Minimum wage increase could die in compromise with ethics bill

January 19, 2007

Senate Breaks Impasse on Ethics Bill

By Jonathan Allen

The Senate passed a broad overhaul of ethics, lobbying and earmark regulations yesterday after Democratic and Republican leaders broke a two-day logjam over GOP amendments.

The Senate passed the bill by a more-than-comfortable margin of 96-2, after Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to give Judd Gregg, R-N.H., a vote on a line-item rescissions amendment next week. Reid also agreed to accept an amendment by Tom Coburn, R-Okla., that would prohibit lawmakers from pushing earmarks that would benefit them, their families, their aides or their aides’ families.

“We will restore the confidence of our citizenry in the United States government,” Reid said.

The bill (S 1) would ban senators and their staff from accepting meals, gifts and trips from lobbyists; prohibit senators from negotiating for private-sector jobs while still in office; create a point of order against bills that do not identify the sponsors of earmarks; establish a database of lobbyists’ contacts and activities; and force lobbyists to certify that they have complied with the gift ban.

“This is a classic example of bipartisanship here in the Senate at its very best,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who co-wrote the bill with Reid.

But Coburn, one of two senators to vote against the final bill, predicted that some of the most stringent provisions — including his own amendment — will never be enacted. “They’re going to be discarded once we get to conference,” he said.

The House has not passed any changes to lobbying law, so a conference committee is unlikely to convene any time soon. The House changed its rules governing earmarks, gifts and other ethics standards by adopting a resolution that applied only to that chamber (H Res 6).

Before the Senate bill’s passage, an amendment by Robert F. Bennett, R-Utah, was adopted deleting a provision that would have subjected so-called “astroturf” lobbying groups to disclosure requirements.

The lobbying provisions were opposed by interest groups as diverse as the conservative Traditional Values Coalition and the liberal American Civil Liberties Union, and Bennett’s amendment was adopted, 55-43.

The Senate rejected, 27-71, an amendment that would have created an independent Office of Public Integrity with the power to investigate ethics complaints and make recommendations to the Senate Select Ethics Committee.

Amendments Adopted

Despite the coordination between party leaders, it took two days of negotiation to break a stalemate on Gregg’s amendment and a series of others, several of which were included in the final bill.

Gregg’s proposal to give the president the ability to send packages of rescissions to Congress for up-or-down votes in both chambers tied the Senate in knots before he agreed to have it considered as an amendment to the minimum wage bill (S 2) that the Senate will begin considering next week.

--MORE--

AIPAC destroys Democrat 'ethics' bill

Stop That Spin

House Democrats boast that their proposed ethics legislation will ban travel provided by lobbying organizations to lawmakers. Don't believe it.

Maneuvering by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and others has opened a gaping loophole in the bill. Lobbies such as AIPAC and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have their own nonprofit foundations, which will still be allowed to underwrite congressional junkets under the new rules.

Watch for more lobbying groups to set up their own "non-lobbying" foundation affiliates as a result.

Jeffrey H. Birnbaum writes about the intersection of government and business every Tuesday. His e-mail address iskstreet@washpost.com.

House ethics committee 'a joke'

Dec. 12, 2006, 8:44PM
Ethics sham
House ethics committee's failure to discipline anyone in the Mark Foley page scandal shows the need for an independent watchdog.

Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Critics for years have described the bipartisan U.S. House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct as a joke. Last week the panel issued a lengthy report on the circumstances surrounding the misconduct of former Florida Congressman Mark Foley with House pages and removed all doubt about the House's inability to discipline itself.

Although the investigation found numerous instances in which House leaders had willfully ignored complaints of Foley's inappropriate e-mail contacts with teenage male pages, the committee somehow concluded that no rules were violated and no disciplinary action was justified. This, despite the probe's determination that evidence indicated House Speaker Dennis Hastert and staffers were told about the continuing problems with Foley's sexual interest in the pages but failed to intervene.

Retiring Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., was told by a page about sexually explicit e-mails and counseled the young man not to tell anyone. House Majority Leader John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, caught criticism for simply passing on information about Foley to Hastert's staff and then dropping the matter. A Democratic Caucus official, Matt Miller, took some of the compromising e-mails and circulated them to the press rather than turning the documents over to authorities.

The report also indicated Foley's questionable contacts with pages went beyond computer messages. In two incidents dating back six years, Foley went to the page dormitories late at night, one time turned away while apparently intoxicated. In another incident, he showed up at an end of year party and drove off with two pages.

Yet out of all the documented failures of elected officials and their staffs to take effective action to stop Foley, the report chose to close its probe without even admitting ethics violations had occurred: "The requirement that Members and staff act at all times in a manner that reflects creditably on the House does not mean that every error in judgment or failure to exercise appropriate oversight and sufficient diligence establishes a violation" of House rules.

With that elastic definition of what constitutes unacceptable conduct, it's not surprising that the House ethics committee has been a nonfactor in a year in which scandals drove five GOP members, including Majority Leader Tom DeLay, from Congress. Several members pleaded guilty to criminal violations.

When the FBI raided Louisiana Democrat William J. Jefferson's Capitol Hill office in search of evidence in a bribery investigation, House Speaker Hastert denounced the raid as a violation of the separation of powers. The ethics committee did not launch an investigation of Jefferson, a member of the committee at the time.

A longtime ethics in government activist, Fred Wertheimer of the group Democracy 21, expressed amazement that the committee could conclude that wrongdoing occurred in the Foley scandal, but hold no one responsible for it. Given the committee's recent history for dodging responsibility for delving into members' ethical lapses, the real surprise would have been if it had taken strong enforcement action.

If the House really wants to clean up its badly tarnished image, it should consider creating a semi-independent, nonpartisan inspector general's office. A credible investigator would probe alleged misconduct by members, compile reports and make recommendations that could then be considered by the full legislative body.

Congress might still choose to whitewash its own, but at least every representative would be on public record to be held accountable by constituents.

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.