[Senate Hearing 109-428]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 109-428
LOBBYING REFORM: PROPOSALS AND ISSUES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JANUARY 25, 2006
__________
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
SUSAN M. COLLINS, Maine, Chairman
TED STEVENS, Alaska JOSEPH I. LIEBERMAN, Connecticut
GEORGE V. VOINOVICH, Ohio CARL LEVIN, Michigan
NORM COLEMAN, Minnesota DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware
LINCOLN D. CHAFEE, Rhode Island MARK DAYTON, Minnesota
ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah FRANK LAUTENBERG, New Jersey
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico MARK PRYOR, Arkansas
JOHN W. WARNER, Virginia
Michael D. Bopp, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Kurt A. Schmautz, Counsel
Joyce A. Rechtschaffen, Minority Staff Director and Counsel
Troy H. Cribb, Minority Counsel
Trina Driessnack Tyrer, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Collins.............................................. 1
Senator Lieberman............................................ 2
Senator Voinovich............................................ 4
Senator Levin................................................ 5
Senator Coburn............................................... 6
Senator Pryor................................................ 7
Senator Warner............................................... 8
Senator Domenici............................................. 9
Senator Carper............................................... 10
Senator Stevens.............................................. 12
Senator Coleman.............................................. 22
WITNESSES
Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Hon. John McCain, a U.S. Senator from the State of Arizona....... 12
Hon. Richard J. Durbin, a U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois 15
Hon. Russell D. Feingold, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Wisconsin...................................................... 17
Hon. Rick Santorum, a U.S. Senator from the State of Pennsylvania 20
Hon. Dick Clark, Director, Aspen Institute Congressional Program. 26
Hon. John Engler, President and Chief Executive Officer, National
Association of Manufacturers................................... 28
William Samuel, Legislative Director, AFL-CIO.................... 30
Fred Wertheimer, President, Democracy 21......................... 44
Paul A. Miller, President, American League of Lobbyists.......... 46
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Clark, Hon. Dick:
Testimony.................................................... 26
Prepared statement........................................... 64
Durbin, Hon. Richard J.:
Testimony.................................................... 15
Prepared statement........................................... 57
Engler, Hon. John:
Testimony.................................................... 28
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 67
Feingold, Hon. Russell D.:
Testimony.................................................... 17
McCain, Hon. John:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Miller, Paul A.:
Testimony.................................................... 46
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 100
Samuel, William:
Testimony.................................................... 30
Prepared statement........................................... 79
Santorum, Hon. Rick:
Testimony.................................................... 20
Prepared statement........................................... 61
Wertheimer, Fred:
Testimony.................................................... 44
Prepared statement with attachments.......................... 84
Appendix
Hon. E. Benjamin Nelson, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Nebraska, prepared statement................................... 112
AARP, prepared statement......................................... 113
John H. Graham IV, CAE, President and CEO, American Society of
Association Executives (ASAE), prepared statement.............. 117
Joan Claybrook, President, Public Citizen, prepared statement
with attachments............................................... 119
LOBBYING REFORM: PROPOSALS AND ISSUES
----------
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:34 a.m., in
room SD-342, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Susan M.
Collins, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Collins, Stevens, Voinovich, Coleman,
Coburn, Chafee, Bennett, Domenici, Warner, Lieberman, Levin,
Carper, and Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN COLLINS
Chairman Collins. The Committee will come to order. Good
morning.
Today, the Committee begins an examination of lobbying
reform. This hearing will focus on proposals before Congress to
reform lobbying practices in the wake of scandals involving
Jack Abramoff and Representative Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham.
Although the actions of both men violated current laws, they
nevertheless have prompted a much-needed review of legal
lobbying activities that raise questions of improper influence
or the appearance of impropriety.
We must act to strengthen the laws governing disclosure and
ban practices that erode public confidence in the integrity of
government decisions. We must reform rules that allow former
lawmakers turned lobbyists special access to lobby their former
colleagues on the Senate floor. We must end the practice of
allowing members to slip earmarks that have received neither
scrutiny nor a vote in either the House or the Senate into the
final versions of legislation.
All of us here today recognize that lobbying, whether done
on behalf of the business community, an environmental
organization, a children's advocacy group, or any other cause,
can provide us with useful information that aids but does not
dictate the decisionmaking process. Indeed, lobbying is a word
that has a long and noble history. It comes to us from Great
Britain, where the tradition developed that citizens, whether
acting on their own behalf or for a group, would approach
members of Parliament in the lobby of that building to offer
their views on pending legislation. It was done in the light of
day, and the medium of exchange was ideas.
Today's lobbying too often conjures up images of all-
expense-paid vacations masquerading as fact-finding trips,
special access that the average citizen can never have, and
undue influence that leads to tainted decisions. The corrosive
effect of this image, and in some cases reality, on the
public's confidence in the political process cannot be
underestimated.
We have an obligation to strengthen the crucial bond of
trust between those in government and those whom government
serves. Our Nation faces a great many challenges that Congress
should address. If the bond of trust between public officials
and their constituents is frayed, if our citizens believe that
decisions are tainted by improper influence, then our country
will be unable to tackle the big issues. No major legislation
can pass without the support of the American people, and the
public's trust in Congress is perilously low.
I am especially pleased that we have with us this morning
several of our colleagues who will be testifying. They are
champions of good government, of open and accountable
government, and I look forward very much to hearing their
proposals for reform.
Our other witnesses today offer a broad perspective on
these issues. They represent business and labor organizations
that engage in lobbying, a respected public policy institute
that sponsors travel to conferences, a public policy expert who
has long advocated reform, and a representative of an
association of lobbyists. Sometimes even lobbyists need a
lobbyist. I look forward to hearing their testimony.
The issue we take up today is serious and it is pressing.
The right of the American people to petition their government
is a constitutional guarantee and must not be chilled. At the
same time, it is imperative that the give and take of advocacy
focus on the exchange of ideas conducted in broad daylight. The
American people deserve no less.
Senator Lieberman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LIEBERMAN
Senator Lieberman. Thanks very much, Madam Chairman,
particularly for moving so quickly to hold this hearing on
lobbying reform. By doing so, our Committee, under your
leadership, sends a strong and clear signal that Congress will
come together across party lines this year to reform our
lobbying laws and remove the cloud of suspicion that currently
hangs over this institution.
It is no secret that the Jack Abramoff scandal is the
primary reason for Congressional-wide acknowledgement that
lobbying regulations need reform. Elsewhere, people may argue
about whether the scandal is partisan. On this Committee, we
know the response must be bipartisan. The consequences of
Abramoff's crimes are so antithetical to our way of governance
and so embarrassing to Congress that Democrats and Republicans,
House Members and Senators agree that Congress must act, and we
will.
Trust between the people and their elected leaders is
essential to our democracy. The behavior of Mr. Abramoff and
his associates undercuts that trust and sends the message that
in Washington, results go to the highest bidder, not to the
greatest public good. By his guilty pleas, Mr. Abramoff has
acknowledged that he violated the law. However, his sordid
story also reveals activity that, while technically legal, is
nonetheless clearly wrong.
In government, we must hold ourselves and be held to a
higher standard, to do not just what is legal but what is
right. As lawmakers, we now have the opportunity and
responsibility to make what is clearly wrong also illegal.
Excellent lobbying reform proposals have been referred to
our Committee and are now pending here. I have joined with
Senator John McCain in sponsoring one of them, the bipartisan
Lobbying Transparency and Accountability Act of 2005. Our
legislation directly responds to the abuses uncovered by the
Indian Affairs Committee in the tough and independent
investigation which Senator McCain chaired. It also, I might
add, responds to the work done by the Department of Justice
leading up to the plea bargain that Mr. Abramoff entered a few
weeks ago.
The legislation which Senator McCain and I have proposed
would require more frequent and detailed disclosure of lobbyist
activities and, for the first time, full disclosure from
grassroots lobbying firms that are paid to conduct mass
television or direct mail campaigns to influence Members of
Congress. Mr. Abramoff used one of these firms, controlled by
his associate Mr. Scanlon, to conceal millions of dollars of
payments he overcharged to Indian tribes, which were then
forwarded to him.
Under the legislation Senator McCain and I have introduced,
lobbyists would be required to disclose all payments for travel
made or arranged, including detailed itemization of trips and
all gifts over $20. Members of Congress and their staffs who
fly on corporate jets would have to pay the equivalent of a
chartered plane rather than just the first-class price of their
ticket. Lobbyists would also have to disclose campaign
contributions as well as contributions made to honor public
officials, and the revolving door between Capitol Hill and K
Street would spin more slowly under our proposal.
Senator Reid has also introduced very strong lobbying
reform legislation, which I am cosponsoring. Senator Santorum,
who will testify this morning, is working on lobbying reform
legislation for the Senate Republican Majority. Senator
Feingold, who will also testify this morning, introduced
lobbying reform legislation just about a year ago. And Senator
Coleman has a different kind of proposal about a commission
here, which I look forward to hearing about.
But what I want to say in conclusion is that of the three
proposals that are before us, the one of Senator McCain and
myself, the one of Senator Reid, the one of Senator Feingold--
and presumably the one that Senator Santorum will soon
introduce--all share the majority of the provisions in each.
All of them call for increased disclosure by lobbyists, for
disclosure of paid grassroots lobbying firms and lobbying
coalition members, for slowing down the revolving door between
Capitol Hill and K Street, and for ending the abuse of gift and
travel rules. There are differences, but they are reconcilable.
That is why I believe, Madam Chairman, we now have a once-
in-a-generation opportunity to reach agreement on a broad set
of lobbying reforms that will reduce the cynicism with which
many of the American people view their government. We cannot
and will not let partisanship or institutional defensiveness
stop us from achieving that goal. Frankly, the status quo
stinks and cries out to us to lead the way in clearing the air.
Today, we have an outstanding group of witnesses, starting
off with our colleagues, Senators McCain, Feingold, Santorum,
Durbin, and Coleman. I look forward to working with them and
you, Madam Chairman, to pass lobbying reform legislation and to
do it soon. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Voinovich.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR VOINOVICH
Senator Voinovich. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I applaud
your leadership and thank you for calling this hearing on
lobbying reform.
With our election to the U.S. Senate, the citizens of our
respective States entrusted us to represent their interests in
a morally correct and ethical, appropriate way. The trust the
American people have given us is something we must never
forget.
As the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, I
have been given a responsibility by my colleagues to ensure
that the Senate community is true to that trust. It is a heavy
burden, but one that I am proud to have. I am glad that I am a
Member of this Committee today because so much of what we are
going to do will have an impact on the Senate Select Committee
on Ethics.
With these thoughts in mind, I believe that we must
carefully consider the various proposals for lobbying reform
that have been put forward or that are still being refined.
This consideration must be mindful of the current rules,
regulations, and Federal code to ensure that any new rules or
changes to existing rules do not unintentionally weaken those
which are already in place. Any changes that are ultimately
adopted must be the result of thoughtful deliberation, not
rushed through in an attempt to show the American people that
we are doing something about the abuses of the systems that
they read and hear about in the media.
Madam Chairwoman, our efforts to reform the rules governing
lobbying must be done in a truly bipartisan fashion. We have a
responsibility to the Senate as an institution, our
constituents, and ourselves to use the opportunity before us to
better the culture in Washington and the Senate. Both sides of
the aisle must dedicate themselves to improving the Senate
through lobbying reform.
Let me assure my colleagues and the American people as
Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics that any
Senator or staff member that is found to be in violation of the
Senate ethics rules will be dealt with appropriately, as we
have always done so. I have tried to inform my fellow Senators
about the ethics rules and what they require.
I have also observed that there is significant confusion on
the part of lobbyists regarding their disclosure requirements
right now. In fact, I had a conversation yesterday with a
couple lobbyists on this point. They disagreed as to what the
disclosure requirements required of them. They had different
perceptions, and I think that is a problem.
It is also important that we weigh the proposed reform's
reporting requirements and the costs and administrative
capacity that will be incurred to administer them versus the
benefit derived from a more transparent system.
Madam Chairman, if you would like, I would be happy to hold
at least one hearing on the capacity currently in place to
administer and enforce the existing rules on the books. Are we
enforcing the rules that are on the books right now? Do the
people out there who are supposed to comply with them know that
we are enforcing the rules, or do they just file pieces of
paper and figure nobody pays any attention to them anyhow and
so they get a little bit careless? I think it is really
important that the people know if we do pass some additional
reforms that they are going to be enforced and that we are
enforcing the current rules and regulations that we have in
place today.
And last but not least, we should as a body give
consideration to the enormous amount of time and energy we
devote to raising money for our campaigns and our respective
caucuses. It is out of control. We all hate it, and it is about
time we collectively think about how we can get off the
treadmill that has given rise to the Abramoff abuses of the
system.
I look forward to hearing the views of my fellow Senators
as well as the other distinguished witnesses who are with us
today on how we can reform and improve the current system.
Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Levin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LEVIN
Senator Levin. Madam Chairman, thank you for holding these
hearings so promptly, as Senator Lieberman has pointed out.
In the early 1990s, with the great bipartisan support of
Members of this Committee and other Members of the Senate,
Senator Cohen and I coauthored on a bipartisan basis the
Lobbying Disclosure Act. The reforms that were enacted 10 years
ago made improvements in both lobbying disclosure and
Congressional gift requirements. Before we enacted these
reforms, fewer than 6,000 lobbyists registered and the
information that registered lobbyists disclosed was widely
regarded as useless. Under the previous law, under-reporting of
lobbying receipts and expenditures was endemic and fully 60
percent of registered lobbyists failed to report any
expenditures at all.
Under the reforms that we adopted, the Lobbying Disclosure
Act, as it is called, more than 30,000 lobbyists have now
registered and there appear to be providing relatively accurate
and complete information on their clients, the topics on which
they lobbied, and the amounts that they have spent on lobbying.
As a result, while the 10 largest lobbying firms in 1989
reported a combined lobbying income of less than $2 million,
the 10 largest lobbying firms in 2002 more accurately reported
their income, and they reported it at $200 million. Overall,
roughly $2 billion now in lobbying fees are reported under the
Lobbying Disclosure Act every year.
Under the original version of that reform which Senator
Cohen and I introduced in the 103rd Congress, there were
toughened enforcement provisions, there was coverage of
grassroots lobbying, there was zero tolerance for gifts, meals,
and entertainment from lobbyists, and there were tight rules
for gifts from others. Because of a filibuster in the final
weeks of the Congress, we were unable to get that stronger
version of the bill enacted, and that is a pity. As a result,
we have seen some of the problems which have recently been so
dramatized.
But when we revisited the issue in the next Congress, the
104th Congress, we dropped some of the provisions, including
the provision covering grassroots lobbying, the provision which
called for stronger enforcement, and we had to incorporate a
somewhat more lenient rule for gifts from lobbyists. We did all
that in order to get the bill enacted.
In recent weeks and months, Jack Abramoff and others have
plead guilty to criminal offenses in connection with their
lobbying activities. There are indications in press accounts
that many of their activities may also have violated our
existing gift rules, as well. As Senator Voinovich has pointed
out, and I think very accurately and very effectively, our
existing gift rules seem to have been violated.
For example, they contain a prohibition on travel that is
paid for by lobbyists. They contain a prohibition on travel
that is ``substantially recreational in nature.'' They also
contain, our gift rules, a rule against a member or staffer
from accepting gifts with a cumulative value in excess of $100
from any one source in a calendar year. What we have read about
raises some very significant questions as to whether our
existing rules have been effectively enforced by us, and that
needs to be done, obviously.
But these recent events also dramatize the need to close
loopholes in the existing law, as well. For instance, we must
prevent the sponsors of lobbyists from hiding their identities,
either when it comes to paying for travel or participating in
coalitions. We have got to ensure the disclosure of paid
efforts to generate grassroots lobbying campaigns. We have got
to tighten up the gift rules. We should not permit gifts from
lobbyists and others. We have got to prevent the abuse of
privately reimbursed travel for Members of Congress and
Congressional staff.
So our work is cut out for us. While criminals have
violated existing laws and while existing rules seem to be at
least stronger than they have appeared to be because of perhaps
weak or lax enforcement on our part, there are also some gaping
holes in the law which must be removed. That is our
responsibility. This Committee has performed that
responsibility in the early 1990s when we were able to get the
current version passed, which did some good, but there is much
more to be done. Under the leadership of our Chairman and
Ranking Member, I have every confidence that we will rise to
this occasion. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Coburn.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR COBURN
Senator Coburn. Madam Chairman, thank you, and Ranking
Member, thank you, as well.
I probably will be the odd man out on this panel. I don't
believe lobbying reform is the problem. I believe Congress is,
and we are going to do a lot of things over the next 3 to 6
months that are going to look good on paper, but until you
change the motivations of the institution, you are not going to
change the behavior. Until we eliminate earmarking, the process
of putting the well-heeled above those that aren't able to be
in that position, until we change the motivation that the next
election is more important than the next generation, we won't
solve problems. The problem is us.
