I love this quote from Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio who responds to the passage of the Senate's lame lobby reform bill by saying:


The "quote scandal." I guess the fact that federal agents are investigating more than a dozen members of Congress and their staff for possible felonies is not a quote big deal for Senator DeWine.

Our assessment of the lobby bill below the fold.

Just a quick update on where things stand on the lobby reform front.

On Wednesday and Thursday the Senate danced around the issue with the intent of actually passing the lobby reform bill with or without the many amendments that have been offered to make the bill qualify as actual reform (more on this later).

Long story short: Schumer offered Dubai amendment and now bill is in limbo in the Senate, even though that issue may have been resolved now. (The House is probably going to sit around for as along as possible with the hope that they won't have to do anything.)

As far as the amendments go, Reid offered a package of changes that got voted down, although they may come back in another form. Those include: restrictions of private sector job negotiations while working on relevant legislation, increased penalties for public corruption, and better travel and gift bans.

McCain has offered an amendment that would create an Office of Public Integrity to deal with the fact that the ethics committees in both the House and Senate have not convinced the public that Congress is capable of policing itself. This amendment has the support of Obama, Lieberman and Collins.

Senator Obama has introduced a good amendment as well that would expand the definition of lobbying to include coordination activities former members of Congress provide lobbying shops without being subject to lobby restrictions because they are not physically meeting with lawmakers.

The underlying bill that came out of the committees is pretty weak, with the exception of grassroots lobbying disclosure provisions meant to catch Astro Turf operations like that of Mike Scanlon.