UPDATE: The House this morning passed a new lobbying and ethics reform bill, 411-8. This vote sets up a cloture vote in the Senate on Thursday that will determine whether the bill makes it to the president's desk for his signature. (James)
A new ethics bill, negotiated by House and Senate Democrats, is on its way through Congress this week.
The new bill came up after Senate Republicans, incluidng Jim DeMint, R-SC, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, objected to appointing conferees for the ethics and lobbying bills (S 1, HR 2316) both passed by the House and Senate.
This bill requires increased disclosure of bundled campaign contributions from lobbyists. But the information will be filed with the Federal Election Commission instead of the House and Senate.
The reporting requirements for bundled campaign contributions are triggered when lobbyists steer more than $15,000 worth of federal campaign contributions within six months, or $30,000 within a year.
People often say that Congress only makes big changes when faced with consensus or crisis. This must be the reason why we have no progress to report today on ethics reforms.
Apparently, there's no consensus to produce an ethics and lobbying reform bill or a revamped House ethics process. And there must not be a crisis -- notwithstanding the recent indictment of Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA) ongoing federal investigations involving Reps. Rick Renzi (R-AZ) and John Doolittle (R-CA) and the recent news that Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) had been hanging out with alleged prostitutes. Nah, just business as usual on the Hill.
But as members have the aroma of jet fumes dancing in their heads -- the month-long August recess is approaching -- there may be a new ethics and lobbying reform bill in the next two weeks.
Times have changed, and so have I.
That was former Senator Warren Rudman's partial explanation, at today's hearing on the Fair Elections Now Act, for how he came around from opposition to
"unequivocally supporting public financing" and the Fair Elections bill now before the Senate Rules committee. Sitting on the second panel, he admitted that he'd grown so frustrated with the dominance of private money in politics that he found public financing to be the most sensible solution.
He wasn't alone. The bill's cosponsors, Senators Dick Durbin and Arlen Specter, described the same transformation from opponent to champion. Those conversions are what made today's Senate hearing so promising.
The electronic disclosure bill sponsored by Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) is
still being held up by some anonymous Republican Senator who placed a secret hold.
Everyone has long lost patience with this "Senator Anonymous" - and Roll Call tells us in an editorial today where we should direct our attention and frustration:
It should be brought to bear on the entire Senate, but especially its Republican leadership, which did nothing about the ridiculous, expensive and anachronistic practice of paper filing for the most recent four years that it was in the majority and now is failing to use its persuasive power on the Senator or Senators blocking the bill.
Republicans presume to be the party of efficient government and fiscal responsibility, yet the Senate filing system is a mockery of both principles. It requires transferring mostly electronic contribution and expenditure reports compiled by campaigns onto paper for delivery to the Secretary of the Senate, whose office then scans each page — more than 10,000 total pages last year — back into digital form to send to the Federal Election Commission, which then takes 11 hours to print them all out on paper again for shipment to a private contractor that re-keys them into a digital format at a cost of $250,000.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is the only one we can be sure knows who placed the secret hold (besides the guilty party). The hold is preventing the bill from passing with unanimous consent, a procedural tool that would allow the bill (which is co-sponsored by 21 Democrats, 15 Republicans, and two independents) to pass without debate.
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