Transparency and reporting solves all that, not more rules,
not more pads, not more things to mark down, but the fact is
the American people need to see what we do and how we do it,
and that comes through transparency. The very idea that
somebody's vote can be bought for a golf game and a trip is
ludicrous, and if that is the case, they shouldn't be here. We
ought to be real frank with the American people. We are going
to do a lot of window dressing, but in the long run, we are not
going to change anything until we change the motivation that
the next election is more important than anything else, and
when we do that, then we will have ethical behavior in
Congress, and until we do that, we won't. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Pryor.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PRYOR
Senator Pryor. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I want to thank
you and Senator Lieberman for your leadership on this. It is so
important for the Congress that we get this right.
I guess one of the benefits of being the new kid on the
block, so to speak, is for years and years, I watched the
Senate from the outside, and one of the reasons I ran for the
Senate, quite frankly, was to do my part and do my best to try
to restore some public confidence in the institution here in
the House and the Senate as well as the Executive Branch.
I think that people all over this country and certainly
people in Arkansas feel very strongly that public policy should
be based on the marketplace of ideas, not on the marketplace of
political favors. I think that the silver lining in this very
dark Jack Abramoff cloud and some other of the scandals that
are going on here in Washington is that the people are going to
expect, and in fact will demand, that we do our part to make
things here in Washington run better.
I am not going to say a lot more because I want to hear our
panels this morning, but I do want to thank all my colleagues
who are offering proposals because I think all the proposals
have a lot of merit. Just for the Committee's benefit, I think
my approach is going to be to look at all of these proposals,
take them all very seriously, and try to take the best ideas
out of all the proposals. I think, like Senator Voinovich said,
this is not a partisan issue. This is something that we, as
Members of this body, owe to the American people. We owe it to
our Founding Fathers. We owe it to the history of this country
that we get this right.
So my approach will be very nonpartisan or bipartisan, try
to look at what everybody has. I think everybody is offering
things that are very genuine and have a lot of merit. But I
look forward to spending time in this Committee and in other
settings to really delve into some of this and try to do the
right thing for this Congress. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Warner.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR WARNER
Senator Warner. Thank you, Madam President--excuse me,
Madam Chairman and other members----
Chairman Collins. I liked that.
Senator Warner. I know you do. [Laughter.]
You thought it was an ad lib slip. I put it right out
there.
Senator Lieberman. Senator Collins would accept Commander
in Chief. [Laughter.]
Senator Warner. No, she doesn't want that job. [Laughter.]
I feel it a privilege to be on this Committee and to join
with my colleagues as we take on this challenging task. But, I
do want to reflect just a minute, being one of the older guys
on the block. Senator Levin and I came to this institution 28
years ago. I calculated we have served under five Presidents,
seven different Majority Leaders, and 241 Senators have come
and gone since we have been here. The vast majority of those
individuals have been highly dedicated and done their very best
to make this great republic stronger.
I want to talk about some things that have grown and some
things that haven't grown in that period of about a quarter of
a century. First, the cost of campaigns. My first campaign--I
have been elected five times--cost a little over $1 million,
and it was under some unusual circumstances, but today we have
just finished a gubernatorial campaign, a state-wide election
in my State, and each candidate spent over $20 million. My
colleague, Senator Allen, is raising a treasury to take on all
comers in about the same amount.
Also, the lobbying community. I don't know, Senator Levin,
but my rough recollection is that there may have been 2,000
individuals working as lobbyists about our starting time. Now,
the number reaches about 35,000.
But let me tell you what hasn't grown and what I find
shocking. It is reported in this month's Washingtonian, a very
good article about what is going right and what is going wrong
in this city. Ninety-six percent of Americans don't contribute
a penny to any politician. The politicians naturally respond to
people who give them the money. That is something we have got
to address. As Senator Voinovich pointed out, so much of our
time now in the course of our annual reelection or election
cycle is devoted to fundraising.
But I don't think we can cast an indictiment against all
the lobbyists that we have. I see in the audience Dick Clark
representing the Aspen Institute. I have been on a number of
those trips in years past. They were very beneficial, very
educational, and constructive.
I think this hearing has got to send a more balanced
message than some of the indictments here earlier. The system
is working. We are still the strongest government on the face
of the earth, with a beacon of hope for so many others, but we
can make it better. You said, bond of trust. Well, that
statistic of 96 percent not even sending $5 or $10, that is an
area which we have got to regain and broaden it so that the
American people feel more a part of this institution.
I thank the Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Senator Domenici.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DOMENICI
Senator Domenici. Madam Chairman, let me first say I don't
come to every meeting. I think you understand that. But I think
this is one of the most significant set of hearings and
activities we are going to have, and I want you to know that,
for better or for worse for you, I am going to be active
because I think this is a very difficult subject and I don't
think it is easy. There is not a simple answer, like more
rules. It is a lot different than that.
You know part of the problem is us; I won't go much beyond
that, but the good Doctor mentioned it. I mean, we get hooked
into this system, too. We don't make very many unilateral
decisions that we don't like the system. We use it.
Having said that, I just want to say that I don't know
where the jurisdiction is going to lie for things like earmark
and campaign reform, but whatever we do, I am not an advocate
of having no earmarks, but I am an advocate for reforming the
earmark process. The reason for that is, I don't think that
``earmarks'' is very easy to define.
I found a huge earmark in a tax bill that had to do with
funding cancer centers in the States, Senator Durbin, and you
would be amazed at how it is written, and nobody is thinking
about that. They all think it is earmarks in appropriations
bills, but that tax bill has $150 million going somewhere
because of how they wrote it. Earmarks are everywhere. So that
is part of what we do up here. I also think we have to tie
together campaign reform and legislative reform and the rules
with reference to ethics.
I want to just make one comment since there is some
leadership here of one party, and I think my party will be here
hopefully. I really hope that when we say, let us make this
bipartisan, and I am not saying this to one person, I am saying
it to everybody, that we really understand what that means.
That doesn't mean only that we work together, it means that we
not blame each other and then say we aren't going to do reform
because of others. I mean, you can make politics out of this,
but you can't make it so political that you can't get a bill
because you are fighting so much for political advantage. I
hope that doesn't happen. It will be very hard this year to see
that it doesn't happen, in my opinion.
Now, I am going to give you six things. First, I think that
you have to reform the fundraising activities, and I am crazy,
but I think we ought to dramatically change from whence we get
money, and I think we ought to, over a period of time, say we
only get money from our home States. Just think about that.
Some people say it is unconstitutional, but it would sure
change things.
Second, I believe we have to address the 527s, and if we
don't address them, we have decided that we really didn't want
McCain-Feingold because we let 527s take its place and do much
of the same things. I don't know how the Senators that
sponsored it feel.
On lobbying reform, I agree with Senator Voinovich. First
of all, we have to enforce the rules we have, and Madam
Chairman, I would go with Senator Voinovich and tell him to
have those hearings. I think you are going to find that we
don't have the personnel or the equipment to enforce what we
have, and there is just slipshodness all over the place. I
think we should do that now so we know what we need before we
write a bill.
Disclosure, I think you all know that is important. There
are existing disclosure rules. The problem is that since these
are such big events and episodes, disclosure is taken for
granted. It is not being done as it was expected from what my
staff tells me. We have to make sure it is and find out why it
hasn't been, in my opinion.
I would suggest on earmarks that we ought to go to the
appropriators and talk about the way it used to be, if there
was a time in this Senate's history when we didn't have so many
and the process was more open, and I would submit that we did
have a time and it was effective, and essentially it is just a
simple proposition of following the regular order on
appropriations bills and then asking the House to be partners
by not letting the Rules Committee change that so we have the
same rules in each body. I am not going to go into detail, but
if any of you want to know, ask somebody expert on
appropriations about it. It is not so hard as one might think.
Senator McCain, I know you want to go further with
earmarks, and I laud you, but I think there is a way to have
what you are talking about and everybody would know what each
earmark is and you would have to vote on it before it became
law or you couldn't put it in the bill. We have done that,
around 1980 or thereabouts, under regular order.
We have already got travel limitations. It is just that we
have got to find out what we really want to do. I agree with my
friend, Senator Warner. There is some travel that should be
done aside from CODELs. We all know that. I haven't done much
of it, but some people think it is good, and I am not going to
argue with it.
Now, obviously, those are just my thoughts. I thank you for
what you are doing and urge that you go right on, and I assume
you will be working in tandem with the Rules Committee because
they have got some jurisdiction, right?
Chairman Collins. Correct.
Senator Domenici. I thank you much, and I look forward to
proceeding.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Carper.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CARPER
Senator Carper. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I just want to
begin by expressing my appreciation to you and to our
colleague, Senator Biden, for again swiftly taking the lead on
what I think is an important issue that is facing our country.
I am confident we can address these issues before us today in
the same bipartisan way that we have addressed everything from
intelligence reform to the ongoing investigation of what went
wrong during Hurricane Katrina.
Did I say Lieberman?
Chairman Collins. You said Biden.
Senator Lieberman. You said Biden, which is in your case--
--
Senator Carper. Joe. I am for Joe. [Laughter.]
When he was running for President in 2004, people would
say, who are you for, Biden or Lieberman? I would say, I am for
Joe. I am sorry, interchangeable parts.
I am sure that most of us on this Committee have gone home
and heard about how deeply disappointed people are with what
they are seeing in Washington these days, and I think most
people in my State realize that we are not all taking bribes
and we are not all lobbyists or crooks, and I agree with them.
I have met far more good people here than bad, and I am sure
that is a sentiment that is shared by my colleagues.
But like those who I have spoken to in recent months, the
news of the Abramoff scandal has hit the papers and television
news outside the Beltway. I am greatly disappointed that our
system can allow such excesses and such disrespect for the
people who they send here to work for them. The fact is that
the American people have lost some of the trust that they place
in their leaders and us here in Washington, and that is
dangerous because, as we all know, a lot of people didn't have
much trust in us to begin with.
That is why I am proud to join a number of my colleagues in
cosponsoring one bill, and that is S. 2180, the Honest
Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006, that I believe
takes a number of the bold steps, not all, but a number of the
bold steps that are necessary to win back some of the trust
that has been lost over the last several years.
Among other things, this legislation tightens the
disclosure requirements for registered lobbyists and makes it
easier for the average American to know what the lobbying
community is up to. It also makes clear that Senators and staff
can no longer accept gifts, meals, and expensive trips from the
individuals who lobby us. And perhaps most importantly, S. 2180
strengthens enforcement of the rules governing members', staff,
and lobbyists' behavior. One of the major weaknesses, though,
in the current regime, I believe, is the lack of effective
enforcement. I know addressing these issues will be a priority
on both sides of the aisle in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, however, I pledge to hold myself and my
staff to a higher standard. We are no longer accepting meals,
entertainment, or any other gifts from lobbyists. We have also
decided not to participate in any official travel unless it is
paid for by a government entity or a nonprofit organization. We
plan to abide by these new rules regardless of what may happen
with the various lobbying reform proposals out there.
In closing, Madam Chairman and colleagues, let me just take
a moment to say that I hope our examination of the rules
governing our interactions with the lobbying community does not
ignore the fact that many of us, including myself, are forced
to spend entirely too much of our time attending fundraisers
and soliciting campaign contributions, oftentimes from
registered lobbyists.
When I first ran for the Senate in 2000 while serving full-
time as Governor of Delaware, I spent a year of my life also
traveling around the country, as I am sure many of you have,
raising the money necessary to run, in our case, about a
month's worth of television advertising on Philadelphia TV. In
total, I think I spent more money winning this Senate seat than
I did in all the rest of my 10 state-wide races for State
Treasurer, for Congress, and two times for Governor. And today,
about a year out from the 2006 elections, the fundraising work
is starting up again. In fact, as we all know, it never really
ends, and this just doesn't make any sense to me.
I want to go back home to Delaware to tell people that my
colleagues and I are going to do something to prevent a replay
of the events we have seen in the news of late, and I think we
will get that chance. I am afraid nobody will take me seriously
unless we can also find some way to do something further about
campaign spending and fundraising, as well.
And as we consider these issues before us today, I just
want to say I plan to work with my colleagues from both sides
of the aisle to do something about the cost of Federal
campaigns and the toll that it takes on our democracy. Our
former colleague, Senator Fritz Hollings, had a proposal for a
number of years that would allow limits on the amounts that a
candidate can spend on his or her campaigns. There have been
other proposals here and in a number of States to reduce
campaign contributions from lobbyists with public financing. I
think some combination of these proposals, perhaps coupled with
some control on how much television stations can charge for
political advertising, might be what it takes to free up more
of our time to do what we were sent here to do, and that is to
fully restore the trust in our government.
Madam Chairman and my colleagues, thanks very much, and we
look forward to hearing from our witnesses. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Stevens.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR STEVENS
Senator Stevens. Madam Chairman, I congratulate you on
holding this hearing so promptly. Recent events demonstrate the
absolute need for action in this area.
I was a member of the Conference Committee on the bill that
was finally passed and signed into law that was declared
unconstitutional in the case of Buckley v. Vallejo. I still
feel that, ultimately, we may have to have a constitutional
amendment, but I am pleased to work with you on legislation
short of that. Thank you very much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
We now turn to our first panel today. I am very pleased to
welcome five of our colleagues who have either already
introduced legislation or who are about to introduce
legislation addressing this issue. Each of them has worked very
hard on this issue. We are going to start with an individual
whose name is synonymous with reform, Senator John McCain.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN McCAIN,\1\ A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF ARIZONA
Senator McCain. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman. I know
you have a long list of witnesses and other panels, and I will
try to be very brief. I want to thank you and Senator Lieberman
for holding this important hearing, and I would like to start
out with what I think is the most important aspect of this
issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator McCain appears in the
Appendix on page 55.
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We have bipartisan proposals. We have to sit down quickly
in whatever format that our leaders decide and have bipartisan
negotiations and come up with legislation or rules changes as
quickly as possible, and we can do that at the end of the first
recess, the beginning of May, if we sit down and address this
in a bipartisan fashion. I know that Senator Lieberman is
committed to that as well as many others.
I would like to also point out that the urgency of this is
dictated by the view of the American people as to how we do
business here in Washington. It is not good, and we need to fix
it, and we need to fix it very quickly.
As you know, Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee,
over the past year and a half, the Indian Affairs Committee has
unearthed a story of excess and abuse by former lobbyists of
some Indian tribes. The story is alarming in its depth and
breadth of potential wrongdoing. It spanned across the United
States, sweeping up tribes throughout the country. It has taken
us from tribal reservations across America to luxury sports
boxes here in town, from a sham international think tank in
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to a sniper workshop in Israel and
beyond. It involves tens of millions of dollars that we know
about and likely more that we do not. Much of what the
Committee learned was extraordinary, yet much of what we
uncovered in the investigation was, unfortunately, the ordinary
way of doing business in this town.
How these lobbyists sought to influence policy and opinion
makers is a case study in the ways lobbyists seek to curry
favor with legislators and their aides. For example, they
sought to ingratiate themselves with public servants with
tickets to plush skyboxes at the MCI Center, FedEx Field, and
Camden Yards for sports and entertainment events. They arranged
extravagant getaways to tropical islands and famed golfing
links of St. Andrews and elsewhere. They regularly treated
people to meals and drinks. Fundraisers and contributions
abounded.
During its investigation, the Committee also learned about
unscrupulous tactics employed to lobby members and to shape
public opinion. We found a sham international think tank in
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, established in part to disguise the
true identity of clients. We saw phony Christian grassroots
organizations, consisting of a box of cell phones in a desk
drawer.
I would submit that in the great marketplace of ideas we
call public discourse, truth is a premium that we can't
sacrifice. Many cast blame only on the lobbying industry. We
should not forget that we, as Members of Congress, owe it to
the American people to conduct ourselves in ways that reinforce
rather than diminish the public's faith and confidence in
Congress.
Madam Chairman, I would like for my complete statement to
be a part of the record----
Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Senator McCain [continuing]. But I would again like to just
briefly run over some salient parts of Senator Lieberman's and
my proposal, and I would argue that these are not written in
golden tablets. We are more than eager to accept additional
changes, and we need to do that in a bipartisan fashion.
This Act requires more frequent disclosures of lobbying
activities, including grassroots lobbying campaigns and other
contribution payments by lobbyists. It requires the information
to be available online. It requires lobbyists to disclose their
involvement in travel by members and staff. It requires
lobbyists to report gifts to members and staff over $20 in
value.
It doubles the amount of time during which a former Member
of Congress and their senior staff are restricted from
lobbying. It clarifies that the revolving door laws apply to
outside lobbyists retained by Indian tribes. It requires
members to notify the Clerk of the House or Secretary of the
Senate if they are negotiating employment which may create a
conflict of interest.
