Thursday, May 24, 2007

House Set to Vote on Lobby Reform

The House lobby and ethics reform package is scheduled for a floor vote today after the Rules Committee reported out a single rule late Wednesday night that sets up separate floor votes on the overall lobbying package, H.R. 2316 and the bundling bill H.R. 2317. The committee did not allow debate on a number of amendments, including doubling the one-year lobbying ban on former lawmakers and staff directly lobbying their former colleagues. Dropping this provision has already brought very negative media attention.

From a New York Times editorial yesterday :
The House's new Democratic majority is flirting with disaster as it guts key provisions of the strict lobbying reform it promised voters last November. Rebellious lawmakers, worried about their own career path, fought their leaders to defeat tighter restrictions on the sleazy, revolving-door culture by which members of Congress move on from an apprenticeship of merely serving the people to real Washington money as insider lobbyists.

So what will be left of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007? The House will consider five technical amendments. This includes one that would make it harder for military officers to start working for defense contractors after leaving the armed services. The other amendments include increasing sentences for officials involved in bribery or fraud and one regarding lobbyists who use family relationships to get special advantages. Incidentally, no amendments were offered on grassroots lobbying.

Despite becoming greatly watered down, H.R. 2316 is a significant piece of legislation and a great improvement over other weak reform efforts. However, will voters and press see it that way, or just as "the hollow reform act?"