Watchdog Blog

Manufacturers Lose Bid to Evade New Lobbying Law

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) lost round one of their attempt to overturn the part of last year's landmark lobbying reform law which requires it to reveal the businesses funding the goliath lobbying organization.  Public Citizen, the Campaign Legal Center, and Democracy 21 filed an amicus brief [pdf] explaining how the disclosure requirement is constitutional, and should be kept intact.  U.S. District Judge Kollar-Kotelly agreed with us.

Judge Kollar-Kotelly dismissed NAM’s constitutional challenge, stating in her opinion:

The Court has conducted a searching review of the NAM’s opening brief, the Opposition filed by Defendant Taylor and the Opposition filed by the Legislative Defendants, the two amici briefs filed in this case by Citizens for Reform and Ethics in Washington (''CREW'') and Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, and Public Citizen (jointly the ''CLC Amici''), and the NAM’s Reply brief, as well as the relevant statutes and case law.

Double Standards and Fair Elections

From Joe Newman over at Citizenvox.org:

There’s an interesting breakdown on the FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) site of how the herd mentality of the media seems to have a double standard when it comes to the presidential candidates and their views on public financing of the general election. While Public Citizen is non-partisan, we do feel strongly about public financing of elections as one of the best ways to reduce the influence of special interests in politics. Sens. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) have introduced the bipartisan Fair Elections Now Act, which would create a voluntary system to publicly fund congressional elections. You can help this effort by signing on to be a “citizen co-sponor” of this legislation.

Who's got more money?

Money, money, money.  It seems that's all we hear in the news about the upcoming election.  It should be about ideas and leadership, not dollars.  Fortunately, there's a solution: public funding of elections.

Now is a vital time to act. Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) will soon introduce a House version of the bill Senators Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) introduced in the Senate: the Fair Elections Now Act.  Under Fair Elections, candidates would no longer need to worry about chasing money from wealthy special interests.  They can focus on the voters and the critical challenges facing our nation today. 

It is important that we get many representatives to sign on to support this reform.

During Fair Elections Action Week, April 14-18, 2008, let's call on Congress to end the corrupting influence of money in politics. Actions and events will take place all across the country and you can be a part of the movement.

Time for Devil in the Details to Go Digital

These days almost everything can be done electronically: paying bills, buying music, watching movies . . . the IRS even allows tax returns to be submitted online.

But not in the Senate. There, they prefer to waste taxpayer dollars on paper and keep voters in the dark about campaign dollars.

The current system for senators to submit campaign finance reports to the Federal Election Commission is a maze of back-and-forth between agencies that requires printing and re-typing the same information repeatedly.  The result is an annual $250,000.00 bill to taxpayers and the delayed release of information to the public.

Bundlers in Limbo

Yesterday, Roll Call ($) pointed out that a hard-won ethics reform is languishing because the Federal Election Commission (FEC) remains without a quorum.  The political wrangling over the Commission – and downright stubbornness of the Republicans in their insistence on the appointment of Hans von Spakovsky has left candidates and lobbyists in limbo.

Public Citizen worked to pass the landmark lobbying and ethics reform bill last year in the wake of continual congressional scandals.  One of the benefits of this new law is that it requires federal candidates – running for Congress or the presidency – to disclose if lobbyists are “bundling” campaign contributions of their behalf.  The FEC is supposed to implement and enforce this new law, and they are out-of-commission (so to speak).

Roll Call quoted Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division:

The delay in implementing the rule is depriving the public of important information. It’s best the public knows as much as it can.  We’d rather have disclosure of all the bundlers, but lobbyists are the best place to start. By definition, they’re in business to ask the government for favors, so their contributions should be looked at the most skeptically.

Bush, Sunshine and Apple Pie

What does it mean to have an open government?  As a catch phrase, it is appealing, like apple pie.  It seems especially American and downright fundamental: “a government by and for the people.”  It suggests that we are in power, and that through transparency we can avoid tyranny and oppression.

In truth, it is an ideal – one for which we are still reaching.  The Constitution, and the First Amendment in particular, provides the principles, but it has taken the efforts of many over two centuries to create a legal and practical framework for some transparency in government.  We might prefer that our elected officials spend their time pondering how to make the government more accountable to the people (instead of fundraising), but unfortunately, this is rarely the case.  Often we have gained more access through legislation, such as the Freedom of Information Act, enacted in response to some crisis of trust in our public officials.

Now is such a time.