It requires members to pay the fair market value of charter
flights for flights on private planes. It requires members to
file reports of meetings, tours, events, or outings they have
participated in while on official travel. It requires the
Ethics Committee to develop guidelines on what is a reasonable
expenditure on official travel, determine the face value of a
ticket to a sporting event or entertainment. It is fair market
value, in the case of tickets without face value, such as
skybox tickets, the face value.
I want to mention one other thing very quickly, which was
brought up by Senator Domenici and others today. We are not
going to fix this system until we fix the earmarks. In 1994,
when the Congress was taken over by Republicans, there were
4,000 earmarks on appropriations bills. Last year, there were
15,000. It is disgraceful, this process. What we went through
at the end of the last session with things like LIHEAP and
appropriations larded onto the money that was supposed to be
devoted to the men and women in the military and their ability
to conduct the war on terror was disgraceful.
We need to stop the earmarking, and we have specific
proposals to curb these excesses, and if we don't stop the
earmarking, we are not going to stop the abuses of power here
in Washington because we have seen a specific case of one
Congressman and one lobbyist who were able to put millions and
millions of dollars of taxpayers' money into a defense
appropriations bill somehow, without any oversight or any
accountability, and we are going to see a lot more examples of
that being uncovered in the weeks and months ahead.
I thank you, Madam Chairman. I thank Senator Lieberman and
other Members of the Committee. I believe we know what we need
to do. I know we need to do it in a bipartisan fashion and we
need to do it quickly, and I thank my colleagues for their
involvement in this issue from both sides of the aisle, and I
appreciate their dedication to this effort, including my
special partner in crime, Senator Feingold. Thank you very
much.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I would invite Members,
referring to Senators who are witnesses here, after you have
given your statement, to feel free if due to other scheduling
conflicts you need to leave immediately. We certainly
understand that.
It is a great pleasure to invite to the Committee today
Senator Russ Feingold. It is my understanding that Senator
Feingold is deferring to Senator Durbin first because of
scheduling constraints that Senator Durbin has. Is that
accurate?
Senator Feingold. Absolutely.
Chairman Collins. Senator Durbin, it is great to welcome
you back to this Committee on which you served for many years
until I became Chairman, in which case you then left
immediately---- [Laughter.]
But it is nice--I know it is not true, I was just teasing
you. It is great to have you back. We have worked together on a
great many issues.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RICHARD J. DURBIN,\1\ A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF ILLINOIS
Senator Durbin. Thank you, Madam Chairman, and I was
honored to work with you, and as I have said to you and Senator
Lieberman, I think your seminal work on intelligence reform
reflected the very best of Congress working on a bipartisan
basis. I was happy to be part of that enterprise, glad that it
resulted in something that made America safer, and as I said to
you many times, the reason I ran for the U.S. Senate was to be
part of that, and I salute both of you for your leadership in
that important issue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Durbin appears in the
Appendix on page 57.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now, you are tackling another big one, the question of
reform in Washington. It will be just as contentious, if not
more so, and I think you two are up to the job. I am honored to
be here today in the Governmental Affairs Committee to say a
few words about it.
Let me say at the outset, neither political party has a
monopoly on virtue. The vast majority of Members of Congress
that I have worked with in the House and the Senate are hard
working, honest, ethical people. And let me add, too, most of
those who lobby us on Capitol Hill are also honest and
dedicated to following the rules. I am going to use a few
examples in my comments here that focus on Jack Abramoff and
the now notorious K Street Project, but I want to say at the
outset, I think many Republicans in Congress detest dishonest
enterprises as much as any Democrats. Let us put that on the
table to start the conversation.
The outrageous conduct of the lobbyist Jack Abramoff and
his like has gone beyond embarrassment. It has had real world
consequences for Americans. The same hand that is writing the
check is also writing the laws, and I will give you an example
or two as we go on as to how Americans have paid the price for
it.
My first job on Capitol Hill was as a college student, and
I worked as an intern for a man named Senator Paul Douglas of
Illinois, the first Chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee. He
is my all-time hero in public life. Here is what he said in one
of his books. ``When I asked a policeman,'' he said, ``how some
of his colleagues got started on the downward path, he replied,
`It generally began with a cigar.' '' Whether the culture of
corruption in Washington begins with a cigar or a skybox seat
or a golfing excursion to Scotland or a special interest ploy
to affect legislation, it is just unacceptable and it has to
stop.
The legislative problems we face are relatively
straightforward, and we have it within our power to make
necessary changes. I am here to speak on behalf of the
Democratic Caucus bill, the Honest Leadership and Open
Government Act, S. 2180, introduced last Friday with 34
original cosponsors. I want to acknowledge Senators Feingold,
Levin, and Lieberman for their input in drafting the bill and
their continued work.
The bill is grounded on five core principles: Closing the
revolving door; ensuring full disclosure of lobbying
activities; eliminating excessive gifts and travel from private
sources; strengthening enforcement of lobbying and ethics
rules; and insisting that lawmaking be an open and transparent
process.
Given the present state of affairs in Washington, we
believe we must establish new and clear lines between those who
lobby and those who serve the public to avoid the appearance of
conflict. Our bill prohibits receipt of meals and gifts from
lobbyists and bans acceptance of free travel from companies,
associations, and groups who advocate before Congress. Our bill
also dramatically increases the transparency of activities in
the lobbying community. Let me give you just a few general
specifics.
First, to close the revolving door, we double the length of
time to 2 years that members, senior Congressional staff, and
senior Executive Branch officials are barred from lobbying
their former offices. Let me give you a specific example. There
isn't a single one of us back in our home States now that
aren't hearing from senior citizens about the Medicare
prescription drug Part D bill, how complicated it is, how
unfair it is, and they ask us, couldn't you have done a better
job? Couldn't you have made this simpler, easier to understand?
What went wrong? Well, take a look at the history of this bill,
and you will find one of the leading members of the House
pushing for this bill that I think benefited the pharmaceutical
companies far more than it should have. Then he went to work
for them, a $2 million a year job representing a pharmaceutical
association.
He was not alone. Within the Administration and on Capitol
Hill, about a dozen others who were involved in writing that
terrible bill to give benefits to pharmaceutical companies
ended up on the payroll within a matter of months. This bill
has brought great fortunes to these pharmaceutical giants. It
brings tears to the eyes of many senior citizens across the
United States, and that has to end.
Second, we need to strengthen the laws on public
disclosure. Our bill will require lobbyists to file reports
quarterly, electronically, instead of semi-annually on paper,
and disclose more detailed information about their campaign
activity. I would like to address that in a few moments. It
will require disclosure of hired gun efforts to stimulate
grassroots lobbying. The Michael Scanlon-Ralph Reed scheme to
use Abramoff's tribal clients to contact Christian Coalition
members to stir up opposition to a gambling bill was appalling,
and our bill would force disclosure of this type of scheme.
We also need to deal with the problems of gifts and
privately financed travel. We need to strengthen the
enforcement of lobbying and ethics rules. And finally, we need
to make the legislative process more open and accountable. Now,
we have specific proposals in that regard which are included in
the bill and will be included in my final statement here.
I might say to Senator McCain and to others who brought up
the issue of earmarks, I have been a member of the
Appropriations Committee both in the House and the Senate. Yes,
there are a lot of earmarks in those bills. I am for more
transparency. I think I should be held accountable publicly for
every earmark that I put in a bill for my State of Illinois or
for anyone else, and there ought to be time between the writing
of that bill and the passage of that bill so that we can really
take a close look at what is included there.
But it is naive to believe that earmarking starts and ends
in the Appropriations Committee. Take a look at many of the
other bills that we have considered. Twenty-two-billion dollar
favors for Medicare providers in the budget bill. Billions of
dollars in oil and gas subsidies in the energy bill. Billions
of dollars for the pharmaceutical industries in the Medicare
prescription drug bill. Billions of dollars for financial and
credit institutions in the bankruptcy bill. Every bill we
consider has someone on K Street with a smile on their face. It
isn't just the appropriations bill. So we have got to talk
about the whole process and how we approach it.
The last point I will make is this. Several members on both
sides--I heard Senator Voinovich as I walked in the room, and
others have said, getting to the heart of this means getting to
the heart of how we finance our political campaigns. Unless and
until we address this in an honest fashion, we are carping on
trifles here. Why is it that we warm up to all these lobbyists?
It isn't for a meal at night. Heck, at night, I want to sit
down, put my feet up, and watch TV. I don't want to go out to
some restaurant. Most of us are pretty tired at the end of the
day. But we know when it comes time to finance our campaigns,
we are going to be knocking on those same doors.
Unless and until we stop the outrageous expense of
political campaigning in America, we are going to continue to
be beholden to those who are well off and well connected. If
you are a self-funder, as they call it in our business, a
multi-millionaire, that is one thing. But if you are in my
category of mere mortals, you have got to spend a lot of time
on the phone begging for money in the hopes that you can run in
a State as large as Illinois when the time comes.
We need to do two things. First, we need to address the
fact that we are creating trust funds for television stations
with our fundraising. We are raising money to pay these
television stations millions and millions of dollars each time.
It is time that we have time available at an affordable rate
for challengers and incumbents.
And finally, we need to move to public financing, and for
those who say we cannot afford public financing, it is way too
expensive, if we cut earmarks in half, we would have more than
enough money to finance public financing of campaigns.
So I hope that we will look at the whole picture. It is a
big challenge. But if we just take one discrete part of it,
slap ourselves on the back and say, we have done a fine job, I
am certain that we will not be satisfied at the end that we
have met our responsibility.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Feingold.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF WISCONSIN
Senator Feingold. Thank you, Chairman Collins, Senator
Lieberman. Thank you for the invitation to testify today on
this very important topic. We are truly at a watershed moment
for the Congress, and I am pleased that the Committee is
preparing to act quickly.
There are few higher priorities than improving our ethical
standards and addressing the influence of special interests on
legislation. That is because the fairness of the legislative
process has an impact both on policy outcomes and also on the
confidence that the public has in those outcomes.
Now, as Senator Levin indicated, the Lobby Disclosure Act
and also the changes to the gift rules we enacted in 1995 made
a difference. So did the McCain-Feingold bill passed in 2002,
which ended the practice of Members of Congress asking
corporate heads of companies for hundreds of thousands of
dollars in soft money. I want to, of course, acknowledge the
role of the Chairman, the Ranking Member, and, of course,
Senator Levin, who were absolutely central to that successful
effort, along with my friend, of course, Senator John McCain
and others.
But the Abramoff scandal has pulled back the curtain on the
influence peddling that goes on here, which we must now address
decisively or risk losing the benefits of our earlier efforts.
There are obviously many components to this problem and many
possible solutions.
But the first point I want to emphasize today is that this
Committee should resist the temptation to let opponents of
reform change the subject. By all means, consider all proposals
that will have an impact on the problem, but don't let side
issues take your attention away from abuses that need to be
stopped. Whenever someone disparages basic reforms of the gift
and travel rules by saying, yes, but what Congress really needs
to do is X, be a little bit skeptical.
As an example, I will take a back seat to no one in the
Senate, except perhaps this guy sitting next to me, John
McCain, in my opposition to earmarks and unnecessary spending.
I strongly support changing the rules of the Senate to prevent
earmarks and the encouragement they give to some of the seamier
lobbying practices we have seen. But the key here is that this
should not be an either/or proposition. Don't let anyone tell
you that if you deal with the earmarks, you can let those other
practices continue. I don't believe that.
Similarly, don't believe it when people say that further
gift and travel restrictions won't make any difference. If
those restrictions are clear enough and tough enough, they will
make some difference. Free meals, free tickets, fact-finding
trips to warm, far-away places during Congressional recesses,
these are a big part of the lobbying game at both the Senator
and the staff level, and it is time for them to stop.
My second general point, to echo a point that Senator
McCain made, is that in the end, this lobbying and ethics
reform effort must be bipartisan to succeed. It is not
surprising that there are political calculations involved in
addressing this issue, and the political situation has made
real reform much more likely than it seemed when I introduced
my original bill in July 2005. But given the rules of the
Senate and the difficulties of navigating the legislative
process in a short time, politics could also cause this effort
to stall if we aren't careful, and that is where this
Committee, working together, can have a very positive effect,
and you have already started today by bringing this bipartisan
group together, Madam Chairman.
But working together on a bipartisan bill does not mean
being timid. It does not mean Democrats and Republicans should
come together to protect the status quo or find the lowest
common denominator. Now is the time for bold and decisive
action, not weak knees.
With that in mind, let me very briefly outline what in my
view are the key elements of a meaningful and credible reform
bill. First, a real lobbyist gift ban. Reasonable exceptions
for family, friends, and items like t-shirts or baseball caps
are fine. But the ban has to be comprehensive. It has to
include not just lobbyists, but those who employ them. We have
seen how the current $50 limit has been abused. Those abuses
will continue unless we mean what we say and make the ban very
tight.
If that seems too complicated, then just do what we do in
Wisconsin. We have been doing it for 30 years, where the State
legislature simply said, no gifts, period. That is the rule I
have always followed in my office here for 13 years. It is a
simple rule. It is easy to follow. It is easy to apply. It
doesn't mean you can't have a meal with a lobbyist or a
constituent if that is what you want to do. You just have to
pay your share of the check.
Second, address privately funded travel. I know that some
fact-finding trips really are helpful to Senators and staff to
learn about the issues we face firsthand. But I think it is now
abundantly clear that the exception to the current gift rules
for these trips has been abused. It can't be fixed, in my view,
just by disclosure, and I am aware of the arguments for
reasonable exception for charitable, educational organizations
not involved in lobbying, but we need to make sure that any
such exception does not itself become subject to abuse.
Third, and this is the issue that Senator McCain and I
first worked on together in the early 1990s, slow the revolving
door. Increasing the cooling off period from one to 2 years is
the least we should do. But I also think we should take a close
look at that cooling off period and assess whether it really
means anything if people can leave Congress and run the
lobbying show at influential trade associations or law firms
for a year or two from behind the scenes. When that happens,
isn't the so-called cooling off period really just a warming up
period? If we are serious about reducing undue influence, we
should have revolving door laws that really mean something.
Fourth, end reliance on these corporate jets. If Senators
want to travel on what amounts to chartered flights, they
should pay the charter rate. We need to make sure to make that
clear for both official and campaign use of corporate jets
because one thing is clear--the lobbyist for the company that
provides the jet is going to be on the flight, whether it is
taking you to see a plant back home or a fundraiser for your
campaign.
Finally, let us improve lobbying disclosure. Here, I think,
there is general agreement on many provisions to improve the
Lobbying Disclosure Act, but I think the Committee should take
a very close look at Senator McCain's provision and other
proposals to expand a disclosure of the campaign fundraising
activities of lobbyists. The Abramoff scandal is not just about
gifts and trips. It is also about the targeted use of campaign
contributions. Lobbyists play a huge role in the financing of
campaigns. Detailed disclosure of that role will help the
public understand how the lobbying game is played and provide a
record on which more substantive reforms can be based.
Madam Chairman, we have an opportunity to make history in
the next few months. I hope this Committee will lead the way in
fixing the problems the Abramoff scandal has exposed. The
public is watching and challenging us to be bold. We must not
blink. I look forward to working with you and Senator Lieberman
and the entire Committee to develop the strongest possible
lobbying and ethics reform package. Thank you very much for
allowing me to testify today.
Chairman Collins. Thank you for your very specific
suggestions to the Committee. I very much appreciate your work
in this area.
Senator Santorum, it is a great pleasure to welcome you
here today. I know you have a long history of working on reform
efforts as a Member of the House of Representatives and that
you have been tapped by the Majority Leader to develop
legislation. Please proceed.
TESTIMONY OF HON. RICK SANTORUM,\1\ A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Senator Santorum. Thank you, Senator Collins and Senator
Lieberman. Thank you both very much for holding this hearing
and for your leadership.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Santorum appears in the
Appendix on page 61.
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I just want to comment on a couple of things that have been
said by the prior speakers, and that is that, first and
foremost, this needs to be a cooperative and bipartisan effort.
I am looking forward to working primarily from the bipartisan
effort of Senator Lieberman and Senator McCain as really the
structure and the foundation of this package. When I hear
Senator Feingold and when I hear certainly most of the comments
from Senator Durbin, all of the comments with respect to
ethics, I think that there is a tremendous amount of
commonality here. I don't think we are talking about going in
opposite directions. I think we very much are on the same page
and it is a matter of working through the details in most of
the areas, and I will outline some of the areas of concern, but
they are identical to the areas of concern that have been
outlined by other speakers.
