Money & Politics In The News

It took guilty pleas on corruption charges from disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Reps. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, D-Calif., and Robert W. Ney, D-Ohio.

It came after Justice Department investigations of U.S. Reps. William J. Jefferson, D-La., Richard G. Renzi, D-Ariz., and John T. Doolittle, R-Calif., and U.S. Sen. Theodore F. Stevens, R-Alaska. And that’s only the last few years. Those cases, and the public outcry that followed, got the 110th Congress to finally pass comprehensive lobby reform.

The bill that passed the House and Senate in the final week before its August recess represents the most sweeping reforms to the congressional rules since the Watergate era.

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For far too long, lobbyists for powerful interests have spent whatever it might cost to gain special access to lawmakers. Paying for meals, gifts, tickets to sporting events and trips, lobbyists curry favor with key legislators in ways the rest of us could never afford.

The “K Street” crowd, so named for the cluster of lobby firms located on a single Washington, D.C., street, has also provided enormous help in raising the $2.8 billion dollars that was spent in the last congressional election. And most of this was done behind the public’s back.

During the last election, public approval of Congress reached historic lows. Still sagging poll numbers suggest that Congress has a long way to go to win back the public trust. The public has developed a deep skepticism regarding how Congress will handle the war, health care, energy policy and a host of other priorities.

These meaningful changes to the rules are aimed at ratcheting down the money culture in Washington. They are an important and very timely step forward. We may not be able to stop the truly corrupt, but we can define and ban corrupting behavior.

The reform measure now headed to the president’s desk challenges the pay-to-play culture in Washington and opens the door on the previously secretive practices of lobbyists.

The bill bans gifts and travel paid for by lobbyists and requires members to pay their own way for the use of private jets. Once these changes are put in place, lobbyists would no longer be able to pay for lavish parties at the national political conventions.

The bill mandates the disclosure of the tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars that lobbyists raise for candidates and for the first time establishes accountability for earmarks — funding for pet projects that legislators insert into bills.

The legislation is not perfect and critics will cite shortcomings, but the new rules and increased transparency of lobbying activities will take our democracy out of the darkness. The mandates in the bill to post information on the Internet bring the government into the 21st century. The new rules require information to be available so that it can be scrutinized by constituents, the press, political allies and opponents, and government watchdogs. It will allow all of us to get a more complete picture about the actions of lobbyists and their relationships with our elected officials.

Members of Congress do not tighten the rules that govern their own actions easily or willingly. It took widely publicized scandals, a frustrated electorate and supporters like our own U.S. Rep. James P. McGovern, and U.S. Sens. John F. Kerry and Edward M. Kennedy, to end up with a bill that includes more than cosmetic changes.

This bill does not solve all the problems created by money in politics. Candidates for Congress and the White House will likely raise and spend $3 billion in next year’s election. Most of that money will come in large contributions from wealthy and powerful interests who “max out” on what individuals are legally permitted to give. To address these issues, we must reconsider how we fund political campaigns.

But the bill does strike at unacceptable practices that unduly influence decisions in Washington. It provides for greater disclosure of what happens in the nation’s capitol and more accountability of our elected officials. It is a welcome change that is long overdue.

Janet S. Domenitz is executive director of MassPIRG.