Obama's Answer

On February 15, we sent a letter to Senator Barack Obama urging him to keep his promise to opt-in to the Presidential Public Financing system if he were the Democratic nominee, and the Republican nominee also used public funds. The likely Republican nominee, Senator John McCain, has agreed to these terms, but a spokesperson for the Obama campaign recently made a statement that conflicts with the committment made by Senator Obama. 

Read Obama's response printed in USA Today:

Both sides must agree
I will seek a good faith pact that results in real spending limits.

In 2007, shortly after I became a candidate for president, I asked the Federal Election Commission to clear any regulatory obstacles to a publicly funded general election in 2008 with real spending limits. The commission did that. But this cannot happen without the agreement of the parties' eventual nominees. As I have said, I will aggressively pursue such an agreement if I am my party's nominee.

Lobbyists Playing Bigger Role in Presidential Fundraising

The number of lobbyists raising money for the 2008 presidential candidates already has eclipsed the total for the entire 2004 campaign, according to a Public Citizen study released today.

So far, candidates still in the race have recruited 142 federal lobbyists to raise money for their campaigns, compared to 136 lobbyist fundraisers in 2004.

A clearinghouse of the 2008 presidential candidates’ big fundraisers is available at www.WhiteHouseforSale.org.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has 59 lobbyist-bundlers raising money for him, almost twice as many as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has the second-highest number. Among Democrats, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) has garnered the most support from lobbyists, 20, a predictable outcome because her two main remaining competitors have eschewed support from individuals currently serving as lobbyists.

The roster of known lobbyist-bundlers for McCain grew substantially on Monday, when his campaign held a fundraiser at a tony Washington steakhouse. Among 29 co-chairs listed on an invitation for the event were 24 registered lobbyists. Lists of the lobbyists raising money for each candidate are included in the study’s appendix.

Download the Public Citizen study [pdf].

Congress Agrees to Disagree on Gift Rules

In what no longer comes as a surprise, the House ethics committee — contradicted by their colleagues at the Senate ethics committee — have poked another gaping hole in the new ethics rules.  The new ethics rules ban gifts of any value from lobbying organizations to lawmakers.  Both the House and Senate ethics committees were asked by a lobbying organization to rule on whether that organization may buy tables of seats at a charity event, and then suggest to the sponsors of the event to hand them over as gifts to lawmakers.

The House ethics committee said "yes."  The Senate ethics committee said "no."

Following the House committee's ruling on parties at the national conventions — in which the House ethics committee said that the new ban on lobbyists throwing lavish parties for a lawmaker at the national conventions does not apply if two or more lawmakers are honored at the party — it is becoming clear that we have a rogue House ethics committee that has not changed much since Tom DeLay.

Fair Elections Gets Stump Time

Our friends over at Common Cause highlight the recent Democratic debate in Nevada where public funding of elections got some air play.  Senator Obama explained: 

Ultimately, what I would like to see is a system of public financing of campaigns and I am a co-sponsor of the proposal that is in the Senate right now.  That's what we have to fight for.

Watch it.

In fact, all of the Democratic candidates have expressed their support for a congressional public funding system modeled on those in Arizona and Maine.  Senator Clinton announced her support back in April.

The publicity is great.  However, in the meantime, nearly all of the candidates could be doing a lot more to disclose where their private money is coming from.  Yesterday, we sent letters to candidates asking them (again) to make the information on how much money their bundlers are raising for their campaigns public. 

A keystone benefit of public funding is that special interest money can no longer buy influence with candidates.  Until we fix the presidential public financing system, the voters at the very least have the right to know who is bankrolling the candidates.

Candidates Still Not Disclosing: Public Citizen Demands More on Bundlers

Public Citizen today sent letters to the seven major presidential candidates who have yet to provide any insight into how much their top fundraisers have raised. The letters asked the candidates to promptly disclose the names of bundlers who have brought in at least $100,000. The letters note that this minimal standard for disclosure was set by then-Gov. George W. Bush in his 2000 presidential campaign.

All of the candidates who have a realistic chance of capturing their party’s nomination are using bundlers, but only Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have provided any insight into how much their bundlers have raised. Obama names bundlers who have raised at least $50,000, $100,000 and $200,000; Clinton discloses bundlers who have raised at least $100,000.

The eventual winner of this presidential election will almost certainly feel a debt of gratitude to his or her bundlers. Voters have a right to know who these superfundraisers are before they choose which candidate to send to the Oval Office.