Madam Chairman, as you have said, this is a task that I was
asked to do by Senator Frist as a member of the leadership, and
I have a long history of being involved in Congressional reform
from my days in the House in the ``Gang of Seven'' where we
were uncovering bouncing of checks by House members and using
taxpayers' dollars to cover those checks as well as a House
Post Office scandal, where there were convictions. There was
drug dealing going on down there. There was the cash-for-stamps
scandal. All of that, I stood on the floor with a group of
colleagues and pointed the finger at both sides of the aisle,
candidly and unfortunately, and took a lot of heat for that,
but I was trying to be responsive to a problem that we saw. I
think we are in some respects back in the same position.
I didn't stop when I came to the Senate. I was involved in
my party in reforming the Committee Chairmanships, putting term
limits on Chairmen, putting term limits on leadership. Those of
you who frequent the Senate restaurant and barber shops know
that they are no longer taxpayer subsidized. When I got on the
Rules Committee, that was my high priority, to end taxpayer
subsidy. Yes, we pay higher amounts for our food and we pay
higher amounts for our barber shop, but those are no longer
subsidized by the taxpayer, and they aren't necessarily the
most popular things to do when you are talking to your
colleagues.
I know this is an important issue. We have to address the
perception that is out there increasingly that Members of
Congress are unduly influenced by what goes on in this town and
lobbyists and we need to look at a variety of different things.
We can look at gifts, we can look at meals, we can look at
travel. I can tell you that I, personally, am at the bottom of
member travel. I don't do third-party travel to speak of. I
know members wine and dine with lobbyists. The only whining I
get in the evening is from my children. That is how I decide to
do business here.
So I come at this with a strong penchant to make sure that
we have a very strong bill and that we have one that is worked
and vetted thoroughly by members on both sides of the aisle.
There are good ideas on both sides, and we will work, as I
said, with the McCain-Lieberman bill as the basis of that.
We need to look at privately funded Congressional travel,
gifts, meals, the revolving door of access of members and staff
and spouses of members and their access to members and the
members' offices and to the floor of the U.S. Senate. We have
to look at earmarks. I think that Senator McCain is absolutely
right, and I agree with Senator Feingold. We can't look at one
or the other, we have to look at both, and I think both are
important things to have in the legislation.
I also agree that we need to look at the 527 organizations
as another problem. In addition to all of the transparency
issues that are outlined in the McCain-Lieberman bill as well
as by Senator Feingold, transparency is who is giving to
grassroots lobbying organizations or shadow organizations that
lobby Congress. We need to do the same thing with respect to
those who participate in elections.
We also, and this is something that has not been mentioned,
but I think this Committee should look to encouraging the
lobbying community and setting parameters for the lobbying
community to set up self-regulatory organizations. I think it
is vitally important, if we are going to establish a level of
professionalism and standards, that the industry itself begin
to look at doing that and having some sort of self-regulatory
body to get into the details of the profession more than, say,
we could here in our particular bills.
I just want to say that while I take this issue very
seriously and I think we need to aggressively pursue all of
these areas that I have outlined, I think we also have to take
into account that the citizens of this country have a right to
petition their government and have access to us regardless of
their income or their affiliation, regardless of their campaign
contributions. They should be able to come and petition their
government. We have to make sure that, yes, there are lobbyists
for big corporations and very wealthy interests. There are also
lobbyists for the Boys and Girls Clubs and for the Salvation
Army and for small farmers. We have to assure that when we set
up these regulations, we are not limiting their access to plead
their case to the Members of Congress who affect so
dramatically in many cases their lives.
I feel very strongly. I have an open door policy in my
office. If a constituent of mine wants to meet with me or
someone in my office, we meet with every single one. We turn
absolutely nobody down. That is important. I think that is a
standard that every Senator has, and maybe every Senator does
that, but that is a standard that I think we should hold
ourselves to, that you don't have to pay to play to get into a
Senator's office. The fact that you are a constituent or you
represent a constituent interest is enough to get you into the
office of every member of the U.S. Senate. It is important that
people have a right in the big and powerful government which we
have become to be able to have their grievances addressed here
on Capitol Hill.
We are very early in this stage here, but I think that
there is a great common ground for us to build upon, and I am
encouraged by that. I hope that we can build a bipartisan
consensus. I hope that there is a willingness by all of the
panelists here to work together, to pull together the best of
the ideas, work out the details, make sure that we are
conscious of both the need for transparency and reform and also
the need to make sure that this government is responsive and
accessible to our constituents' needs.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Senator Coleman, you have been the most patient member this
morning, waiting to testify. You are also a very active, in
fact, one of the most active Members of this Committee, and we
welcome your testimony this morning.
TESTIMONY OF HON. NORM COLEMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE
OF MINNESOTA
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. As soon as I am
done with my testimony, I look forward to taking my seat and
then listening to the other testimony.
Before I begin with my comments, I would ask that the
comments of Senator Nelson of Nebraska, who is a coauthor of my
bill, be entered into the record.\1\
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Nelson appears in the
Appendix on page 110.
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Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Senator Coleman. Madam Chairman, I want to start by
thanking my Chairman, Senator Collins, and the Ranking Member
for the speed at which you have moved in putting this issue on
the table. I think effort that in and of itself has done a lot
to restore confidence in this institution.
I share Senator Domenici's reflection of the importance and
significance of this issue. We know from the Declaration of
Independence, our government derives its just powers from the
consent of the governed, and the reality is what has happened
with the doubts about transparency and honesty, concerns about
allegations and admissions of guilt in the abuse of power and
influence peddling, has shaken the confidence of the American
public in government, and we have to take that seriously.
I think we need to do more than just bring the guilty to
justice. We have to look at the institution. We have to say we
are committed to reform. And what is at stake here is clearly
the credibility of the institution, and credibility is the
foundation upon which the institution is built, and without it,
we do not have legitimacy to govern effectively and to serve
the people that elected us.
There are already a number of worthwhile ideas on the
table. I am a coauthor and support the legislation of the
Ranking Member and Senator McCain. I also believe, by the way,
that transparency must be kind of a central theme to reform. In
Minnesota today, you can go on my website--from anywhere, and
all my travel is listed and descriptions of the organizations
that funded the travel is there. So I think transparency is
kind of a central theme here in restoring public trust.
And while I support the adoption of a number of the
measures that are on the table and the transparency, I believe,
though, that we need to take careful stock of what kind of
reforms we are proposing, look at the short-term effects, and
also be willing to look at this in a long-term perspective and
the effects that they will have. Change for change's sake is
not the answer, and policy by press release and one-upsmanship
and who is going to be tougher than the other on this issue is
not the way to reform this incredible institution, this
greatest deliberative body in the world.
These are, as I would say to the good Doctor over there who
would understand, essential and vital organs of government, and
so we need to operate with both skill and speed as we work to
improve their function.
In the final analysis, it is not about representative
government. It is not about our inability to look at ourselves
with the proposal that I have or questioning whether we can
bring independent judgment. I really think that the question
before us and before the public is about Congress taking a look
in the mirror, and I believe that a thoughtful and
comprehensive reform agenda can only be achieved by a group of
respected individuals from outside the institution conducting a
thorough and bipartisan review and then offering constructive
recommendations to the House and Senate.
Churchill once admonished military commanders that they
faced two potential dangers: Inaction because they were timid
or over-commitment because they were rash. Senator Warner knows
that quote.
That is why Senator Nelson of Nebraska and I, along with
Senator Allen, are introducing legislation today that creates a
bipartisan Commission to Strengthen Confidence in Congress. The
commission will operate outside the institutions of Congress to
review ideas and to recommend reforms to strengthen the ethics,
disclosure, and transparency requirements governing the
relationships between Members of Congress and lobbyists. It
will be modeled after initiatives like the 9/11 Commission and
the Grace Commission and premised in the belief that we have a
responsibility to preserve the confidence of the American
public. I believe the commission will stimulate a thoughtful
national dialogue on reform and also provide a bully pulpit if
the commission is to hold us in Congress accountable for
implementing the reforms they prescribe.
Specifically, the commission will be strongly bipartisan,
which I think is essential, composed of an equal number of
Democrats and Republicans. Leadership in the House and Senate
from both parties will come together. They will pick the
chairman. They will pick the vice chairman. They will then pick
the members. They will be involved in the selection process.
The commissioners themselves will be a combination of former
members because I think it is important to get folks involved
in the process who have been a part of it and understand this
institution. But at the same time, you can bring in others,
academics, historians, and other experts to add their voice to
this deliberative process.
The commission will issue its first report by July 1, 2006.
I think they can do it that quickly and still do it with the
deliberation that needs to take place. They will be given the
ability to hold hearings in order to carry out their duties.
And I believe in the end, the commission will be able to
provide to us, to the Senate and to the Congress--and by the
way, examining the things that are on the table, the gifts, the
earmarks, the disclosure, the revolving door, and the travel.
But I think they can do it in a way that will help reinvigorate
and transform the world's leading governmental institutions.
On the issue of the sensitivity and importance, Senator
Nelson of Nebraska and I believe that the greater the stature,
the independence, and legitimacy of the commission, the more
far-reaching its recommendations can be.
This legislation is designed to take the partisanship and
the politics out of this process, and I fear that we are seeing
a little of that, maybe more than a little of that. Sometimes I
look at press releases, they look like they are coming out of
the political offices of our respective parties, and I think we
can do better than that. And again, many have ideas that are on
the table. But I think this independent look will certainly
help that process.
I think in the end, if we bring together bipartisan,
independent, and wise leaders and strike a proper balance, that
will both restore confidence and preserve the best of how the
Legislative Branch operates today. With the creation of the
Commission to Strengthen Confidence in Congress, we can seize
what many have called, and I believe this is, a historic
opportunity to position the U.S. Congress to operate more
effectively, transparently, confidently, and with the trust and
the faith of the American people as we enter into a new
century.
Thank you, Madam Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Senator Coleman follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR COLEMAN
I want to begin by thanking Chairman Collins and Senator Lieberman
for your leadership on a range of issues. None is more important than
the topic we address today.
We know from our Declaration of Independence that our government
derives its ``just Powers from the consent of the governed.'' That's
why we need to take public doubts about the transparency of government
and their leaders' honesty and integrity extremely seriously.
Recent allegations, and admissions of guilt in the abuse of power,
corruption of public office and the disregard for rules and laws of
Congress and our nation, have shaken the confidence of the American
people in its institutions of government. We need to do more than bring
the guilty to justice: We need to reform the system that bred the
corruption. Let's be clear that what is at stake here is the future and
credibility of this institution. Credibility is the foundation upon
which this institution was built and without it we do not have the
legitimacy to effectively govern and serve the people that elected us.
A number of worthwhile ideas are already on the table. I support
the bill authored by Ranking Member Lieberman and Senator McCain. I
also believe a central theme of reform must be transparency, so the
American people can get a complete picture of how we get the
information that helps us do our jobs. I have already acted on this so
that any Minnesotan can now go onto my website and access my complete
Senate travel records. I strongly believe there will not be restoration
of public trust in government if they believe we have something to
hide.
While I support the adoption of immediate measures to improve
transparency, we still need to take careful stock of what kind of
reforms we are proposing and what kind of short term and long term
effects they will have. Change for change's sake is not the answer.
Policy by press release and one-ups-man-ship will not bring about what
we need which is real, just and workable change. These are sensitive
and vital organs of government we are operating on, so we need both
skill and speed as we work to improve their function.
In the final analysis, this is not about representative government
looking at a policy and questioning whether we can bring independent
judgment. This is about Congress taking a good hard look in the
mirror--and I believe that a thoughtful and comprehensive reform agenda
can only be developed by a group of respected individuals from outside
the institution conducting a thorough and bipartisan review and
offering constructive recommendations to the House and Senate.
Churchill once admonished military commanders that they faced two
potential dangers: Inaction because they were timid or over-commitment
because they were rash.
That is why Senator Nelson and I, along with Senator Allard are
introducing legislation today that creates a bipartisan Commission to
Strengthen Confidence in Congress.
The Commission will operate outside of the institutions of Congress
to review ideas and to recommend reforms to strengthen the ethics,
disclosure and transparency requirements governing the relationship
between Members of Congress and lobbyists. It will be modeled on
initiatives like the 9/11 Commission and the Grace Commission, and
premised in the belief that we have a responsibility to preserve the
confidence of the American people. The Commission will stimulate a
thoughtful national dialogue on reform and also provide a ``bully
pulpit'' for Commissioners to hold us in Congress accountable for
implementing the reforms they prescribe.
Specifically, the Commission will be strongly bipartisan consisting
of an equal number of Republicans and Democrats, none of whom may be
sitting members of Congress. The House and Senate Leadership from both
parties will come together and pick a chairman and vice chairman.
Senate Republican leadership, Senate Democratic leadership, House
Republican leadership and House Democratic leadership will also be
involved in the selection process. The Commissioners will be a
combination of former members of Congress and other independent voices,
including: Academics, historians, public relations executives, and
other experts.
The Commission will issue its first report containing findings,
conclusions and recommendations for corrective measure on July 1, 2006,
with annual reports thereafter. Commissioners will also be given the
ability to hold hearings in order to carry out their duties.
This Commission will be able to provide a roadmap for the U.S.
Senate and House of Representatives by examining how we handle things
such as gifts, disclosure, earmarks and travel in a way which will help
renew and reinvigorate the world's leading governmental institution.
On issues of this sensitivity and importance, Sen. Nelson and I
believe that the greater the stature, INDEPENDENCE and legitimacy of
the Commission, the more far-reaching its recommendations can be.
This legislation is designed to take the politics and partisanship
out of the debate and put the issue in the hands of bipartisan,
independent and wise leaders who can strike a proper balance that will
both restore confidence and preserve the best of how the legislative
branch operates today.
With the creation of the Commission to Strengthen Confidence in
Congress, we can seize the historic opportunity to position the United
States Congress to govern more effectively, transparently, confidently,
and with the trust and faith of the American people well into the new
Century.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for your testimony
and for alerting us to the legislation that you will be
introducing later today.
I would now like to welcome our second panel of witnesses.
Former Senator Dick Clark currently serves as Vice President of
the Aspen Institute. Mr. Clark founded the Aspen Institute's
Congressional program in 1983 to provide nonpartisan
educational programs for Members of Congress on public policy
issues.
Former Governor John Engler serves as President and Chief
Executive Officer of the Nation's largest industrial trade
association, the National Association of Manufacturers.
Bill Samuel is Director for Legislation for the AFL-CIO,
which represents more than 9 million working men and women.
I guess we are missing Governor Engler at this moment, but
we will proceed. Thank you all for appearing before the
Committee today. I look forward to your testimony, and we are
going to start with you, Senator Clark.
TESTIMONY OF HON. DICK CLARK,\1\ DIRECTOR, ASPEN INSTITUTE
CONGRESSIONAL PROGRAM
Mr. Clark. Thank you very much, Madam Chairman and Members
of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to participate
in this hearing, and I want to say at the outset that I
strongly support the efforts of the Committee and other Members
of Congress to reform the rules on Congressional travel. It is
critical that public trust be restored in the institution.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Clark appears in the Appendix on
page 64.
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As Director of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a
leading sponsor of educational seminars for Members of the
Senate and the House, I will limit my remarks to the area of
Congressional travel. I would recommend the following reforms.
One, funds should not be accepted from registered lobbyists
or from groups that employ registered lobbyists.
Two, travel should not include, in any way, shape, or form,
the participation of lobbyists.
Three, sponsoring organizations should be required to
disclose their funding sources in their invitations to Members
of Congress.
And four, in particular, enforcement mechanisms must be put
in place.
However, a total ban on privately funded travel would be a
disservice to the Members of Congress, denying them valuable
resources to gain greater knowledge and understanding of a
range of issues that they necessarily have to address.
As a former member of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, coming from a background as a professor of
international relations, I experienced the wide gap between the
average legislator's understanding of complex foreign policy
issues on the one hand and the expertise that exists in the
academic community. I saw firsthand the necessity to bring
foreign policy scholars together with those who make policy.
And since I established the Congressional Program in 1983,
as you have said, funding has come solely from established
independent foundations, such as Ford, MacArthur, Carnegie, and
Kellogg. We accept no support from lobbyists, from governments,
from corporations, from private individuals, or from special
interests, and honoraria are not paid to Members of Congress or
scholars. Lobbyists are not permitted at our meetings and are
not involved in the program in any way. The program does not
pay for any recreational activities, nor has it for 23 years.
Nearly 200 governmental leaders, including heads of State,
and approximately 800 scholars have participated. Seminar
discussions revolve around four to eight scholarly papers
commissioned for each meeting, which ensures a diversity of
opinion based on the scholars' research. These, in essence, are
graduate seminars.
Participants are required to attend all conference events,
which last at least 6 hours a day over the course of 4 days
during a Congressional recess. These include roundtable
discussions, luncheon speeches with question and answer
periods, and dinners with assigned seating that expose members
to various scholars and a range of views. Published reports of
the seminars are sent to all Members of Congress, and the
agendas and scholars' papers are widely disseminated on our
website.
