Articles
Roll Call: 'Bridges to Nowhere' No More
01/22/2008
By Craig Holman
Call them earmarks, if you must, but they ain’t the “pork”
of yesteryear. Minnesota Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D) and Norm Coleman (R) added a
$195 million earmark to the omnibus appropriations bill to rebuild the collapsed
bridge in
The new 110th Congress stormed Capitol Hill last year on a
promise to pass comprehensive lobbying reform and change business as usual. It
delivered on that promise.
Earmarks are no longer secret. As Congress finalizes its
appropriations bills, one component of the new lobbying law is earmark reform.
It used to be that pet spending projects were secretly inserted into massive
spending bills. Not anymore. The new reforms require each earmark to be clearly
identified and assigned a sponsor - and posted on the Internet
48 hours before a vote. Committee reports even put this
information in chart format.
Now out in the open, earmarking has fundamentally changed.
Citizens Against Government Waste, an organization critical of earmarks,
documented their sharp decline last year due to greater public scrutiny and a
temporary moratorium. Both the number and dollar amount reached an all-time
high during the previous Congress - with 13,997 earmarks worth
$27.3 billion in 2005 and 9,963 earmarks worth $29 billion
in 2006. But under the new 110th Congress, earmarks plummeted to only 2,658
earmarks worth $13.2 billion in 2007, and 11,043 earmarks worth $14.1 billion in
omnibus appropriations and related bills for 2008 - literally a reduction in
the amount of earmarks by half. The group noted that in
2007 “[t]here are no indoor rain forests, National Peanut
Festivals, mariachi music grants, or teapot museums to be found.”
Gifts from lobbyists are gone. Gifts and meals used to be
the lobbyists’ common currency for influence peddling. Disgraced former
lobbyist Jack Abramoff plied his trade with a special table in his restaurant
for free wining and dining of lawmakers. Some Congressional staffers even used
to hand their lunch checks to the nearest available lobbyist, who willingly
paid.
You won’t see this type of behavior on Capitol Hill anymore.
Gifts and meals from lobbyists - even organizations that employ lobbyists - are
now banned.
Travel junkets are grounded. Travel junkets were another
popular tool to increase lobbyist access. Members flew around the globe
courtesy of lobbying organizations. In 2005, before Abramoff’s trips-for-favors
scheme led to the crackdown, lawmakers took 1,340 trips at a cost of
At last count, lawmakers are traveling a fraction as often.
According to CQ MoneyLine, in the first eight months of 2007, lawmakers took
337 privately sponsored trips worth $1.9 million.
And these trips are not junkets. They must be pre-approved,
with an itinerary made available to the public. Lobbying organizations may
sponsor one-day trips (or two days, if travel time so requires), just long
enough to fly a Member in to give a speech at a conference.
Corporate jets for this travel are effectively prohibited,
and lobbyists cannot even tag along.
Lobbyists’ money is now an open book. The coup de grâce of
the legislation is disclosure of that potentially corrupting nexus between
lobbyists, money and lawmakers. Fundraising is the single most powerful tool wielded
by lobbyists. When kept out of the public eye, corruption can breed.
Mitch Delk, former lobbyist for Freddie Mac, held 45
fundraisers in one election cycle for lawmakers overseeing the mortgage lending
industry.
After Public Citizen filed a Federal Election Commission
complaint against Delk, the agency fined Freddie Mac $3.8 million. The
fundraisers came to our attention largely because a fundraising firm
unnecessarily boasted about them on the Web.
The new lobbying and ethics reform law brings this lobbyist
fundraising out into the open, in a searchable, sortable and downloadable
format on the Internet. We no longer have to rely on slip-up Web postings by
those involved in illegal fundraising to catch the next Mitch Delk and Freddie
Mac.
Lobbyists must electronically file financial activity
reports every three months. Lawmakers who are convicted of serious felonies
lose their Congressional pensions. Assuming adverse guidelines by the infamous
House ethics committee will be reversed to comply with the new ethics rules,
lobbyists no longer can host lavish parties at national conventions. And all of
this information - earmarks, travel records, fundraising, lobbyist reports -
will be posted on the Internet for everyone to see.
It is not “business as usual” on Capitol Hill. The business
of Congress is now surprisingly transparent for the public to scrutinize,
criticize and sometimes even praise.
Craig Holman is the Capitol Hill lobbyist for Public
Citizen.