Letters to the candidates can be viewed here.

Doolittle Quits

My favorite role model of an unethical Congressman, Rep. John Doolittle (R-Cal.) - who is under close investigation by the FBI for corruption (even had his house raided) - has decided not to seek another term of office and will retire in 2008. We hear he will make his announcement in about an hour.

Doolittle joins the ranks of a wave of members of Congress who have retired last year or will retire this year, following corruption scandals and the lobbying and ethics reform drive. There is still the possibility of conviction and another stint in a different public house awaiting Doolittle.

A New Chance to Make Presidential Campaigns about Voters Not Dollars

Today, amid considerable fanfare, bipartisan legislation was introduced in both houses of Congress to overhaul the way we finance the presidential campaigns. It is long, long overdue.

In 2008, winning the nation’s highest elective office is going to cost $1 billion between the two major party candidates. The figure is even higher if you include the vast sums spent by all the other candidates, parties and political committees.

Let’s put this figure into a little perspective. Viable presidential candidates must raise at least $100 million each by the end of 2007, before even entering the actual election year. This means collecting five $2,300 campaign contributions “every single hour, every single day, including weekends and holidays, for an entire year,” estimates political scientist Michael Malbin.

And then the fundraising really kicks into gear next year.

Where does all this money come from? Mostly from the same special interests who have business pending before the federal government. In order to make sure that jingle of the pocket books of any particular special interest are heard loud and clear, businesses and wealthy special interest groups will be represented by a “bundler.”

Bundlers usually are CEOs or lobbyists of a business or industry. They will approach a campaign and receive tracking identification from the campaign, say, a tracking number. The bundler then reaches out to all the managers and other individuals of the business or industry and ask them to mail in their individual campaign contributions of $2,300 (the legal limit from an individual to a federal candidate), and write the company’s tracking number of the check. That way the campaign knows which business or industry is responsible for those contributions.

Expect more Sham Ads

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) adopted new regulations that will make political attack ads more prevalent.  We've all seen these ads and most of us abhor them.  Rather than add to any political discourse, they are intended to sway voters with misleading statistics and outlandish claims.  These ads will always be around, but with this new rule, corporations can now dump tons of cash to get them aired in the days before an election.

We were concerned the FEC would totally gut the regulations for "electioneering communications," but they didn't.  With the scraps they left intact, corporations still can't fund ads before an election that say, "Candidate _____ should/shouldn't be president."  They have to refrain from mentioning a candidacy or an election and avoid talking about the qualifications, character, or fitness for office of any candidate.  Further, disclosure rules are also maintained so that we will continue to know who funds attack ads.  In other words, you can still expect to hear plenty of ads claiming, “Representative _____ wants the government to say what you are allowed to eat!”

While this rule is not as bad as we feared, it is still bad.  It’s in line with the Supreme Court’s devastating decision in FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life which we knew would open the flood gates for more attack ads.  All voters can do now is brace themselves.

Sham Issue Ads – and Sham Rules

Today, the Federal Election Commission (FEC) will ratify its new regulations governing “sham issue ads” (electioneering communications). The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (also known as the McCain-Feingold law) prohibits broadcast advertisements that air immediately before an election to be paid for from corporate or union treasury funds. However, the new Roberts Supreme Court ruled in Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC that “genuine issue ads” should be exempt from the ban on corporate spending.

Public Citizen, along with many others, advised the FEC to craft its new regulations narrowly, within the confines of the Court’s ruling. This means carving out a special exemption from the corporate and union funding ban for ads that have no other reasonable meaning than to influence the election of candidates.

Fair Elections Action Week

The Fair Elections Action Week is coming up in just a few weeks!  People are taking action now so that we can show Congress that Americans want an end to pay-to-play politics by instituting a system of public financing.

We are closer than ever to cleaning up Washington.  The Fair Elections Now Act is gaining support in the Senate and we anticipate the introduction of the companion bill in the House to happen very soon!  A voluntary system of public funding for congressional elections would allow members of Congress to serve without taking huge sums of special interest money.  Elections should be about voters, not campaign cash.

Join us for the Fair Elections Action Week on November 12-16 when we will send a strong message to Congress that it's time for public funding of elections!  Actions and events will take place all over the country – some sponsored by Public Citizen and our coalition partners, others happening in the living rooms and kitchens of people ready for a change.

It’s easy to help make it a success by showing your support and spreading the word now!