A very important supplement to our policy seminars is a
series of breakfast meetings conducted in the Capitol building
for Members of Congress. Twenty-five breakfasts are held
annually, providing members with ongoing, direct access to
internationally recognized experts and analysts on these
topics.
Members tell us that the exceptional benefit of the program
is that it provides a ``faculty'' of scholars and experts whom
they can call on later for testimony and advice.
The Congressional Program is a bicameral, nonpartisan,
neutral convener. In the current political climate, Members of
Congress need a safe haven where they can study critical issues
in an academic, in-depth way with Members of both parties and
both chambers. The program has been described by one Senator as
``an oasis of civility,'' and it has been the genesis of major
initiatives such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction
Act.
We have taken steps to ensure that our educational mission
is not compromised, including conferring with the Ethics
Committees to make certain that we comply with their standards.
Foreign travel is essential in an era of globalization. It
is critical for Members to personally see developments on the
ground in other countries, meeting with world leaders,
academics, and others. Insularity is not an option for the
world's only superpower. If our lawmakers are to be effective
in addressing immigration or international trade, the war on
terror, or other matters, an understanding of the peoples of
the world is vital.
And in closing, Madam Chairman, I want to mention Mickey
Edwards, on my left, sitting behind me here. He is a former
Republican Congressman from Oklahoma. He is Director of the
Aspen Institute Rodel Fellowships in Public Leadership, and
Mickey joins me in supporting these much-needed reforms. His
program, by the way, brings together promising young political
leaders at every level of government to explore the underlying
values and principles of Western democracy.
Madam Chairman, I thank you very much, and distinguished
Members of the Committee, for this opportunity to discuss the
subject, and I look forward to the questions.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Governor Engler.
TESTIMONY OF HON. JOHN ENGLER,\1\ PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE
OFFICER, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MANUFACTURERS
Mr. Engler. Thank you, Madam Chairman. I apologize for my
absence when we started. I was listening intently to Senator
Coleman, and I thought I would take a quick break before this
convened and didn't quite get back here in time, but thank you
for the opportunity to be with you and this distinguished
Committee today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Engler with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 67.
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I am President of the National Association of
Manufacturers, a 501(c)(6) tax-exempt trade association. The
NAM was formed in 1895, and for the past 110 years, we have
played a unique role in promoting a strong manufacturing
economy and economic growth, resulting in higher living
standards for all Americans.
The NAM represents more than 14 million workers in the
manufacturing economy. Every day, the members of our
association and our staff exercise the fundamental
constitutional right to petition or contact our government and
its elected leaders.
In the simplest of terms, we lobby Congress and the
Executive Branch to educate and inform about the impact of
legislation, executive actions, and other public policy on the
manufacturing economy of this country. And even though recent
excesses and criminal activities by one lobbyist is fodder for
the headlines, lobbying is not a new phenomenon. Given the
workload Senator Clark just referred to of the 21st Century
Congress, time doesn't allow our elected leaders to be
completely familiar with the complexity and the nuance of every
single issue that comes before them and the impact of every
piece of legislation on real people in the real world.
At the NAM, our objective is to educate Members of
Congress, Senators, and their staffs through personal meetings,
phone calls, via letters, faxes, e-mails from our members and
our staff. We try to provide essential data, research,
analysis; by travel outside of Washington to tour manufacturing
facilities, and these are all pre-approved, actually, by the
existing Ethics Committee process; by facilitating personal
meetings and dialogue between legislators and our members in
home States, back in the district. We do all of these things to
inform.
For the record, Madam Chairman, I would like to submit two
examples of Congressional staff tours, one in the greater
Atlanta area taken in January 2006 and the other one out in
Arizona in, again, January of this year. So they are both
current, but I think these agendas will show you and the
Members of the Committee that these tours, these Congressional
staff tours, really help provide a very valuable first-hand
education about the importance of manufacturing to the Nation's
economy. They are bipartisan, highly educational, and during
these tours and visits, Congressional staff have unfettered
access to leaders and workers at manufacturing facilities.
Now, curtailing or making more complicated any of these
educational processes will impede our ability and the ability
of the NAM members to provide input on issues that are before
the Congress right now that directly impact the livelihoods of
Americans and the overall economic welfare of our country.
It is interesting, already, the ethics debate itself is
having a chilling effect. An upcoming Houston educational trip
has experienced several staff withdrawals since the
conversations have begun, and it puts now that entire tour in
Houston at risk.
I think elected leaders who cherish our unique freedoms
outlined in the Bill of Rights to our Constitution should act
very carefully to ensure the ability of Americans to educate
and inform our elected leaders is not restricted. Madam
Chairman and distinguished Senators of this Committee, this is
America, and in America, our elected officials don't hide from
those they represent.
Now, I have been in politics long enough to know Congress
is going to react. This impressive turnout today is indication
that there will be a reaction to the scandals that have been on
the front pages of the papers around the country. There are
going to be new rules. There will be new legislation of some
sort, and it will happen soon. So whatever occurs, I think it
is imperative that you don't overreact. Just as a majority of
Senators and Members of Congress have always conducted
themselves in a legal and ethical manner, so, too, have a vast
majority of lobbyists.
Therefore, as you develop proposals to reassure the
American people that our government is not for sale, I urge you
to consider the following points, and I will try to run through
them very quickly.
First, current laws and rules are imposing serious
penalties on those who have abused the public trust. A lobbyist
is going to jail. A former Member of Congress will soon be
sentenced. The system caught them, and additional rules and
laws weren't needed to make them pay the price.
Second, I think Congress has got to be careful not to treat
all who are classified as registered lobbyists the same. There
is a distinct difference between the for-profit and high-
profile specialists and the work of associations, companies,
and causes who lobby directly for organized interests or for a
specific membership. Our association, for example, as I suspect
the vast majority of these, is governed by a constitution. It
has bylaws, a governing body, and itself has fiduciary
responsibility, and there is a very direct involvement of the
members. So there is an obvious distinction between the
501(c)(6) membership trade organization and the hired gun.
Third, in an attempt to limit gifts and meals, try not to
create a paperwork nightmare for trade associations and their
members who are legitimately using working meals and similar
functions to educate leaders and staff. A hamburger, I don't
think, is going to change the mind of Members of this Committee
or, frankly, your staff that supports you so well.
Fourth, as you focus on the obvious excesses, don't limit
the ability of trade associations and members to sponsor out-
of-Washington activities that educate policy makers on the
real-life impact of their actions. Globalization, you heard it
earlier, requires elected leaders to go firsthand today to see
how manufacturing facilities operate and what the challenges
are as they confront international competition.
Fifth, the concept of personal responsibility has been the
bedrock of previous changes in Federal law or Congressional
rules promulgated by Congress. Personal responsibility may be
hard to legislate, but it remains the bedrock principle of
reform. Congress has to look inward, adopt measures to
seriously enforce the rules it has already imposed on its
members before it attempts to pass the blame to others for the
ethical lapses of a very few members.
Before I came to the NAM, I spent 32 years in public office
in Senator Levin's home State of Michigan, 20 years in the
legislature and 12 years as Governor. During that time, I was
lobbied by everyday citizens, teachers, law enforcement, union
members, business executives, even registered lobbyists. I
learned a lot by listening. There were many times when the
persuasive arguments of informed citizens changed the outcome.
Their real-world experience trumped the theories of very smart,
well educated staff or bureaucrats.
Personal responsibility and integrity are absolutes in
public office. If the public trust is violated, the offending
parties have got to pay a price. But in responding to the
violations, eroding and impeding opportunities for American
people to contact their elected officials and representatives
is not the answer, nor is punishing the law-abiding, hard-
working Members of Congress and their staffs for the sins of a
very few.
Thank you, Madam Chairman and Members of the Committee, for
your time today.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Samuel.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM SAMUEL,\1\ LEGISLATIVE DIRECTOR, AFL-CIO
Mr. Samuel. Thank you, Senator Collins and Members of the
Committee, for inviting me to testify on behalf of the AFL-CIO
at today's hearing on lobbying reform.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Samuel appears in the Appendix on
page 79.
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The AFL-CIO represents over 9 million workers in 52 unions,
and on their behalf, we promote policies that will improve the
lives of all working Americans. We support legislation that
will make it possible for every American to have a good job
with financial security, access to affordable health care, and
a secure retirement.
Labor unions allow ordinary workers to join together and
make their voices heard. One of the most important ways unions
do that is by serving as an advocate for workers, both
organized and unorganized, in the halls of Congress. Yet even
with the participation of workers through their unions, the
voices of ordinary workers are still overwhelmed by an
avalanche of corporate money. Political Action Committees set
up by corporations outspent labor union PACs by 24 to 1 in
2004. The imbalance is even worse when it comes to lobbying. In
2000, according to the Center for Responsive Politics,
lobbyists representing business interests outspent workers'
representatives by more than 50 to 1, spending well over $1
billion to influence the outcome of legislation.
The effects of that imbalance are plain to see. If our
politics truly represented the interests of the vast majority
of working Americans, we believe that the recent anti-consumer
bankruptcy bill would not have been enacted. The prescription
drug bill would have financed drug coverage for seniors instead
of profits for the pharmaceutical companies. The Federal
minimum wage would have been raised a long time ago.
The problem of corporations and wealthy individuals buying
disproportionate influence in Congress has gotten worse in
recent years, and the abuses have become more flagrant and
egregious. Now, a spate of scandals has focused the spotlight
on corruption in Congress, and they have increased political
pressure for reform. As a result, it will be necessary to do
away with many of the tawdry ways in which perks and campaign
cash have been traded for legislative favors, especially in
recent years.
But we urge Congress to pursue meaningful reform rather
than cosmetic changes by addressing the root causes of
corruption. Reform should not be used as an excuse to heighten
the disproportionate influence business already has in
Congress, discourage grassroots participation in the democratic
process, or inhibit the ability of groups representing workers,
consumers, and other ordinary Americans to petition the
government and participate in politics.
One key principle for reform is that new rules on gifts and
travel should not treat individuals differently based on
whether they are lobbyists, nor treat organizations differently
based on whether they employ lobbyists. The key consideration
should be whether individuals or organizations have interests
before Congress regardless of how they conduct their lobbying.
For example, lobbyists are not the only individuals who should
be subject to the gift ban. If Congress is going to tighten the
gift ban, and we think it should, the ban should apply to any
individual who has an interest before the Congress, subject to
the current common sense exceptions currently contained in Rule
35.
The AFL-CIO supports a ban on all privately funded travel
for members and staff, subject to one exception. Payments for
reasonable costs incurred in connection with attendance at an
organization's meeting or convention that is being conducted
for reasons unrelated to the member's attendance should be
allowed. Under this exemption, the Chamber of Commerce could
pay for a member to travel to one of its regular meetings, and
the AFL-CIO could pay for a member to attend its conventions or
executive council meetings.
We strongly support prohibiting Congressional travel on
aircraft owned by corporations or other private groups. Even
the most far-reaching reform proposals now under consideration
would allow such travel so long as it is reimbursed at full
cost. But providing this kind of transportation is a special
favor that is not extended to other individuals with the means
to pay, even if members pay the full cost at market prices. We
think Congress should end the practice of flying members around
the country on jets owned by corporations with business before
the Congress.
In addition to the travel and gift bans, the AFL-CIO
supports several measures that address the relationship between
Members of Congress and lobbying firms. We support extending
the post-employment lobbying ban for Members of Congress and
senior staff to 2 years, disclosure of negotiations for post-
Congressional employment, and the elimination of floor and gym
privileges for former members who represent interests before
Congress.
We also support increased disclosure. On this issue, it is
important to understand that labor unions already disclose to
the Department of Labor all of our expenses related to politics
and legislation under the Labor Management Reporting and
Disclosure Act. There is no individual, business, or trade
association that discloses through the Internet as much
information about their expenditures and public outreach as the
AFL-CIO and our sister labor organizations.
The leading reform packages require, for the first time,
public disclosure of so-called grassroots lobbying, generally
defined as attempts to influence the public to contact Members
of Congress. We want to be clear that, as a general matter,
grassroots lobbying is not a problem. Efforts to mobilize
citizens to influence public decisionmaking are an important
part of the democratic process and protected by the First
Amendment. But we do believe it serves a useful purpose to
require more public disclosure of who is paying for such
efforts at persuasion and mobilization. Senior citizens should
know that the coalition called United Seniors Association was
funded by the pharmaceutical industry to lobby for the Medicare
drug bill.
Most union grassroots lobbying and outreach activities are
directed not at the general public, but at union members on
issues of importance to our members and to working families
generally. This kind of outreach is one of the reasons workers
join unions in the first place and is an important aspect of
their right to freely associate. All of the principal reform
proposals, the Democratic package, the Feingold bill, and the
McCain bill, properly exempt organizational outreach to
members, employees, officers, and shareholders.
The Democratic reform package contains important reforms
that are absent from other leading proposals. For example, the
Democratic plan would shut down the K Street Project through
which Republican office holders pressured lobbying firms and
trade associations to hire only Republicans, thereby
guaranteeing support for Republican-sponsored bills and a
steady stream of campaign contributions for Republican
candidates.
We also believe the Democratic package provides an
appropriate enforcement mechanism through its Senate Office of
Public Integrity, a provision lacking in both the Feingold and
McCain bills.
But several aspects of the Democratic proposal could be
improved. Although the Democratic bill states that the Director
of the Office of Public Integrity must be appointed ``without
regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of
fitness to perform the duties of the position,'' we suggest
that the inherent partisanship of the selection process is not
remedied by an unenforceable prohibition of partisanship. The
Democratic reform package should also clarify that the office
has investigatory powers, and it should be required to respond
to complaints filed by the public.
By themselves, these reforms will not fully ensure that the
concerns of ordinary Americans are fairly represented in a
legislative decisionmaking process that is currently dominated
by wealthy special interests. Hardly anyone doubts that
corporations wield disproportionate influence in Congress when
they spend 50 times more than working people on lobbying or
when their PACs spend 24 times more than labor unions on
political campaigns.
In addition to tighter rules on lobbying, public financing
of Congressional elections will be necessary to complete the
job of cleaning up the corrupting influence of money in the
legislative process. Only public financing can ensure a level
playing field where the interests of ordinary citizens and
workers are treated with just as much respect and consideration
as the interests of well-heeled corporations and wealthy
individuals. Public financing is the crucial element necessary
to restore public confidence in our political system.
This may well be an historic opportunity for Congress to
restore integrity to the legislative process, and we urge
Congress to act quickly in this area. But we also caution that
the problem of Congressional corruption will not be fixed until
the interests of the vast majority of working Americans are
given the same weight as corporations and the most privileged
individuals in our society. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you very much for your testimony.
I want to begin my questioning today exploring the issue of
travel, which all three of you have touched on. I think this is
a difficult issue that is more complex than it appears at first
glance. To me, it is easy to distinguish between a lobbyist-
paid golf trip, which in my view should be banned, versus the
Aspen Institute educational seminars, which in my view are very
worthwhile. It becomes more difficult, however, when you
exclude those two extremes and start trying to define
appropriate travel sponsored by private groups, and Governor
Engler mentioned examples of that.
I want to give you another example and get your reaction.
In recent years, there has been a very vigorous debate over
whether or not we should drill in the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge, known as ANWR. Since Senator Stevens is not here, I can
say I am against drilling in ANWR. [Laughter.]
I will also say that I have never taken a trip to see ANWR,
but there have been trips sponsored in the past by the
Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and the Alaska Wilderness
League, who are very much against drilling and want to take
members so that they can see it firsthand. On the other side,
the primary industry organization sponsoring ANWR trips is
Arctic Power. It used to be that BP and ARCO also contributed
to the cost of those trips, but they haven't in recent years.
I am wondering if that is troubling or not. Ideally, you
may say that the government should sponsor those trips, but is
it a problem to have environmental groups taking members to
show them their view of ANWR and the industry groups offering
trips to go see ANWR? We are not talking about trips to Paris
here. We are not talking about trips to play golf.
Senator Clark, let me start with you.
Mr. Clark. My own judgment is that it would be better done
as a CODEL or a series of CODELs. I believe the only way you
can really reform the system consistently is to say that funds
may not be accepted from registered lobbyists or people who
employ registered lobbyists and that lobbyists should not be
able to go along. I don't know, on these trips that you have
talked about, whether that is the case or not and whether the
money that is being used be declared or certified, whatever, in
advance. So under the proposal that I am making, those groups
would not be able to continue that activity, but I do think it
would be better done by a series of CODELs.
Chairman Collins. Governor Engler.
Mr. Engler. Well, I am so anxious to get Members of
Congress to travel that I would be very supportive, and I would
be happy to have the environmental groups or the oil companies
or the utilities take people up there because I very strongly
support drilling in the ANWR and think that it is part of our
energy solution. So I would be happy to see people get there.
