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Friday, October 03, 2008

New GAO Report on Lobbyist Compliance with Disclosure Reporting

According to a report released Sept. 30 by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), "lobbyists could provide accurate supporting information—in either written or verbal form—on income or expenses for at least 95 percent of all first quarter reports filed that required this information." This was based on a random sampling of 100 clients chosen from the first-quarter reports. The report, Observations on Lobbyists' Compliance with New Disclosure Requirements," was required by the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act.

Particularly interesting was the finding that since 2004 the U.S. Attorney's Office "has received more than 4,000 referrals from the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House. Because of a lack of consistent records in past years, the Office was unable to provide complete and accurate data for each reporting period prior to 2006 to indicate the number of letters it sent to lobbyists asking them to comply with the Act, and the number of lobbyists who complied after the referral was received." And, five staff people in the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office spend part of their time working on LDA compliance matters.

RollCall ($$) reported that GAO's "approach drew some criticism from watchdog activists that had expected the GAO to scrutinize more thoroughly whether firms were accurately reporting their information to Congress. 'I was expecting a more formal audit,' said Craig Holman of Public Citizen. Ethics lawyers had also anticipated more scrutiny of lobbyists' records along the lines of an Internal Revenue Service audit."

The GAO also asked lobbyists about the challenges of complying with the law. While "a number" of lobbyists felt existing guidance was sufficient, others believed more clarification on how to report certain information about their lobbying activity was needed, according to the report. The agency recommended that the U.S. district attorney "develop a structured approach" in order to target lobbyists who continually fail to comply with the lobbying law.