Bundlers Lurking in the Smoky Backroom Again in 2008

Bundlers bring more to the table than just cash. Just ask anyone on the receiving end of a Norman Hsu or Jack Abramoff special delivery. While not all bundlers will be as obviously scandal-tainted as a man wearing a bright yellow prison jumper, Hsu and Abramoff weren’t the first, and likely won’t be the last big fundraisers to bring along a little corruption with the loot.

Bundling is the new smoked-filled room of campaign fundraising. In fact, bundlers are starting to knock other means of financing right off the map. They are swamping the candidates with more money from than the frontrunners could possibly get from the presidential public financing system, thus helping to hasten its tragic demise.

Whether bundlers deliver $50,000 or $1 million, they expect something in return. The favor may be as simple as a photo opportunity that allows them to enhance their status with business associates, or it may be even more nefarious, like a government contract or tax break. In a world of six- and seven-figure campaign contributions, corruption and scandal may not be far behind.

Become a Bundler and Travel the World

WhiteHouseforSale.org has become the go-to source for finding out who is bundling for whom.

Many wonder what all these people are paying for. What happens to bundlers who “invest” in the winning candidate?  If Bush's treatment of his bundlers is any indication, then the current crop of bundlers can look forward to rewards like easy access to power and appointments to plum positions here and overseas.

Read and watch CBS's investigation of the bundlers behind the presidential candidates, including comments from Congress Watch division director Laura MacCleery.

What do bundlers get for all their dough?

Charles Swindells became Ambassador to New Zealand; John Palmer, the ambassador to Portugal. Charles Cobb's wife, Susan got the post for Jamaica. All raised at least $100,000.

What's most troubling about bundling is the common occurrence of industry shills buying their way into positions of power with piles of campaign contributions.  At the regulatory agencies, this cronyism can translate into relaxed enforcement, big tax breaks and special earmarks for big business.  It seems that bundling is a seriously good investment.

Workin' Too Hard For His Money

On Thursday, John Edwards announced that his campaign will accept public financing for his presidential campaign. Edwards told reporters that the decision was about taking “a principled stand” in favor of public financing and challenged his top opponents, Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, to do the same.

The public funding system was designed to help candidates like Edwards, whose polling in states like Iowa clearly demonstrates his ability to appeal to voters, just not the ones with the deepest pockets. That system hasn’t kept up with the times, however. Both Clinton and Obama will probably raise $100 million by the end of this year, money they’ll be able to spend freely. Edwards, meanwhile, will have his spending in most areas restricted to less than half of that. The frenetic pace set by this season’s primary schedules unfortunately tilts the playing field toward the most heavily-funded candidates. Restoring the public financing system would put some much needed balance back into the contest, giving all voters a better voice.

Clinton to Return Tainted Money

In a surprise move, Hillary Clinton announced that she would return contributions totaling $850,000 from convicted felon and captured fugitive, Norman Hsu.  Hsu bundled this obscene amount of contributions from about 260 other donors. Clinton’s campaign is following the urging of Public Citizen and others to return the tainted cash to each donor.

As we’ve mentioned before, Clinton is not the first to deal with unsavory fundraisers, and Clinton is not the only candidate to have received money from Hsu.  Around 24 Democrats have accepted campaign contributions from Hsu since 2004.

One can’t help but wonder who the 260 people Hsu collected money from are and what influence was promised in exchange.  So far, Clinton’s campaign isn’t disclosing the names of the donors bundled by Hsu.  The names of these individuals and their ties to Hsu should be public record – just as all bundled contributions should be.

Unfortunately, the ’08 candidates have been even more secretive than Bush and Kerry were in ’04 about who their bundlers are and how much they have raised (are there more Hsus waiting to drop?). None of the presidential candidates in this election are adequately disclosing their bundlers to the public, and none of the campaigns – until now – have bothered to fully check the bundler’s backgrounds. You can bet that each campaign is feverishly doing background checks on anyone who has given them (or their opponents) hefty sums of money. 

The Real Dirt on Presidential Fundraisers

The newspapers lit up this week with revelations that Norman Hsu, a top fundraiser for Hillary Clinton, not only may have violated campaign finance laws by laundering contributions through family members but is also a fugitive facing jail time.

While the press enjoyed a reprieve from the dog days of August, partisans delighted in the chance to score some points. Michelle Malkin, Washington’s reigning queen of indignation and a stand-in host on the “fair-and-balanced” network, gleefully taunted, “What say you now, Hillary?” on her blog. Malkin later opined that even Clinton’s pledge to return Hsu’s contributions could not erase the “stain.” Oooooooh.