I think the solution is disclosure. I do think sunshine
matters. I mean, put it on the record. Put the itinerary out
there. I happen to think something that Senator Clark referred
to--globalization today has put a burden on Members of Congress
to travel, that is--I think the Senate has done more travel
than the House has done, but we really need every Member of
Congress to go to China almost every year and see what is going
on and come back and act sort of with that knowledge at their
fingertips, to see some of this, because it is a big challenge.
And how do we get that done? I fear that if we restrict it
to CODELs, that the taxpayer cost of this grows so great, so
fast that somebody will be running against members because they
spent all of this taxpayers' money traveling. That is one of
the reasons there was a chilling effect, I believe, some years
back. Most governors travel, I think, more than Members of
Congress. Senator Voinovich and I had some of that experience.
I just think that it is essential today.
Let us disclose it, report it. I think reporting in advance
would be fine. There are ways to put the transparency out
there. You are still going to be lobbied by the same groups at
home or in your office. The facts will come to you. Go get the
firsthand knowledge yourself, I would recommend.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Samuel.
Mr. Samuel. I agree with Senator Clark. I think the
simplest answer is that if a trip is worth taking to better
inform Members of the Congress, the Congress ought to pay for
it. I am not alleging that either environmentalists or
corporations have corrupt intent when they take members on
trips to see their plants or the oil fields. But the fact is,
they will enjoy the kind of access to these members in a
relaxed setting that ordinary Americans will never have, and I
think that in itself is a problem. It is a problem of
perception. Certainly, the vast majority of Americans think it
is a problem. And I think it can be a problem, and the simplest
way to address it is to have Congress pay for the trips.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Samuel, just a very quick question to
clarify your statement. You called for a ban on using corporate
jets. We had hearings last year in which we looked at the
practices of a labor-owned insurance company called Ulico,
which had a private jet that was widely used by some Democratic
Members of Congress. When you are calling for a ban on
corporate jets, I assume you mean that more broadly and would
apply it to union-owned jets, as well?
Mr. Samuel. Absolutely.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
Maybe I should begin with a disclosure. I am a proud and
grateful graduate of the Aspen-Dick Clark Public Policy
Seminars. I haven't been in a while, unfortunately, but they
have been extremely valuable to Members of Congress.
The good news, as I see it, Dick, is that none of the bills
being proposed here would limit the kinds of programs you do.
You are a separate 501(c)(3). By your decision, you are only
funded by foundations. But there is some possibility, just
listening to and reading what the Speaker of the House has said
about the intentions in the House, that the bill there, or the
proposal that is currently being discussed, might ban all
travel, and I hope that we can work together to make sure that
does not happen.
There are separate questions raised by proposals in some of
the bills. Some of the bills before the Senate on the question
of travel allow travel but with disclosure. Senator McCain and
I have essentially introduced the disclosure bill in terms of
everything that has been said, but we both said that we are
open to hearing other proposals. One of the other interesting
wrinkles here is that a couple of the bills prohibit 501(c)(3)
nonprofit corporations that are affiliated with a 501(c)(4) or
some other lobbying groups from paying for travel by Members of
Congress, and that approach, for instance, would specifically
prohibit travel sponsored by groups such as the Sierra Club,
which I believe has a lobbying organization and then a separate
501(c)(3). Those bills would prohibit that. That is a separate
question I think our Committee will want to look at.
I want to go to the question of grassroots lobbying and
specifically to ask Governor Engler and Mr. Samuel to talk a
little bit about the provisions here. The intentions in the
bill that Senator McCain and I have put in would be to force
the light of disclosure on all forms of grassroots lobbying,
and by that, we are not meaning people voluntarily doing
grassroots work for the AFL-CIO or NAM but lobbying firms that
you might retain. Obviously not in your case, but in the
Abramoff case, he used the Scanlon firm to funnel millions of
dollars back to him.
There is no intention in any of these bills to limit the
capacity of organizations like yours or others to get their
members to lobby Congress. That is a constitutional right. Have
you reviewed those sections of the proposals that affect
grassroots lobbying and are you comfortable with what you have
seen in terms of what you do with grassroots lobbying? Mr.
Samuel, do you want to start first?
Mr. Samuel. We have reviewed them, and we are comfortable
with them. We think they leave room for organizations like the
AFL-CIO to educate and try to mobilize our own members to
contact their Members of Congress. We do support some outside
coalitions to do work, but we have no problem if that
organization or that firm discloses the fact that the AFL-CIO
is paying for that service. We think that would be a service to
Americans. I mentioned in my testimony that there are all kinds
of organizations springing up around the country with very
public-spirited sounding names--for example, the Coalition to
Reform Health Care, United Seniors Association. I think people
who receive the information from those groups would want to
know who is funding them.
Senator Lieberman. Governor Engler.
Mr. Engler. This is very complicated, as your question
intends it to be, because if we partner up, we have 50 State
affiliates and sometimes we will engage a State affiliate in--
well, the Georgia tour. I don't know if the Georgia State
affiliate, they no doubt were talked to. We also have some
local groups that are affiliated, as well. Now, they don't
really get hired by us to do that, so I see a distinction if we
go hire a third party to send a mailer out or to produce an ad.
Then that gets to be almost over into the campaign side of
things.
What we are worried about is just how do we continue to
function and how much paperwork and burden gets imposed to the
point where it is a tipping point and you say it is not worth
it or the company--let us say in one of our visits here, I will
use Georgia, we went to the Georgia Power Company to one of
their power plants, Illinois Tool Works to look at stretch film
specialty products, then we went to Coca-Cola, Archwood, and
these were all in--Mead Westvaco packaging systems and an Owens
Illinois Plant. I mean, these were all, each of these, experts
at making things using the products. Were those companies then,
because they spent some money to get ready, they walked people
around, they had to outfit them with a hardhat in some cases,
is that part of that lobbying, then? Do they report, too? Are
they swept in? So it is how you draw the lines.
Senator Lieberman. Yes.
Mr. Engler. And I appreciate your sensitivity and the
question. We want the legitimate stuff to go on, and if we are
after Harry and Louise or Harry and Thelma or whoever that was
in the ad or some of the stuff that the labor guys do with
their trial lawyer friends, I mean, all of that stuff is
grassroots lobbying, as well, and I would love to get at some
of these ads that have been run by some of these people against
some of the things that I am for. Just protect the legitimate
ones.
Senator Lieberman. Yes, I hear you. My time is up. I will
just say that I believe the intention here is not to sweep in
those local affiliates that you work with, although there is a
somewhat related provision--and this is something else that
came out of the Abramoff situation--that aims to remove a cloak
of mystery over ad hoc lobbying coalitions by requiring
lobbyists to list as clients--now again, this is disclosure--
not only the coalition, but any group that contributes more
than $10,000 to the coalition.
So again, this is disclosure. You get a lot of lobbying
coalitions together. The lobbyist can say, I represent the
coalition, but then the public has the right to know who is
contributing beyond a de minimis amount to that coalition.
My time is up. We are going to be involved in a lot of
detailed discussions like this, which is why we are open to
consideration. Senator McCain ultimately has made the bill that
I am now cosponsoring with him a disclosure bill because the
details here are difficult to work out in a fair and
constructive way for every situation. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Voinovich.
Senator Voinovich. I would like to ask some broader
questions. For example, are each of you familiar with the
disclosure requirements of your respective organizations? Do
you have any idea of the amount of money that you spend each
year to comply with these requirements? To your knowledge, have
you ever heard from the people that you file the reports with,
asking questions about what you have filed to give you some
feeling that somebody is reviewing them or is this just all
boilerplate as far as you are concerned?
Mr. Samuel. I guess I will go first. We are aware of the
requirements. We do file a semi-annual report. I don't believe
we have ever heard back from the Clerk's office that we have
made a mistake. In fact, one year, I will candidly admit, we
missed the deadline for filing, and I don't even think we were
reminded. We finally discovered the oversight ourselves.
Senator Voinovich. Is it your feeling, Mr. Samuel, that
maybe somebody doesn't pay much attention to what is being
filed?
Mr. Samuel. I think that is right.
Senator Voinovich. Governor Engler.
Mr. Engler. No feedback from anybody that--I just asked our
folks. I have only been at the NAM a little more than a year,
so I hadn't heard anything, but we have not previously heard
from the agencies where we file the reports. We say that we put
in literally what becomes over the course of a year hundreds of
hours because we do a lot of these grassroots tours. They are
complicated to put together. Since 2004, we have done 17 of
them. We have got about 175 members of the Congressional staff
that have come on these.
Our own disclosure in terms of, we do not happen to have a
Political Action Committee at the NAM, so we don't have that
side of the house, but we do have the 501(c)(3) Manufacturing
Institute that does studies, and so they have got a separate
set of rules that we observe over there. They are not involved
in any of the stuff that we do on the lobbying or advocacy
side.
It is a burden. What we are worried about is that if the
burden goes up too much, Senator, we lose members because of
the hassle factor. They don't want to put up with it. We are
sort of geared up to do it so we do it, although we think
probably nobody reads it.
Senator Voinovich. Senator Clark.
Mr. Clark. Well, I think the only----
Senator Voinovich. By the way, Senator Clark, I would like
to say to you that I only attended one of your events, and that
was in China last year, and it was the best educational
experience I have had since I have been in the U.S. Senate. The
experience gave me insights that were absolutely valuable to me
as a member of the Foreign Relations Committee and also a
perspective on a lot of other things that we are confronted
with here in the Senate, so I want to thank you. I have never
heard anything but good comments about the Aspen Institute and
the good work that you do.
Mr. Clark. Thank you very much. Our disclosure is really
limited to providing Members of Congress who traveled with us
with an exact accounting of the amount of money that was spent
at the seminar and getting to and from the seminar, and we
provide that within about one week of the time that----
Senator Voinovich. Do you file that with some----
Mr. Clark. We don't. Actually, we send it to the member,
and then the member files it with the Secretary of the Senate
or the Clerk of the House.
Senator Voinovich. In our reports at the end of the year,
we have to send it. So that is the way that we officially have
knowledge of it and that is the public disclosure of it?
Mr. Clark. Exactly.
Senator Voinovich. OK. Do you all agree that Members of
Congress should travel and their staffs should get out and
around the country to find out what is going on?
Mr. Engler. Absolutely. One thing I heard about Australian
parliamentarians when I was talking to one of my counterparts
down there, they actually put in their budget a specific amount
for each member, the only purpose for which it can be used is
to go places, and that becomes sort of an issue if they don't
go, actually. It works that way in Australia.
Senator Voinovich. What if there is some unique event
taking place at a hospital in this country that members of the
Health Committee would be interested in learning about and that
hospital is willing to pay the transportation costs so they can
come to see it. Would it be your opinion that the request would
come in and Senators then would ask the Ethics Committee to
examine the trip to determine its merit and if it is worthy to
allow the Senators to pay for it out of their funds?
In other words, there are lots of good things that groups
will bring to our attention. This is a really worthy thing,
going up to ANWR and so forth. But rather than having the group
that thinks we should do it pay for it, in fact, we would pay
for it out of our own funds in the Senate to try to ameliorate
any kind of concern that you are going to get lobbied on the
trip.
Mr. Samuel. I think that is a very good solution.
Mr. Engler. I think it is a fine solution. I just want to
protect members from being hammered back home by the political
opponent who says, well, somehow that was an abuse, because
people will view that--they will say, if the hospital happens
to be in, well, let us say in a colder climate in a cold part
of the year, that may not be as troubling as if it was in
beautiful, warm Palm Springs at this time of year. They would
conclude you were off on a frolic, and we all know how these
campaigns have worked. So somehow, you have to protect the
member or we have to create a different ethic around here, and
this environment has been pretty tough on trying to do that. I
mean, that is a fundamental problem with this. But members
desperately need to travel.
Mr. Clark. I agree with that. I think in this day and age,
it would be foolhardy for members not to have an opportunity to
travel to other countries. Most of what I do is foreign policy,
and I think by going to the country that you are studying--
Senator Voinovich mentioned our trip to China. We also do a
conference, a seminar in the Islamic world each year, and one
in Latin America each year, and one in Russia or Europe each
year because these are the topics we are discussing, and we
look at relevant things on the ground and meet with
parliamentarians there and others. So I think it is essential
that travel not be restricted so that the average member really
doesn't have the opportunity to travel.
Senator Voinovich. I would like to make one last comment,
which is that the smart Members of the Senate, when they are
traveling or when their staff are traveling, should notify the
Ethics Committee beforehand so that we can review it and tell
them whether or not it fits in with the rules. So I think that
the public should know that the smart people do that, and that
is one way that you eliminate some of the problems that we are
talking about.
Mr. Clark. As a matter of fact, we do that. We have
submitted all five of our conferences for this year to the
Senate Ethics Committee, and they are in the process of
reviewing all of those to make sure that they meet the criteria
of the Senate.
Mr. Engler. And we do that with our plant tours, as well.
They come to your committee.
Chairman Collins. Senator Carper.
Senator Carper. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
If I may say to Mr. Samuel, welcome. It is good to see you.
To my old colleague, Governor Engler, it is great to see you.
Thanks for joining us today. And to the real Dick Clark----
[Laughter.]
Not to be confused with the world's oldest teenager, the
other Dick Clark, we are glad you are here. Thanks for coming
and for being forever young.
I think I want to maybe direct a question to Governor
Engler and then maybe some other members of the panel, and I
apologize for ducking out. We have another hot hearing going on
with respect to flood insurance reform on the heels of Katrina,
and I am trying to bounce back and forth between both of those,
so I missed your testimony. So if I am asking some questions
that are duplicative, let me know.
Before I ask my specific question, Governor, let me just
ask each of you to take maybe 30 seconds and point out a couple
of broad areas you think that there is unanimity in opinion on
this panel or some things that you really think you all three
agree on that we ought to consider as we go forward and take up
this legislation? Bill, if we could start with you, that would
be great. Where do you think you all agree?
Mr. Samuel. Well, I think, if I heard the testimony right,
I think we all agree there needs to be greater disclosure. I am
not sure how much further we go than that, but we will study
the recommendations.
Senator Carper. All right. Governor Engler.
Mr. Engler. I think we also agree that enforcement of
existing policies and rules is real important and that in
enforcing them, to some extent, the members and lobbyists who
are regulated by them are being punished because they have
violated them.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks. Senator Clark.
Mr. Clark. I believe disclosure is needed, and I think we
all agree upon it. I think we all agree that travel is
important, that it not be restricted in a way that--it is very
important that it be restricted in a way that takes the special
interests out of paying for this. But I think it remains
essential that members travel.
Senator Carper. I have just sort of a follow-up to that. We
have a situation where if we have a ban on gifts or a ban on
travel, let us say it is illegal for a lobbyist to take
somebody, a member or a staff person, out to dinner. But if a
lobbyist and a Senator or a Member of the House go out to
dinner, the lobbyist makes a $5,000 donation to the member's
campaign reelection committee and then the member pays for the
meal, have we really accomplished all that much by having a ban
on gifts?
Mr. Engler. Well, it sounds to me like you just had a
fundraiser. [Laughter.]
Senator Carper. If you heard my earlier testimony, we have
them all the time around here.
Mr. Engler. I think there is something absurd about that--
--
Senator Carper. Too often.
Mr. Engler [continuing]. Where if I give you a check, we
can have a meal together, but if I don't give you a check, we
can't, unless if we do then you pay for your meal and I pay for
mine. I mean, that is just counterintuitive, and yet--well, we
just stayed away from that in our testimony because I suspect
that wasn't necessarily under consideration here. You have had
other novel ideas tossed about, and I will leave it to you to
work on.
Part of this is in defining how big is the problem we are
trying to fix, Senator, and the personal responsibility of the
members at the end of the day is what is going to decide a lot
of this and how they conduct themselves. I don't know what laws
will work to fix that.
Mr. Samuel. If I could just say----
Senator Carper. Mr. Samuel.
Mr. Samuel [continuing]. In response to that, I think
tinkering around the edges of the campaign finance laws is
probably not going to solve the problem, which is why we have
called today and for many years for public financing of
campaigns. I think you would all benefit from that and your
spouses and families would benefit from that, and I think our
democracy would benefit from it.
Senator Carper. Thank you.
Mr. Clark. I don't have a further comment.
Senator Carper. All right. Now, after that specific
question, Governor Engler, I think you include some trip
itineraries in your testimony, I believe. I missed that, but I
understand you did.
Mr. Engler. Yes.
Senator Carper. But it is clear from those documents that
the individuals that you brought to, I think, Atlanta and maybe
to Phoenix had full days and weren't on anything like a
vacation. Are there any limits, however, on how much you and
other lobbyists or professional organizations can spend to
transport, to feed, to entertain members or staff when they are
taken on trips of this nature? Should there be some kind of
limits, and does NAM have any policy on this?
