Washington – Solutions to the problem of lobbyists and their influence on lawmakers are piling up in Congress, with Republican leaders scrambling to find consensus on how to revamp ethics rules.
The nine members of Colorado’s delegation mirror that disarray, backing a variety of ideas.
There are more than 20 ethics-rules proposals in the House and the Senate. Despite a weekend retreat, Republicans failed to agree on which plan to push.
“There are so many differences within and between (political) parties that it’s still an open question,” said Thomas E. Mann, analyst and congressional expert with the Brookings Institution, a Washington research organization.
While Republicans have enough members to theoretically pass what the party’s leadership wants, Mann said, they need Democratic support to avoid handing the opposition an election-year issue.
In the House, there is disagreement whether to completely ban travel by lawmakers that is funded by a private source. New House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, has said some travel paid by nonprofits is valuable.
In the Senate, disagreement over how to proceed sparked a high-profile spat between veteran lawmaker Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and freshman Sen. Barak Obama, D-Ill. McCain lashed out at Obama for offering support to McCain’s proposals, then introducing his own bill.
Obama wants an independent ethics reform commission. McCain wants to focus on “earmarks,” clauses that are added to large spending bills at the last minute that often allocate favors to special interests.
Within the Colorado delegation, Sen. Wayne Allard, a Republican, backs a proposal for an independent committee to recommend changes.
Sen. Ken Salazar, a Democrat, has backed the proposal by his party’s leadership in the Senate. It calls for extending from one year to two how long a member of Congress and many federal employees must wait after leaving the government before working as a lobbyist. And it would create an Office of Public Integrity to enforce standards.
In the House, each of Colorado’s three Democratic representatives have backed at least two proposals.
Reps. Diana DeGette, Mark Udall and John Salazar support a resolution from Rep. David Obey, D-Wis. It would ban privately funded travel and ban trips with any lobbyists aboard. Udall also proposes an independent commission.
GOP Rep. Joel Hefley, former head of the House ethics committee, plans to introduce his own reforms, including a ban on accepting any gift from a lobbyist.
GOP Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Bob Beauprez support making the kind of changes in the House that McCain wants in the Senate. Republican Tom Tancredo has not backed a bill.
Staff writer Anne C. Mulkern can be reached at 202-662-8907 or amulkern@denverpost.com.