Clinton’s troubles are about the same as the unpleasant circumstance Mitt Romney faced in mid-August when news broke that a Maryland grand jury had returned a 23-count indictment against a co-chairman of his national finance committee. Ouch. Malkin’s blog item scolding Romney for his failure to perform due diligence on the co-chairman, Alan B. Fabian, is available here. (Oops. Curiously, a review of Malkin’s archive was unable to unearth any such item.)

Aside from the fact that partisans will use campaign finance scandals for their own advantage, here is what the Hsu and Fabian episodes really show: Our campaign finance system attracts unsavory fundraisers - and candidates have little incentive to ferret out the bad apples. In reality, their true incentive is to remain blithely ignorant of their donors’ histories.

No More Campaign Cash from Lobbyists

I just learned from on rssrai on MyDD that a Gallup Poll released today shows that more Americans believe that the presidential candidates should NOT take money from lobbyists:

Eighty percent of Americans say that candidates for president (generically) should refuse to accept campaign contributions from Washington lobbyists; only 18% say it is okay to accept these donations.

Wow.  We are in really good company.

Gallup also asked how people felt about Hillary Clinton taking cash from Washington lobbyists with stunning results:

Even Clinton's base supporters -- rank-and-file Democrats -- say the New York Senator should refuse to accept campaign contributions from lobbyists. Sixty-nine percent of Democrats say Clinton should refuse lobbyist contributions -- not much different than the 71% of Republicans and 75% of independents who share this point of view.

On previous occasions, when asked, Senator Clinton has said that she will continue to take campaign contributions from lobbyists who “represent real people”.  I guess folks aren’t buying that anymore.

If you’d like to be the next person to ask her about lobbyist campaign contributions, check out our guide to finding the candidates and getting real answers (otherwise known in the rabblerousing trade as bird-dogging).  Of course, we'd also like to ask all of the candidates to stop taking gobs of money from the special interests those lobbyists represent.

Will McCain Run on the Presidential Public Financing System?

Yesterday, McCain became the first candidate eligible to receive funding from the presidential public financing system, having applied to the Federal Elections Commission earlier in the month.  He has not yet said whether he will accept the matching funds. 

It could be a lifeline for his campaign and make the system once again functional in the primary.  However, it is a tough call for McCain’s campaign since the system badly needs updating and he would be the sole candidate running accepting the spending limits in exchange for the federal funds. 

The fact that the system is still being considered in the primary shows it’s not dead yet.   However, it also highlights the real need to breathe new life into the system so that it can be an asset to more of the qualified candidates who could opt in and stay competitive.  Read what must be done to improve it on White House for Sale.

Edwards Agrees to Opt In

Edwards is the latest candidate to agree to use the presidential public financing system if he is the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee also opts into the system. 

The Washington Post rightly gives Edwards kudos, and notes that he joins Obama and McCain in making the pledge. 

How about the others?

Until now Clinton has hedged, saying she would “consider” it.  Any candidate who says they support public funding of elections has an opportunity to walk the talk now.  Time to bird-dog.

Laura MacCleery on WVOX

Last week, Laura MacCleery, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, spoke to New Yorkers about the recently passed Lobbying and Ethics bill, the role of lobbyists in campaign fundraising, Fair Elections, and presidential bundlers.

Listen to her interview on WVOX.

White House for Sale on Counterspin

Laura MacCleery, director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch division, was interviewed about the White House for Sale project on FAIR's CounterSpin last Friday, August 10th.

Listen to hear Laura explain the role of bundlers and the state of transparency thus far in the 2008 presidential election (roughly two-thirds of the way through the program).

Tying it all together

Yesterday morning, the Washington Post explored how the dash for cash puts pressure on lower level employees and others to pony up when the boss has signed on to financially support a candidate. The Post found that 526 secretaries, administrative assistants and executive assistants have contributed to the presidential candidates in the first half of this year, a roughly four-fold increase from the 127 donors with those occupations who contributed during the same time period four years ago.

In a somewhat dismissive aside, the Post cited Former Federal Election Commissioner Scott Thomas' reading that pressuring low-paid subordinates isn't even necessarily illegal as long as supervisors don't "facilitate" the donations. Bundlers would, however, be breaking the law if they are reimbursing their employees under the table. The paper seemed to be making light of what seems to be a credible explanation. What are we supposed to think when an employee, who may only take home $20,000 to $30,000 a year after taxes, is forking over as much as a tenth of their paycheck to a candidate?

