After eight months of behind- the-scenes kicking and screaming, the House and Senate passed ethics rules that promise to change how lawmakers raise money, travel and party. That is, if Congress devises a way to enforce them.
“We indicated that because of the culture of corruption that had infested Washington, that we were going to do something to change that. And change it we did,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. “The bill that is now on its way to the president is the most sweeping lobbying and ethics reform in the history of our country.”
The bill tightens disclosure requirements on multiple campaign contributions “bundled” by lobbyists and bans meals, travel and gifts from special interests. It requires sponsors of earmarks to make known their sponsorship of those pet spending projects tucked into legislation. And it bans lawmakers from requesting earmarks in which they hold a principal financial interest. The law provides for most of that information to be posted online.
Government watchdogs and ethics lawyers generally agree that the bill would shed new light on the Washington influence game but wonder how those who don’t play ball would be found and punished. Without an effective bureaucracy for managing the flow of new disclosures provided by the law, they say, the legislation won’t mean much.
“This law will put a significant new burden on the ethics committees and the public disclosure offices in the House and Senate. They have to do more than sticking the reports in a filing cabinet,” said Kenneth Gross, an ethics lawyer at the law firm Skadden, Arps.
The bill’s requirement that all congressional trips – hundreds each year – must be preapproved by congressional ethics committees “is just one brand-new rule that would overwhelm the existing ethics committees,” said Craig Holman, legislative representative for governmental watchdog Public Citizen.
