Why FoleyGate Haunts the Democrats

Reform Party

by the Editors
Post date 11.30.06 | Issue date 12.11.06

The House of Representatives may not always fulfill its claim to be the "people's body," but it's a fine specimen of human nature. Each time a new coterie of politicians arrives, earnestly carrying the banner of reform, it soon finds itself succumbing to the grubbier seductions of the place. Among the K Street corporate mouthpieces, you'll find plenty of erstwhile Watergate Babies and Republican Revolutionaries. And it's not just idealists fall. Every time a political party indulges the temptations that accompany majority power, the electorate predictably boots it back to the perkimpoverished minority.

Democrats are well-aware of the price of abandoned reform. When Bill Clinton arrived in 1992, it was on a platform of "stopping the revolving door ..., limiting special interests, and reforming campaign finance." But, during his first two years, Tom Foley and Dick Gephardt snuffed these proposals. Foley also tried to deflect attention from the Democrats' illicit use of the House Post Office and Bank. Then came November 1994, and you know how that story goes.

<>A large chunk of the new Democratic House leadership lived through this tumble. It is a mystery, therefore, why they would project the image they have this last month. After House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi campaigned on ethics, she tried to install Jack Murtha--who eloquently described political reform as "total crap"--as majority leader. Then she flirted with anointing the impeached federal judge Alcee Hastings chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

To the Democrats' great credit, they passed over Murtha and pressed Pelosi to forgo Hastings. And, hopefully, these early bruises will have drummed in a lesson: The House is riddled with parochial interests and gigantic egos--all conspiring to buck reform. To preserve the new majority, Democrats will have to forget institutional interests and, in an important sense, crush them. <>

When Congress returns in January, it will take up reforms backed by Pelosi. These will include banning gifts and travel paid by lobbyists, forcing lobbyists to fully disclose their activities, and requiring members to identify some "earmarked" provisions in budget proposals. But these worthy measures hardly address the root causes of House corruption. They are palliatives, not cures.

Any truly serious reform would begin by lessening the opacity of the legislative process. Under current rules, House and Senate members from the Appropriations Committees can insert obscurely worded measures in the federal budget without debate--indeed, without other members even aware of them. These "earmarks" then become part of the final conference report that the House and Senate votes up or down.

Pelosi's proposal would require that members disclose when an earmark they insert is designed to benefit their home district or state. But the bulk of the earmarks at the center of recent scandals were aimed at companies and groups that had no particular connection to the legislators' home base; in return, members received campaign contributions, favors, and gifts. Pelosi's proposal would, in effect, expose the most benign aspect of earmarks--a research grant, say, to the local university--but exempt the most malignant.

Another cause of corruption is Congress's failure to police itself. The House Ethics Committee gave a pass to Jack Abramoff and his clients. Dennis Hastert tried to block the Ethics Committee from investigating former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. And, when Democrats controlled Congress, they tried to protect their own. What's needed, as Barack Obama has proposed, is an independent ethics commission with broad investigative power. But many top Democrats have resisted the idea.

Then there's the persistent perniciousness of the campaign finance system, which enables lobbyists to exchange contributions for legislative favors. The only way to solve this is by replacing private money with public money. Earlier this year, Representatives Barney Frank and David Obey introduced a proposal for public financing of congressional campaigns. But Pelosi hasn't included any campaign finance reforms in her package.

Of course, an ambitious program like this raises all sorts of tricky logistical questions. And it's hard to blame Pelosi for wanting to steer clear of them on her maiden voyage. But there is no excuse for the failure to crack down hard on earmarks or the failure to establish an independent ethics commission. There are eerie echoes of Foley and Gephardt in these early decisions. But, as the pre-Gingrich Democrats can attest, life in the majority with fewer perks beats the alternative.