They talk big, but will candidates deliver the fundraising transparency we need?

Originally posted on Laura MacCleery's diary at MyDD

Last night, Presidential hopeful Barack Obama reiterated once more that he does not take money from lobbyists:

OLBERMANN: Thirty seconds. Senator Obama, I know you and Senator Edwards have taken a firm stand against accepting money from lobbyists, yet you allow them to raise money for you and, as the phrase goes, "Bundle it." What's the difference between those things?
OBAMA: No, no. I do not have federal registered lobbyists bundling for me, just like I don't take PAC money.  (APPLAUSE) And the reason that's important is because the people in this stadium need to know who we are going to fight for. And I want to be absolutely clear that the reason I'm in public  life, the reason I came to Chicago, the reason I started working with  unions, the reason I march on picket lines, the reason that I'm  running for president is because of you... (APPLAUSE) ... not because of the folks who are writing big checks. And that's a clear message that has to be sent, I think, by every candidate.

Click here for full transcript. 

Presidential Candidates Debate Lobbyist Campaign Contributions

At the Yearly Kos convention this past weekend, presidential candidates sparred over accepting contributions from lobbyists (which would include having lobbyists as bundlers). They all agreed, however, on the need for public funding of elections.

Congress Delivers on Lobbying and Ethics Reform!

Finally – real ethics reform passed in Congress!  Yesterday the Senate approved S. 1 – the “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007” – with a veto-proof majority of 83 to 14. On Tuesday, the House also passed the bill with flying colors by 411 to 8.

This terrific legislation will give the public important new information about the cozy relationships between industry lobbyists and members of Congress, and limit the outrageous gifts and travel junkets that laid the groundwork for the culture of corruption on Capitol Hill.   

Today marks the final chapter of a long struggle. We first kicked off the drive to fix Capitol Hill over three years ago. Back then, our “wish list” of reforms was largely ignored by members of Congress and the media – even laughed at as a political impossibility. Then Jack Abramoff’s world – and that of many prominent members of Congress – started to unravel. 

As the investigations into kickbacks and bribes became indictments, our call for reform – and the increased public disgust with Washington – became more and more difficult to ignore. When Abramoff worked out a plea deal in January 2006 to name those whom he bribed to the FBI, you’d have thought the gig was up. But the leadership of the 109th Congress burrowed into the warm sand like ostriches and ignored the need for reform.  In return for their indifference, the voters changed up the Congress in 2006, citing corruption as a top concern.

But institutional change is hard even for a Congress elected on a promise to “end the culture of corruption.” As the bill moved forward, the “K Street” crowd lobbied hard, warning members not to bite the hands that keep lawmakers fat and happy. Public Citizen’s activists did not back down, sending thousands of faxes, emails and making hundreds of call to the Hill to tell Congress it must see this through. 

House Overwhelmingly Approves Ethics Bill - Next: The Senate

It always amazes me what a roll-call vote can do. Behind the scenes, in back-room negotiations, many members of Congress have been laboring away trying to water down – if not kill – lobbying and ethics reform legislation.

Yet when the same bill was submitted to a roll-call vote, where members go on record voting “yea” or “nay,” the bill on ethics sailed through. The House passed a landmark lobbying and ethics bill today by a vote of 411-to-8. Looking at the floor vote, most of the public would not know that many members of Congress had wished this bill would die a quiet death.

About two weeks ago, the bill had one foot in the grave.

White House for Sale

Welcome to White House for Sale 2008! 

This new and revitalized destination site gives you the scoop on big bundlers who are powering today’s billion-dollar race to the White House.  Bundlers have enormous influence in determining election winners because they funnel huge sums from other people to candidates.  Candidates, for their part, often bestow cutesy titles on them (remember Bush’s “Rangers” and “Pioneers”?) and reward them with access and plum government positions if they win.

In the 2004 presidential campaign, more than 60 of Bush’s big bundlers were federal lobbyists, including disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose influence-peddling scandal laid down breadcrumbs into several congressional offices as well as the Interior Department and landed Abramoff in prison.  Bush’s bundlers back in 2000 included former Enron CEO Ken Lay, who was subsequently allowed to help choose two of the five regulators charged with overseeing energy companies.  We all remember what happened there.