Mr. Engler. Well, I know we have--those meals and that
would be covered by our policy, a widely attended event, but it
still is reported. I mean, some of these locations, it hasn't
been problematic, but we feel we are public with them and fully
reporting. They are not walking away with fancy suitcases and
traveling outfits that we provide for them. They don't get an
NAM sportcoat for making the trip, that kind of thing.
Senator Carper. All right. Senator Clark, you served in
this body earlier in your career. What years were you here? I
think you served for 6 years, did you not?
Mr. Clark. That is correct. I left in January 1979.
Senator Carper. I am certain that you and your staff had at
least some contact during that time with lobbyists, did you
not?
Mr. Clark. Oh, absolutely.
Senator Carper. Would you just talk to us a little bit
about those contacts? Were they different from the kinds of
contacts that we have now with lobbyists and outside interests?
Mr. Clark. I don't think they are different in nature. They
are different in volume. There are many more lobbyists, as
several members of the panel have said. But not being a
recipient of the lobbying in the last 25 years, I am not sure
in detail what that difference is.
Senator Carper. OK. You do spend a fair amount of time with
Members of the House and the Senate.
Mr. Clark. Yes.
Senator Carper. Let me just ask, compared to when you were
serving here, do you think there has been an erosion of ethics
in the Congress in those who serve as members and staff?
Mr. Clark. I would say yes.
Senator Carper. Could you add any more than that?
Mr. Clark. I think it stems from a lot more money in
politics, both in the election system and otherwise. I just
think there are many more opportunities now for lapses than
existed then. But I have not thought about it systematically by
comparison of the two periods.
Senator Carper. All right. Thanks. My time has expired.
Mr. Clark. That is an impression.
Senator Carper. Thank you. I would just say to my
colleagues, again, we actually ran the numbers. This is my 12th
state-wide race this year. When I ran for the Senate against
Senator Roth in 2000, we spent more in that campaign than I
spent in my previous 10 state-wide races combined. You can look
at the curve in terms of state-wide races and what it costs. It
is going up exponentially. It is not going up on a straight
line.
For me, I come back to what I said earlier. I am more
troubled by that than I am by this issue of meals and accepting
a gift and stuff like that. I think we are going to pass
legislation that says we are going to ban gifts, we are going
to ban travel, we are going to have much better enforcement of
the laws that exist, all of which are important, especially the
last one. But I think we have an opportunity here to address
more of the root problem, and that is the issue just of how
much time we spend helping not just ourselves but others who
are running in campaigns all over the country, and it is a huge
demand on our time, and I think it poses maybe greater problems
and concerns than what we are dealing with here. Thank you.
Chairman Collins. Senator Coleman.
Senator Coleman. Thank you, Madam Chairman. My more senior
colleague, I know that he is a graduate of the Aspen Institute.
I still consider myself the student. I have been to a couple of
Aspen seminars.
It is interesting. We come here, and I sit in my seat in
our corner of the chamber, and we go to lunch on Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday with my colleagues on our side of the
chamber. Other than CODELs, in fact, Aspen probably provides
one of the few bicameral or bipartisan intensive policy
discussions that we have, and I think that is a pretty good
thing.
My concern, Senator Clark, is that your approach is a
little too narrow when you just say CODELs and the concern is a
reflection upon the reality that in a couple of years down the
road, and it goes perhaps a little bit to what Governor Engler
talked about, but not just the constituents back home looking
and saying, what are you doing with your budget, but the
reality is that we are going to be looking at budget issues and
on the table are going to be defense and going to be education
and homeland security and border security and Katrina-type of
crises, and then travel, or foreign travel. I can tell you from
experience this past year, we had about two or three efforts to
cut things related to foreign aid or anything like that in
regard to more pressing domestic matters.
And so in the end, what I worry is that we are going to
have an institution in which understanding that China
relationship is pretty important, and it is important
domestically for my manufacturers in Minnesota, for my rank and
file workers in Minnesota, and if we lose the ability to do
that, I think this country is going to be in trouble.
So I clearly come down on the side of transparency, both
disclosure, as my colleague Senator Voinovich talked about, up
front, so we know beforehand, we kind of pre-screen things, but
then in the end, tell your taxpayers what you are doing.
I think, for instance, Senator Clark, AIPAC does a service
in having members go to Israel when you get to meet with
leaders, and that would be prohibited if we take the approach
that has been articulated here. So I don't think that helps us
be better Senators, and I worry about the choices that we are
going to have to make if, in fact, we go back to just CODELs.
Then choices are going to be made, and they are not going to be
made that provide a greater understanding of those
relationships that have a real impact. Would you agree with
that or disagree?
Mr. Clark. I agree with it. I do believe that if the only
travel that is allowed would be CODELs, that certainly is not
going to provide the kind of broad experience that members need
because taxpayers are not going to, and I assume the Members of
the Congress are not going to increase the travel budget to a
point that would be necessary to do that. I do think a CODEL on
some occasions, for example, the one that Madam Chairman talked
about, is a better way in that particular case. But I don't
think that CODELs can be the only approach. I think if the
special interests are out of funding Congressional travel and
you can make arrangements that fit that category, that they
should be allowed.
You mentioned the trips of the AIPAC. I don't know the
details at all of that particular organization or travel, but I
think they and many other groups could organize in a way to
meet the criteria that I am citing if there were no lobbyists
involved in any way in the planning or in the trip or in paying
for the trip directly or indirectly. Then I think it would
certainly meet this criteria, and I think most organizations--
many organizations could do that.
Senator Coleman. I think we have to take a look at that. I
always prided myself when I was a mayor on public-private
partnerships. I never believed that taxpayers had to pay for
everything. I never believed the taxpayers were responsible for
all the growth and development. So I worked closely with the
business community, the nonprofit community. For a city, the
way you grow a city is you have got the three legs of a stool--
government, private sector, nonprofit, and so I worry here we
are going to kind of cut off two of those legs in terms of
educational opportunities, things that I think make us better
public officials.
One other area of concern. I am looking at an independent
review of these issues because, again, I really think that we
have to do this outside the kind of intensive partisan
political atmosphere that we are in now, but we have to do it,
and we need to do it quickly, and we need to do it well. The
question I have is a question of scope, and I would ask each of
you, if there was to be an independent commission looking at
this issue, there is concern if we just look at travel, we are
not getting to the root of it, and I think that phrase has been
used. How do we get to the root of the problem? Can each of you
just articulate a range of issues that need to be looked at if
we want to get to the root of the problem? Mr. Samuel.
Mr. Samuel. Well, as I indicated in my testimony, the
problem is pretty far-reaching and solutions are not easy to
pinpoint. As I said, the fact is that groups representing
corporations and businesses outspend unions, 50-1 in their
lobbying and 24-1 in terms of their political donations. Those
are big issues to tackle. It is not limited to meals and
travel. It is the way our democracy operates and how we
petition our government. So I would recommend the broadest
possible scope for your inquiry.
Senator Coleman. Governor Engler.
Mr. Engler. Well, just on the record, obviously I don't
accept the characterization of how the current campaign finance
is working, and I have for a long time not had a lot of
sympathy for the ``poor underfunded labor unions'' in the
political process and some of their well-heeled allies. So
rather than go down that route, that is a whole separate
inquiry if you want to go into the funding of campaigns. Public
funding is a good way to set up incumbent protection, and I
think there are a lot of concerns about that whole thing.
In terms of scope, I think there are a lot of companies out
there who have very firm gift ban policies. They don't let
corporate purchasing staffs accept travel, trips, or gifts.
There are some models, perhaps, there. There are also perhaps
models in terms of what gets encouraged. I just am very
concerned that in the zeal to respond, that we go overreaching
and we are not hitting the problem but we are creating other
problems that become more acute. Even Mr. Clark's formulation
on keeping the lobbyists out, who is a lobbyist when somebody
is traveling because the most effective lobbyists may well be
the lay leader in AIPAC. I know a couple of our CEOs that have
been active there. They are far better than anybody else that
could lobby on that issue when they have an opportunity. They
don't lobby, but they are powerfully persuasive on a point of
view. I don't want to single them out, but we have mentioned
that organization. It is one I respect very much. There are
many others in the same situation.
So the sunshine has to cure this. We cannot keep track of
who everybody comes into contact with. At the end of the day,
it is your own integrity that is on the line. You have to
decide.
Mr. Clark. I am speaking only of registered lobbyists, of
course. I was intrigued by the commission proposal idea that
you made here at the table a few minutes ago, particularly if
it could be done in time to really face this issue rather soon.
If such a commission were to be formed, I think the issues have
to be very broad. I would certainly include campaign finance
reform, all of the things we have talked about here today, and
probably the internal working of the Congress. Several members
of the panel mentioned various things that would include that.
So very broad and yet it will have to be specific enough when
the work starts that it be done in time for legislation to
address this quickly.
Senator Coleman. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
I want to thank this panel. We will be in touch with you to
get further information from you, and we very much appreciate
your participation today. Thank you.
Mr. Engler. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
Mr. Clark. Thank you.
Mr. Samuel. Thanks.
Chairman Collins. Our third panel brings together two
accomplished professionals with experience in the laws that
govern lobbying disclosure. Fred Wertheimer, the President and
CEO of Democracy 21, has spent more than 30 years working on
the issues of money in politics, government accountability, and
reform of the political system. I had the pleasure of working
very closely with Mr. Wertheimer during the campaign finance
reform battles, and I have a great deal of respect for his
knowledge.
Paul Miller is the President of the American League of
Lobbyists. In his capacity, he works to ensure professionalism,
competence, and high ethical standards within the lobbying
community, and we are grateful for your presence here today.
Mr. Wertheimer, we will begin with you.
TESTIMONY OF FRED WERTHEIMER,\1\ PRESIDENT, DEMOCRACY 21
Mr. Wertheimer. Thank you very much, and needless to say,
we greatly appreciated the leadership that you and Senator
Lieberman and others provided on that very tough battle on the
2002 campaign finance bill.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Wertheimer with attachments
appears in the Appendix on page 84.
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I would like to thank you and the other Members of the
Committee for this opportunity to testify and also would like
to thank you for moving so quickly on this issue. I would also
like to note our appreciation for the work that this Committee
did in the 1990s under the leadership of Senator Levin, which
resulted in some very important lobbying and ethics reforms.
According to a recent CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll taken in
January, ``Corruption ranked among the concerns most often
cited by those polled, with 43 percent telling pollsters it
would be an extremely important issue in 2006,'' just 2 percent
below the 45 percent response for the war in Iraq and
terrorism.
A Washington Post-ABC poll taken on January 10 found that
90 percent of the responders said it should be illegal for
lobbyists to give Members of Congress gifts, trips, or anything
else of value. Again, I will repeat that. Ninety percent said
that gifts, travel, and anything of value from lobbyists should
be banned. Two-thirds of those respondents said it should be
illegal for lobbyists to make campaign contributions to Members
of Congress.
These polls show that the American people are looking for
strong medicine to solve very serious problems they see in the
way Washington works and the way lobbyists function in
Congress.
The opportunities to enact basic government integrity
reforms are cyclical in nature. They come when problems and
scandals arise, as they have now. And that means now is the
time to act. We think it is essential for this Committee and
the Congress to move quickly to act on legislation,
thoughtfully but quickly. We all know that in reality, time
passes very quickly here, particularly in an election year, so
we would urge you to move as quickly as possible on these
issues.
There are really two bottom-line issues here. First, the
multiple ways in which lobbyists and lobbying groups use money
to curry favor and gain influence in Congress. And second, the
absence of effective enforcement of the laws and ethics rules
that cover members.
Our organization has joined with six other reform groups to
set forth six benchmarks for lobbying reform. We have submitted
our benchmarks to the Committee, and I would ask that this
statement be included in the record at this point.
Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Mr. Wertheimer. Thank you. Our organizations all support
fundamental campaign finance reforms, including public
financing of elections, as essential in the end to solve the
problems that have been illustrated by the recent scandals in
Washington. We also believe there are very important lobbying
reforms that can and should be enacted now in order to address
specific problems.
The various bills have presented a number of important and
valuable proposals. I think, as we all know, in the end it is
the details that will determine the effectiveness of the
proposals. We would urge this Committee to take the best of all
the various proposals and come up with the strongest possible
bill.
We think it is essential to break the nexus between
lobbyists' money and lawmakers. If you look at what Jack
Abramoff did, he used money on Capitol Hill in every way he
could think of. He made contributions, arranged contributions,
arranged trips, provided meals, arranged skybox tickets. We
think that while his activities turned out to be criminal in
the end, those kinds of tools are the common tools of lobbying
in Washington, and this has to be changed.
I would like to just go over a couple of things our
organizations support. A ban on private interests financing
travel for members and Congressional staff as well as for
Federal judges and Executive Branch officials. We believe that
trips for official business should be paid for by the public
and through public funds.
We also think it is essential to end the practice of
subsidized travel in the form of company and other jet planes
being made available at very low prices for members to travel.
We support a ban on gifts to members, and we think it is
essential that any new restriction close a current gift
loophole which allows lobbyists and others to pay for lavish
parties to honor Members of Congress. It doesn't make sense to
us to say a lobbyist can't pay $25 for a meal and yet can pay
$25,000 to finance a party for a member at the National
Conventions.
There are other provisions we support. I would like to just
focus on one. It is essential--essential--to change the way
these rules are enforced. We have proposed an Office of Public
Integrity in the Congress. We have set out the responsibilities
this office should have, and that includes the ability to
investigate matters, receive complaints, and present cases to
the Ethics Committees, and this office must be adequately
financed.
I will be happy to answer any questions the Committee has.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Mr. Miller.
TESTIMONY OF PAUL A. MILLER,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN LEAGUE OF
LOBBYISTS
Mr. Miller. Madam Chairman, I have a longer statement I
would like to ask that be entered into the record, if possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Miller with attachments appears
in the Appendix on page 100.
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Chairman Collins. Without objection.
Mr. Miller. Thank you. Madam Chairman, Members of the
Committee, my name is Paul Miller, and I serve as President of
the American League of Lobbyists (ALL). I am real pleased to be
here to hear the discussions today on lobbying reform and your
attempts to do so.
As this Committee knows, lobbying Congress is not only a
completely legitimate part of our democratic process, it is
also essential to its effectiveness. Lobbying is a fundamental
right guaranteed by our Constitution, and professional
lobbyists, such as ALL's members, perform a critically
important role in helping citizens communicate factual
information and in advocating their interests and concerns to
public officials, like yourselves.
Regrettably, a widespread misperception exists today about
what lobbying involves and what lobbyists do. This
misperception is not new, but it has been elevated to an
extraordinary level as a result of the activities of Mr.
Abramoff and his associates. Those activities not only strike
at the heart of our democracy, they also have damaged severely
the vast majority of lobbying professionals who perform their
role in our democracy in an ethical and totally legitimate way.
Members of our profession are as disgusted and appalled by
what Mr. Abramoff has done as you are, but we should not allow
the actions of a few unscrupulous operatives to paint our
entire profession as crooks who will stop at nothing to have
their way with Members of Congress. This is far from the truth,
and I hope today's hearing will demonstrate that.
The past 3 weeks have not been easy on anyone. We have seen
real outrage by the public by what they perceive as a profound
corruption of their government. Our government is not corrupt.
Lobbyists are not bribing people. And Members of Congress are
not being bought for campaign contributions. One man broke the
law by lying, cheating, and stealing from his clients.
Unfortunately, he was a lobbyist.
I want to assure this Committee and the American people
that Mr. Abramoff is not the norm in our profession. He truly
is the exception.
Lobbyists represent the interests of every American, from
small rural towns to the big cities. If you were ever a member
of the Girl Scouts, if you ever used a library, if you ever
road a snowmobile, if you ever played on a sports team, if you
own a gun or think ordinary people should not be allowed to own
guns, if you are pro-life or pro-choice, if you are 65 or
older, if you work in a steel mill or own a steel mill, if you
have done any of these activities, if you share any of these
characteristics, you have been represented at some time or
another by a lobbyist, and that lobbyist was ethical,
professional, and fulfilling a vital role in our democracy.
Virtually everyone in our democracy, whether they are aware
of it or not, has had a lobbyist working on their behalf at one
time or another in a way that is quite legitimate and that
enjoys the protection of our Constitution. You could say that
lobbying, when it is practiced ethically, is as American as Mom
and apple pie to this country.
Effective lobbying is not about access or money, it is
about forthright, ethical communications on issues that impact
the livelihood of legitimate businesses and constituents back
home that you all represent. What most lay people view as
lobbying, the actual communication with government officials,
represents the smallest portion of a lobbyist's time. A far
greater portion is devoted to those other activities of
preparation, information, and communication. Those activities,
Madam Chairman, are essential to the fabric of our democracy,
and when they are abused and corrupted, we all suffer.
But before any new lobbying reforms are enacted, we urge
Congress not to allow the egregious actions of a few to provoke
a knee-jerk reaction that may result in more damage to the
system.
