From The Washington Post, 1/18/06:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/17/AR2006011701311.html
Loophole in Lobbying Bill Leaves Wiggle Room
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 18, 2006; Page A04
Lawmakers are about to bombard the American public with proposals that
would crack down on lobbyists.
Several prominent plans, including one outlined yesterday by House
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), would specifically ban meals and
privately paid travel for lawmakers.
Or would they?
According to lobbyists and ethics experts, even if Hastert's proposal
is enacted, members of Congress and their staffs could still travel
the world on an interest group's expense and eat steak on a lobbyist's
account at the priciest restaurants in Washington.
The only requirement would be that whenever a lobbyist pays the bill,
he or she must also hand the lawmaker a campaign contribution.
Then the transaction would be perfectly okay.
"That's a big hole if they don't address campaign finance," said Joel
Jankowsky, the lobbying chief of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, one
of the capital's largest lobbying outfits.
The plans offered by Republican leaders yesterday would change two of
the three areas of law or regulation that govern lobbyists' behavior:
the congressional rules that limit gifts to lawmakers and the laws
that dictate the amount of disclosure that lobbyists must give the
public.
A third major area -- campaign finance laws -- would go untouched, an
omission that amounts to a gaping loophole in efforts to distance
lobbyists from the people they are paid to influence.
Anything that members of Congress can now do in the pursuit of money
for their reelections will still be permitted in the future --
including accepting lobbyist-paid travel and in-town meals -- unless
campaign finance laws are altered.
"Political contributions are specifically exempted from the definition
of what a gift is in House and Senate gift rules," said Kenneth A.
Gross, an ethics lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.
"So, unless the campaign finance laws are changed, if a lobbyist wants
to sponsor an event at the MCI arena or on the slopes of Colorado, as
long as it's a fundraiser it would still be fine."
The result, he added, "may well be more out-of-town fundraising events
than there are at the moment."
Paul A. Miller, president of the American League of Lobbyists, said of
the loophole:
"You may see a shift from what we're able to do now to the political
fundraiser side where it is legal."
Currently, lawmakers and staff members are permitted to take
"fact-finding" trips paid for by private groups, including lobbying
organizations and corporations.
These excursions, whose destinations are often major cities and warm
resorts in wintertime, need only be disclosed and include official
functions to be acceptable under the rules.
Yesterday, Hastert and high-ranking Senate Republicans, led by Rick
Santorum (Pa.) and John McCain (Ariz.), said they would eliminate
these privately funded fact-finding trips as part of a comprehensive
ethics package that they hoped would begin moving through Congress
early next month.
The senators also said they would restrict gifts to lawmakers but
apparently would not go as far as to ban meals, as Hastert said he
intended to propose.
None of the lawmakers, however, said they would end travel and meals
supplied by lobbyists as part of fundraising events, which, at least
for now, would leave the loophole open.
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And you thought what? You thought the corrupt Republican Party was
cleaning up its act? Ya did? Well, shame on you for a being a gullible
pussycat.
Harry
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