We think it's long past time for the “For Sale” sign on the White House lawn to come down and stay down.  So, we are at it again for the 2008 campaign.  This time, the task is more challenging because most of the major candidates are opting out of public financing and being showered with cash collected by bundlers.

The current crop of White House hopefuls is actually worse than the very minimal disclosure standards set by Bush, Dean and Kerry.  In 2004, those candidates made bundlers’ names readily accessible and provided at least some insight into how much money bundlers raised.  So far in this election, only one 2008 candidate (Barack Obama) is disclosing anything about how much his bundlers are raising.

We don’t plan on letting that slide.  We are going continue to demand disclosure by bird-dogging the candidates and relentlessly pursuing better disclosure of the big donors.

Sen. DeMint – Remove Your Hold Against Congressional Ethics Reform

For the second time in two weeks, Senate Republicans have blocked the lobbying and ethics reform legislation. First it was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) who obstructed final consideration of the legislation; now it is Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

Both senators claim that they are not opposed to ethics, or even the new reform legislation, for that matter. They just want assurances that favored legislative proposals will be addressed. For DeMint, he wants the Senate to guarantee passage of earmarking reform, before he will allow the lobbying and ethics bill – which contains DeMint’s exact earmarking reform language – proceed to conference committee to iron out the differences with the House bill.

Don’t buy these excuses for a second.

Last year, when the Republicans controlled Congress and had a golden opportunity to clean up its act and pass lobbying and ethics reform legislation, the Republicans chose instead to let the legislation quietly die in conference. How convenient: they went on record voting for reform, but did not actually have to stomach any reform.

This year, the reform legislation rolled through both the Senate and the House, but must again be reconciled in conference before final passage. If DeMint and McConnell succeed at blocking conference proceedings, they will have succeeded at killing the legislation – all the while avoiding a public vote against reform.

Enough already! Americans are demanding lobbying and ethics reform. DeMint – end your filibuster against ethics.

Read Public Citizen’s letter to DeMint and our press release touting the tough letter.

UPDATE: Read the letter and press release by Public Citizen and its coalition partners.

Reform-minded Senators Call for Strong Bill

Eleven senators, led by Senators Russ Feingold (D.-Wisc.) and Barack Obama (D.-Ill.), and all of the freshman Senate Democrats — Senators Brown, Cardin, Casey, Klobuchar, McCaskill, Tester, Webb and Whitehouse — as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I.- Vt.), sent a letter to leadership asking them to preserve the strong medicine for corrupt government in S.1, the Senate's landmark lobbying and ethics reform bill. The bill is on its way to conference.

The senators called on the leaders to maintain support in conference for all of the significant achievements of the bill, including:

• A strong gift ban;
• Restrictions on corporate jet flights;
• Disclosure of bundling by lobbyists; 
• The revolving door language that is in the Senate's version of the bill;
• Limits on privately funded travel;
• Restrictions on lavish convention parties; and
• Improvements in legislative transparency.

We applaud these senators for their leadership and vision.

Hearing on Fair Elections

Ordinary voters are being drowned out by corporate and wealthy special interests that co-opt our elected officials and raid the treasury for earmarks and tax breaks.  The result is policy for Big Pharma, Big Oil and Wall Street.  We can change all that with the Fair Elections Now Act.

The Senate Rules Committee is holding the first congressional hearing in more than a decade on publicly funded elections.

Watch it live on June 20, 10:00 a.m. EST!

Take a minute to become a Citizen Co-Sponsor of the bill and tell your Senators to break free from corporate and wealthy special interests.

Why do you think publicly funded elections are so important?

UPDATE: You can still watch the hearing at the link above.

Colbert on Revolving Door

The much touted lobbying & ethics bill is heading to committee to reconcile the differences between the Senate and House versions and one of the key provisions we have been fighting for may not survive.  Is it too much to ask for slightly stricter revolving door provisions?  Can't members of Congress wait one more year before they cash-in on K Street and turn around to lobby their former colleagues?

Apparently not.

Stephen Colbert finds this debate ridiculous.  Let's demand this reasonable and necessary reform.

Claybrook Conversation on Moyer's Blog

Joan Claybrook's post on the Bill Moyers Journal Blog is generating a lively conversation about the need for lobbying and ethics reform in Congress.  Not surprisingly, there are many reflections on the impact of corporate interests, and public funding of elections came up quickly as the ultimate antidote. 

You can check it out and join in, or pick up the thread here. 

