a reaction to the so-called K Street Project, a GOP effort to encourage the hiring of Republicans, including former congressional staff members, at lobbying firms along Washington's K Street corridor.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Expectedly, it was Democrats who pushed for the new rule. Illinois' Dick Durbin cited an example of the project's work.

SEN. DICK DURBIN:

I can recall my former colleague from Oklahoma, Dave McCurdy, who was being considered for an electronics industry association position after he left Congress. And Congressman Delay, a leader in the House, openly opposed his selection because he was a Democrat.

This became so standard around here that people no longer questioned it. The meetings went on, on a regular basis. And now we know that one of the early participants in this meeting was none other than Jack Abramoff.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Utah Republican Bob Bennett saw nothing improper about the effort to get members of his party hired as lobbyists.

SEN. BOB BENNETT:

I've sat in on these conversations. And I don't recall any member of the Senate ever saying, "If this person is not hired, we will take a official act in retaliation against whatever group's involved."

KWAME HOLMAN:

Nonetheless, Bennett joined all members of the Rules Committee in voting to stop the practice; that included Pennsylvania Republican Rick Santorum, who widely was reported to have served as the K Street Project's liaison in the Senate.

The bill also tackles another controversial subject: the special spending projects known as earmarks. They're often inserted into legislation without the knowledge or vote of other members. Arizona Republican John McCain has made it his mission to reign them in, noting they've exploded in recent years.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN:

It's got to be stopped; it's completely out of control. And we are not going to reform a system, as far as lobbying is concerned, if we have a process that lends itself to one influential lobbyist's relationship with one member, which is exactly what happened in Duke Cunningham, and criminal activity results.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Although there is broad bipartisan support in the Senate for most of the lobbying reforms, congressional watchdog groups and some lawmakers say the proposed changes, the first in 11 years, mainly are cosmetic.

SEN. TED STEVENS:

We want to put some teeth in existing law, not create more law.

KWAME HOLMAN:

That argument by Alaska's Ted Stevens against rushing through new reforms was echoed by several of his colleagues, and it proved prescient, as members of the Governmental Affairs Committee voted down a plan to create an independent office of public integrity to monitor the activities of representatives and senators.

The office would have had investigative and subpoena powers and assisted the work of the House and Senate Ethics Committees, both of which have been faulted for weak enforcement. Proposed by Senate Chairman Susan Collins and Ranking Democrat Joe Lieberman, the integrity office widely was viewed as the best chance to overhaul ethics enforcement.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN:

We have a responsibility to hold ourselves and be held to a higher standard.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But the plan met enormous resistance from committee members, especially those who also sit on the Ethics Committee.

SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH:

The Ethics Committee is active and hard at work…

KWAME HOLMAN:

Ethics Chairman George Voinovich of Ohio balked at ceding even limited oversight to an outside agency.

SEN. GEORGE VOINOVICH:

The Ethics Committee is already doing these things. And, in my opinion, there's no need to reinvent the wheel.

KWAME HOLMAN:

And Minnesota Democrat Mark Dayton added that having an independent monitor watch Congress would send the wrong message to the public.

SEN. MARK DAYTON:

… that this body of 100 senators is so institutionally and individually corrupt that it cannot be trusted to police its own.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Public Citizen's Joan Claybrook, who lobbies for more congressional transparency, says she was not surprised that Ethics Committee members fought to retain the current system.

JOAN CLAYBROOK:

The underlying issue is control, that is that they know their colleagues, they have faith that the colleagues are going to be very gentle in their judgments, because they all face the same kind of pressures politically. And so they're comfortable with an Ethics Committee. I think, if this bill in the end does not have an enforcement office that's independent, it will be a crippled bill.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But even Minority Leader Harry Reid, who constantly blames the recent lobbying scandals on a Republican culture of corruption, endorsed the bill before the Senate.

SEN. HARRY REID:

There may be some outside groups who think we haven't done enough; we've done a lot.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Thanks in part to the uproar over trips, such as Tom DeLay's Abramoff-funded golf outing to Scotland, in which he was accompanied by lobbyists, such privately funded travel would be subject to stricter standards under the proposed law. Details would have to be revealed within 30 days.

JOEL WOOD:

I've been on trips in the past. I haven't sponsored any in a long time. They tend to be kind of expensive.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Insurance industry lobbyist Joel Wood said travel is critical to a member's understanding of issues, though he admitted trips can cross the line.

JOEL WOOD:

Are some of these trips with some of their lavishness over the top? Yes. Has there been a lot of scrutiny on it? No.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Claybrook said all privately subsidized travel should be banned.

JOAN CLAYBROOK:

When you take them on an airplane, they're on the airplane for at least an hour, probably two or three, maybe four, and so you get to chat with them. It's casual; people are more relaxed.

You take them to a fancy resort. You have dinner with them. You play golf with them. You get lots of face time, as it's called. And so you really get to educate the member of Congress about why your issue is so important. They can ask you lots of question, and you persuade them.

KWAME HOLMAN:

More disclosure would be required of lobbyists themselves, as well, including quarterly rather than biannual reports about which bills they're trying to influence and to whose campaigns they're contributing.

SEN. DICK DURBIN:

Let's be honest about it. We all have to raise millions of dollars…

KWAME HOLMAN:

The fact that lobbyists direct and raise money for members' political action committees, or PACs, came up repeatedly during reform discussions. California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said increasing disclosure would not suffice. She proposed prohibiting lobbyists from running a senator's PAC, noting that 74 PACs were headed by lobbyists last year, up from just 15 in 1998.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN:

We really need to establish a wall between the lobbyists and the members.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But Feinstein's colleagues were not receptive to the idea.

SEN. CHRIS DODD:

I really want to keep these matters separate, if we can.

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL:

We really ought to avoid trying to do campaign finance today.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Public Citizen's Claybrook had hoped to see movement on the issue, claiming the give-and-take between lobbyists and politicians is fleecing the public without their knowledge.

CLAYBROOK:

Well, when a member has a lobbyist as their campaign treasurer or their campaign manager, their PAC director, who goes out and raises money for them, that endears the lobbyist to the member of Congress, and they always ask for payback, always.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Lobbyist Joel Wood admitted raising money for members is a critical part of the job.

JOEL WOOD:

Are we heavily engaged in the political fundraising process? Yes, we're a part of the system in that way.

KWAME HOLMAN:

Wood directs his firm's political action committee, but he stressed that the average American's power to vote is superior to any lobbyist's powers.

JOEL WOOD:

At the end of the day, the lobbyists aren't the ones that vote. And I will say, having worked on Capitol Hill, that a heartfelt hand-written letter from any constituent always beats the slickest lobbyist with his Gucci loafers walking into that office. And shame on any member of Congress for whom that standard doesn't apply.

KWAME HOLMAN:

But reformers hoping for a quick fix to lobbying laws suffered a setback last week when political infighting over port security temporarily knocked the bill off the Senate schedule. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives will have to pass its own rules changes, but reformers there have been slower to generate momentum.