It is our view that any new reforms will have to include
four key elements if they are to be effective. They are
enforcement, review of the current rules and regulations,
education and training, and the Constitution.
The first step has to be a comprehensive review of the
current rules to see what, if any, rules aren't working. Right
now, I don't think we can say with certainty that the system is
broken. We can't know if the current rules work or not because
we don't have an enforcement mechanism in place to gauge this.
No matter how well intentioned the reform effort may be, it
will be meaningless to the American people if we first don't
begin by talking about enforcement of the current rules.
If we can solve the enforcement issue, we then have to
discuss the current rules and regulations. We are here today
because one lobbyist and a PR consultant broke the law. This is
not a widespread scandal that has lots of lobbyists caught up
in breaking the law. It is one lobbyist. I think this is
important to keep in mind as we debate the need for further
reforms.
In terms of rules and regulations, I should mention the
American League of Lobbyists has its own Code of Ethics. This
document, which I have attached as part of my testimony, is a
source of great pride for our members. It is a voluntary code,
but one that our members respect and live up to and value for
the way it so clearly defines the boundaries of appropriate
lobbying. It is a code that makes our profession stronger and
better, and for the record, Mr. Abramoff is not and never was a
member of ours.
In terms of education and training for the profession, ALL
has been working for the past 19 months in partnership with
George Mason University's New Century College on an ambitious
new lobbying certification program. It can no longer be
acceptable to just fill out the right forms and submit them on
time in order to call yourself a lobbyist. We have to do
better, and we will do better. We need standards to guide our
profession and the work we do. We believe our new lobbying
certification program will begin to set that standard.
In addition, our lobbyist tool kit, which I have brought
with me today, provides all lobbyists with valuable information
on staying compliant in an ever-changing profession. We need to
change attitudes throughout the entire legislative structure by
making this education and training available to everyone, not
just to lobbyists, but Members of Congress and their staffs, as
well, to keep them up to speed on what is going on.
Finally, if Congress believes reforms are necessary, we
need to make sure that these reforms do not limit or impair
anyone from exercising their guaranteed constitutional right to
petition their government, even if that means using a lobbyist
to do so. Our founding Fathers believed that the right to
petition government was critical to an open democracy. That is
just as vital in today's environment as it was over 200 years
ago. If reforms are needed, I believe we can get to those
reforms without limiting a person's right to petition their
government. We hope Congress will agree with us.
Because of what is at stake here, we should not be in a
hurry to implement new reforms. We should take as much time as
needed to ensure that any reforms are done right. I think the
American people will understand and be better served if all
work together to get this right the first time.
Madam Chairman, we welcome the opportunity to work with you
and your colleagues on this issue. We look forward to a process
by which we will be able to submit the current LDA to a
thoughtful and rigorous review and find ways to make it more
effective, and we are confident that, working together, we will
restore people's faith in government and in the legislative
process. We owe them no less.
I want to thank you for the opportunity, and I am happy to
address any questions you or anybody else may have today. Thank
you.
Chairman Collins. Thank you.
Mr. Wertheimer, you stated in your testimony that
grassroots lobbying may well account for as much, if not more,
of the funds spent to lobby Congress as direct lobbying
expenditures, and we have indeed seen a growth of professional
grassroots lobbying firms that do nothing else, and you have
advocated disclosure for those firms. Do you think that
organizations such as the National Right to Life Organization
or NARAL on the other side should also be required to disclose
when they have spent money to activate their grassroots
members?
Mr. Wertheimer. We have supported the provisions in the
McCain-Lieberman bill, which basically focus this on the
expenditures made to reach the public outside organizations.
Those provisions deal with money spent on heavily paid for
media campaigns, on computerized phone banking directed at the
public. So we support the McCain-Lieberman provisions, and
those provisions do not cover communications within an
organization's own membership.
If I might just add a point here, we strongly do not
believe that this is the problem caused by one man. We believe
that this problem facing the Committee today was caused by one
system, and it is a system that allows a lobbyist to do the
following with money: Make a campaign contribution, hold a
fundraiser, raise money for you, and that is why we propose
strict new limits on what lobbyists can give and prohibition of
lobbyists raising money for Members of Congress. The lobbyists
can arrange trips for Members of Congress, arrange company
planes for Members of Congress, pay for parties for Members of
Congress, pay for meals and tickets to sporting events for
Members of Congress, make contributions to foundations
established or controlled by Members, finance retreats and
conferences by Members.
This is not about the right to petition. I think everyone
agrees that everyone should have the right to petition. This is
about the way money is used by lobbyists and their clients and
the organizations they work for on Capitol Hill at the expense
of the American people, and it shows up in these polls. It
shows up in a rather astounding finding that two-thirds of the
country would ban contributions from lobbyists and 90 percent
would prevent lobbyists from giving members anything. Those
concerns require bold reforms, and we very much hope this
Committee will move forward in that light.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Miller, Mr. Samuel earlier mentioned
that the AFL-CIO missed a filing deadline and no one noticed.
They caught the error themselves. It underscores the point that
Mr. Wertheimer and several other witnesses have made about the
lack of enforcement for current requirements. Do you have any
recommendations to improve the accountability, oversight, and
enforcement?
Mr. Miller. First of all, I think this is the heart of the
question that we are here debating right now. We don't know if
the current rules work or not because we don't have any
enforcement mechanism in place. The House and Senate, and even
the Justice Department, they don't have the financial and the
human resources to undertake this right now. So until you
settle that question, I think we are going to run into some of
these problems and you are going to force people to self-police
themselves.
I mean, Jack Abramoff did get caught by the system. He got
caught by other lobbyists who turned him over to a reporter. So
the system did work in many regards, but right now we don't
have a system that works effectively. We have to find some sort
of enforcement mechanism to handle that before we can even move
forward. And the legislation and the ideas are nice, but until
you address and fix that problem, it is going to be
meaningless. I mean no disrespect by that, but that has to be
the core of what you are trying to accomplish here.
Chairman Collins. Do you have any enforcement mechanism
that accompanies your Code of Conduct? Is there a self-
regulatory organization aspect to it?
Mr. Miller. No. Our code is voluntary, but we do as an
organization have the right to kick you out of the organization
and not ask you back if you are found to have broken any of our
Code of Ethics or any other rules or regulations. We are now
implementing a new--again, it is voluntary, but a lobbying
certification program through George Mason University's New
Century College.
In my belief, we have to provide better education out
there. It can no longer be the standard that you fill out the
right forms and call yourself a lobbyist and you find clients
to pay you. You have to know the rules, and I would venture to
guess there are a lot of people out there, members, staff, and
lobbyists, who don't know the right rules.
Chairman Collins. Mr. Wertheimer, one final quick question
for you, although I am sure we are going to be talking to both
of you over the next few weeks. You heard the debate this
morning on travel, and your testimony just now seemed to call
for an outright ban on any privately sponsored travel. Do you
think that an exception should be made for a public policy
institute like the Aspen Institute?
Mr. Wertheimer. Let me first, at the outset, note for the
Committee's information that Dick Clark is the Chairman of my
Board. [Laughter.]
I have worked with him for many years. He was a great
leader in this Congress in the 1970s for campaign finance and
ethics reforms, and he has devoted his life to public service.
I think he is a great person.
Our position is that your travel ought to be paid for by
the public and that private-financed travel should stop. Now,
the question has come up in different ways about writing
exceptions to this provision. Writing narrow exceptions that
work is a very difficult task. When the gift rules were
written, travel was excepted. As it was written in as an
exception, in theory, it was supposed to be contained. It got
out of control. When the gift ban, or the limit to $50, was
written, there was a little exception in there for a group who
wanted to put on an event honoring a member, and we wind up
with $250,000 parties paid for by lobbyists, companies at the
National Conventions for single individuals or specific Members
of Congress. So it becomes very hard to write specific
exemptions.
If this Committee looks at exemptions, obviously, we and
the groups who are interested in this will look at it and will
give you our response. But our basic view is that privately
financed travel should stop and that it is hard to write
exceptions here.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. Senator Lieberman.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Madam Chairman.
I got a kick out of the very accurate point that Mr. Miller
made that the Abramoff scandal was broken in the first instance
not by any enforcement mechanism, but by other lobbyists who
felt that Abramoff was taking their clients away. There is a
certain market motivation that helped to break the story, and
they called, I believe, Susan Schmidt at the Washington Post,
and then Senator McCain did that extraordinary series of
hearings he held.
In this same regard, as you know, Mr. Miller, a lot of
attention has been focused on the so-called K Street Project
where Members of Congress apparently were pressuring lobbying
firms to hire certain people of a particular party. I presume
that people in your association, lobbyists, don't like that.
At least one of the bills, Senator Reid's bill, makes an
attempt to make it illegal for a member to take or withhold
action in an attempt to influence a private employer's hiring
decisions for partisan reasons. What do you think about that?
Mr. Miller. We agree with you. I don't think anybody--at
least that I have talked to--is proud of some of the things
that they hear about the K Street Project or any other project.
I think both sides have similar types, or had similar types of
projects in the past. They don't have a place here in
Washington, and I think if you can do something about them,
yes, I think you would get our support.
But the problem I think you get on some of these issues is
you can't really legislate ethics or morality and values. I
think people have to be better accountable and more accountable
to their profession and the standards that they are supposed to
live by. I just don't know how you make that effective other
than say you can't do it because you are never going to really
have any--unless somebody writes it down, how are you going to
prove that they did those types of projects?
Senator Lieberman. Yes. Obviously, if two people have a
conversation, you have a possibility for somebody to testify to
what happened, and that is the challenge we have in legislating
in this area.
Let me ask you something else. Some of the bills ban gifts
by lobbyists to Members of Congress. Others call for
disclosure. Let me give you an opportunity to address that
issue. If you take the position that there shouldn't be a ban,
why not? I will just say for the record that under the current
law, as I understand it, lobbyists are limited to giving
Members of Congress a gift that cannot be worth more than $50,
and cumulatively during the year not more than $100, and gifts
include meals and obviously would include tickets to sports
events or whatever else. So if, in fact, you don't support a
ban on gifts, why not?
Mr. Miller. I think you have reasonable rules in place
right now, and the question becomes, if you are able to buy
somebody, whether it be a staffer or a Member of Congress, for
a $50 meal or $100 worth of meals throughout the year, I think
that says something about our system much more than what we are
talking about here today.
I don't support banning gifts. I think they have a place in
our system. Right now, if you go to any office--you all are
very familiar--if somebody wants to talk to you or your staff,
the offices are very crowded, phones are ringing, people are in
and out, and sometimes you are meeting in the lobby, you are
meeting in the hallway. You don't have the time and the focus
of people at times. By going to a lunch that may cost $50, you
are having a little bit more time to sit down, have some real
dialogue to talk about these issues.
If you take that away and you ban it, there have been some
newspaper articles that say they will just move it to the
political side and make it fundraising events type of thing. I
disagree with that. I think we need to allow for some sort of
gift. The $100 is reasonable. We just need to figure out a way
to make it enforceable.
Senator Lieberman. OK. Mr. Wertheimer, you and Mr. Miller
both have talked about the need for greater enforcement. As I
understand the status quo, lobbyists file their reports with
the Secretary of the Senate or the Clerk of the House. You
probably know more about this than I do, or Mr. Miller does. I
gather there are a few staff members in each place that
basically accept them, but there is not much beyond that in the
status quo. Maybe I should ask you first if my understanding is
right. In other words, are they open so the press can go or
other organizations, other competitors can go and review them?
Mr. Wertheimer. Our feeling is that both in lobbying
reports filed with the Clerk of the House and the Secretary of
the Senate, with financial disclosure, with travel reports, the
resources are not there to do more than accept them, and there
are certainly not there to do serious oversight, monitoring,
review, and that is part of a much larger oversight and
enforcement issue in Congress that is a core question. We
believe it is essential to deal with that.
Where I would strongly disagree with Mr. Miller is we
believe you should deal with both now. I don't think there is
any question that there are serious problems with the current
rules and changes that need to be made.
We have outlined a proposal for an Office of Public
Integrity in the Congress----
Senator Lieberman. Take a little time and talk about that.
Senator Reid has an Office of Public Integrity in his proposal,
but I don't believe it has all the authority that your ``six
benchmarks'' proposal has. So how would it work?
Mr. Wertheimer. Here is what we think should be done.
First, this office, which is in the Congress, should be
nonpartisan, professional, independent, and headed by a
publicly credible individual appointed by the Joint Leadership.
That is a tough assignment, and it is critical.
But this office should have the following responsibilities.
It should be able to receive, monitor, and oversee reports
filed by members and filed by lobbyists. It should be the
office that advises and provides you advance information--
members, staff, lobbyists--on how to comply with the law.
It should have the ability to conduct non-frivolous ethics
investigations, to respond to complaints filed by members or
outsiders, or own its own grounds to pursue investigations as
to whether ethics violations have occurred in either the House
or Senate. If it concludes that there is sufficient information
that this matter should go forward, it would then switch to the
Ethics Committees in the sense that this office would present
the cases to the Ethics Committees, which would serve as the
judges here. The Ethics Committee would decide whether
violations had occurred and whether the matter should then go
forward to the full body for action and sanctions.
While the Ethics Committees are the judges, this process
would allow in an independent way matters to go forward
sufficiently so they will be tested and determined when serious
ethics violations occur. Right now, and it has been this way
forever, it is very hard to serve on the Ethics Committee. It
is a terrible job. You have to judge your peers. There is
built-in inherent resistance to moving forward with problems,
but Ethics Committees have dealt with fundamental problems--
Koreagate and ABSCAM in the 1970s, the Keating Five affair in
the 1980s. I would point out that with everything that has
happened in the Abramoff matter, there is no public information
that tells us that any investigation has been conducted to date
by either Ethics Committee.
So the Ethics Committees can deal with tough problems, but
that is not the inclination and that is why you need a body
that is going to take a look at these things, and if you find
serious problems, you bring them to the Ethics Committees to
judge. They can't be blocked at the outset.
And the last part of this responsibility would be to refer
problems with lobbyists and lobbying reports to the Justice
Department, which currently has civil enforcement
responsibilities but doesn't review any of these reports.
The one additional item I would add, right now, all of the
responsibility for complying with some of these rules rests on
members. If a lobbyist provides $500 to pay for a meal, the
lobbyist isn't violating anything. You are violating it as a
member. We think that in situations like travel and gifts that
responsibilities and prohibitions have to be placed on the
lobbyists as well as the members. I think this will gain the
attention of the lobbyists and be a very strong incentive for
lobbyists to make sure they comply with these rules as well as
members.
Senator Lieberman. That is a very serious proposal which
deserves consideration.
Mr. Wertheimer. And we would, if I could just add, like to
submit some more information to this Committee on the proposal.
Senator Lieberman. Please.
Mr. Miller. Senator Lieberman, can I just add to that
point?
Senator Lieberman. Yes, go right ahead.
Mr. Miller. Or Madam Chairman, can I add to that point? We
don't disagree with my colleague over here. One of the things
that we have thrown out there and discussed earlier this week
was why not maybe possibly look at GAO taking this over and
undertaking this project. If there is some credibility to
having them do it, maybe it is an option for you all to look
at.
If you all are looking to make some real reforms right now
that are fast and easy to do, two steps. We are not opposed to
transparency. Some say that we don't want to file more than
twice a year. We don't have a problem doing it. What we have a
problem with is the burdensome and cumbersome processes that we
have. If the House and Senate could come up with one system,
electronic filing system, this would make it so much easier for
us to do and the transparency would be immediate for the
general public. So if you could fix that problem, that is
something that should be easy enough to do and something the
general public, I think, would be very happy with.
The other thing right now, a second proposal is we hear a
lot of numbers about how many registered lobbyists there are in
this town, and I don't think anybody actually has the right
number. I was told right before this hearing by a company that
tracks that that there are 11,500 registered lobbyists. We
heard as high as 35,000. I think if you talk to the folks in
the Senate, they will tell you that if you are a woman and you
get married and you change your name, you are in there twice
because they don't take your maiden name out. If you are
retired, you are still kept in the database. And if you are
deceased, you are still kept in the database. So if we could
get a better, accurate reflection of how many lobbyists there
truly are in this town, I think we wouldn't have to throw so
many different numbers around.
Senator Lieberman. Thanks, Mr. Miller, Mr. Wertheimer.
Thanks for still being in the fight.
Mr. Wertheimer. Thanks very much for this opportunity.
Mr. Miller. Thank you both.
Chairman Collins. Thank you. I want to thank all of our
witnesses for their contributions today. We do look forward to
working further with you to develop legislative reforms. We
welcome any additional information to be submitted to the
record and to the Committee for consideration, not only by our
witnesses today but by those who didn't have the opportunity to
testify today. The hearing record will remain open for 15 days.
This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:32 p.m., the Committee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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