[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 60 (Tuesday, May 10, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H3087-H3088]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LOBBYING REFORM
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. EMANUEL. Mr. Speaker, in the past few months and days, a constant
stream of headlines has opened the public's eye to the relationship
between lawmakers and lobbyists and what goes on in this town and how
we make our laws. Professional lobbyists have become a virtual ``back
office'' for Congress and Congressmen, serve as travel agents,
employment agencies and authors of legislation. In the past 6 years,
lobbying expenditures have more than doubled to $3 billion annually,
nearly twice as much as we spend on campaigns. That is what they spend
trying to influence the type of legislation we have. Whether it is on
pharmaceutical legislation, prescription drugs, whether it is on the
tax legislation, whether it is on energy legislation, the amount spent
by lobbyists has doubled trying to influence the Members of Congress.
Yet while the number of professional lobbyists and their fees have
increased, only one in five lobbyists required to register actually
does. Of the 250 top lobbying firms, 210 have failed to file one or
more of the necessary documents. The bottom line is that the special
interests benefit from weak reporting, nonexistent oversight and
toothless penalties while the credibility of the United States
Congress, this entire institution and the Members who serve in it,
suffers.
We have had in the past debates about campaign finance reform and
proper debates about the relationship between donors and congressional
candidates. It is time now to have a debate and pass legislation about
the relationship between professional lobbyists and Members of
Congress. The last major lobbying reforms were over 10 years ago. It is
time to update our laws to reflect the explosive growth and increasing
influence of professional lobbyists on this institution, the people's
House.
For all those reasons, the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan),
the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Van Hollen) and I have introduced the
Lobbying and Ethics Reform Act. Our bill creates a code of official
conduct for Congress. This code of conduct would close the revolving
door by requiring former Members and staff to wait 2 years before
coming back to lobby the institution they had worked at prior. The bill
also ends the practice of lobbyists serving as congressional travel
agents by arranging lavish junkets for Members. Our bill would require
congressional travel to conform to expense guidelines similar to those
of other government employees, so it is actually the work that trip is
intended to do and work on that trip rather than it becoming a lavish
vacation and a working trip in name only. We also require lobbyists to
disclose their past connections, previous Hill employers and financial
activities on a public database.
The Meehan-Emanuel bill increases the penalties for failing to comply
with the Lobbying Disclosure Act. It also
[[Page H3088]]
creates a bipartisan House task force to recommend ways to reinvigorate
ethics oversight and enforcement. It would require the Government
Accountability Office to report twice a year on the state of oversight
and enforcement.
Mr. Speaker, the gavel of this institution when it comes down should
mark the opening of the people's House, not the auction house. Unless
we reform the relationship between lobbyists and Members of Congress,
we cannot restore the public's faith in the people's House. We are
suffering from a systematic problem requiring an institutional
solution.
Legislation here that we produced in the last Congress, the
pharmaceutical industry spent $154 million lobbying Members of
Congress. When we were working on the reimportation legislation of
pharmaceutical products, there were two lobbyists for every Member of
Congress. The prescription drug bill was passed in a year in which
lobbyists for the pharmaceutical industry was one of the biggest
spenders on lobbying Members of Congress ended up resulting in an
additional $150 billion of profits for the pharmaceutical industry over
a 10-year period of time.
Just the other day, we voted, this Congress, on an energy bill, a
badly needed bill that did not deal with gas prices at the pump and yet
gave tax credits, the public's tax money, to the wealthiest
corporations who are making the biggest profits. Even the President
acknowledged that it was wrong. Why? Because this institution is being
lobbied by members that have the right to have their voices heard but
not the right to have their voices literally drowning out the public's
voice and individuals who vote for us.
It is time for this institution and the Members of Congress of both
parties to come together, change the way professional lobbyists relate
to Members of Congress, how they relate to the institution, whether
there is a revolving door that goes from here, you go to a place of
employment and whether you have in fact the transparency and the
disclosure that is required, because in truth this is the whole cloud
that exists, exists over all the institution. It requires all of us to
work on dealing with this.
Mr. Speaker, we have a duty to ensure that the voices of the American
people are not drowned out by the voices of the professional lobbyists
working the halls of Congress. Only through lobbying reform can we
restore the integrity of the Congress and retain the people's trust. We
work on important issues here but not so important that it must
literally push out the other voices. There is time and again, whether
it is dealing with the pharmaceutical industry, the corporate tax bill,
the energy bill, other pieces of legislation, you can mark literally
the amount of money spent by the lobbying community and the type of
legislation this institution passes.
When that gavel goes down, it is intended to open the people's House,
not the auction house.
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