If you haven't yet had a chance to see the "Cleaning House" segment of the Bill Moyers Journal that we announced here on the Watchdog Blog, you can watch it below:

Joan Claybrook and Bill Moyers on What’s at Stake

Tune in tonight when award-winning journalist Bill Moyers sits down with Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook for an in-depth examination of what makes the lobbying and ethics reform bill the single most important piece of legislation Congress can enact. Bill Moyers Journal airs on PBS. Check your local listings for the exact time of the broadcast or watch online afterwards and learn what is at stake.

Here’s a preview of the Moyers show.  Here’s what you can do.

What opposition?

This past week the House finally passed the long-awaited lobbying reform bill.  After months of wrangling, significant reforms in the relationship between lobbyists and Congress passed overwhelmingly. 

Check out Craig Holman's excellent piece in The Politico.  Here's what Craig has to say about those who fought the reforms:

The curmudgeons were those in the middle layer of the caucus – folks who have been around Capitol Hill for 10 or 20 years. Members such as Reps. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii), Allen Boyd (D-Fla.) and Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) railed against the reforms. These lawmakers have close fundraising relationships with the lobbying corps and perhaps also are eyeing million-dollar lobbying jobs in the near future. Hastings, now serving his eighth term, scoffed at the reformers, who “want Congress to be in sackcloth and ashes.”

The old bulls’ opposition was so vocal that Democratic leaders continued to water down the bill to buy their votes. In the most tragic cut of all, a back-room deal was worked out to strip the reform bill of its revolving door restrictions in exchange for a vote to send the measure to the floor. But Abercrombie et al. still continued to decry other provisions, such as the bundling disclosure, threatening to kill the measure on the floor.

Though these guys still voted against the reform bill, they were about the only ones. The measure passed overwhelmingly by a vote of 396-22.

This is a hard-won victory that we share with our allies in the House, our coalition partners, the voices of reason in the media and blogosphere, and most of all, with our very committed activists. 

Now let's make sure the members of the conference committee don't shred these reforms when joining the Senate and House versions of the bills.

So Much for the Cleanest Congress in History

Those screwy Democrats - not much good news on the lobbying reform front.

While the Democratic leadership and freshmen Dems clearly want some substantial lobbying and ethics reform legislation, the "old bulls" in the Democratic caucus do not want business-as-usual to change much. These are the members who have been around Congress for 10 or 20 years and now dominate chairs on various committees.

The old bulls made it clear earlier that they would join Republicans and defeat the entire bill. So, leadership worked out a deal this morning: that all the revolving door provisions, including the simple extending the cooling off period from one year to two years, would be removed from the bill, if they would support an amendment to disclose campaign bundling by lobbyists along with the base disclosure bill. That deal went though. It means that the floor rule will be designed to prohibit introduction of the revolving door amendment I had been working on.

Following that deal, Democrats overwhelming defeated amendments to disclose grassroots lobbying, and to prohibit lobbyists from organizing and paying for convention parties and other events honoring Members.

The Republican caucus is quite happy with the bill so far, with Lamar Smith (R-Texas) pointing out that it resembles the lobbying reform bill the Republicans approved in the 109th Congress (but which perished in conference) - and which we denounced as "warm spit."

Not a very impressive performance by a Democratic caucus that promised to make this Congress "the cleanest in history."

IRS Needs to Draw the Line on 501(c) Nonprofits

Word is spreading about nonprofits who do excessive electioneering, like Americans for Job Security. Public Citizen's Research Director, Taylor Lincoln, had this to say in a recent edition of Roll Call:

The passage of tax season offers an apt time to discuss one of the Internal Revenue Service’s lesser-known, but increasingly crucial, responsibilities: policing 501(c) nonprofit groups that violate their tax status by spending too much effort influencing elections.

The IRS has shown great reluctance to meddle in the electioneering affairs of nonprofit groups (except those registered as charities; more on that later). Its inaction now threatens to blow a gaping hole in the integrity of our campaign finance laws and sacrifice yet another election cycle to a soft-money arms race.

The Business Community Joins in the Call for Lobbying and Ethics Reform

The Committee for Economic Development (CED), a national association of 250 business and education leaders, signed on to a letter sent to Congress today calling for House members to carry through on their promise of passing meaningful, new lobbying and ethics reforms.

    The letter, also signed by Public Citizen, U.S. PIRG, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, urged the House to approve a lobbying and ethics refo