[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 8 (Tuesday, January 16, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S547-S549]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ETHICS AND LOBBYING REFORM
Mr. REID. Mr. President, there has been good progress made on ethics
and lobbying reform. We have had a good debate. It is time to move to
passage of this meritorious legislation.
We will have three votes beginning at 5:30 this afternoon. First we
will vote on the Durbin amendment to strengthen the definition of
``targeted tax benefit'' and other aspects of Senator DeMint's earmark
disclosure proposal. I appreciate Senator DeMint working with Senator
Durbin and others to strengthen his amendment.
Second, we will vote on the underlying DeMint amendment on earmark
disclosure.
Finally, we will vote to invoke cloture on an amendment that I
offered strengthening the rules on gifts and travel, including travel
on private airplanes. Once cloture is invoked on that key amendment, we
can move forward to finishing the bill this week. As I announced this
morning, we are going to finish the bill this week. If we finish it
Thursday at 10 o'clock, we will be finished with votes for the week. If
we finish it Saturday at 10 o'clock, we will be finished with votes for
the week. But we will finish this legislation.
This ethics reform bill is vitally important to Congress and the
American people. Over the past few years, the media has been filled
with stories of elected officials who have violated the public trust
often in their dealings with lobbyists. Each episode of public
corruption contributes to the public's growing cynicism about Congress
and other institutions of Government.
First, let me say, lobbyists are not a class who should be denigrated
in any way. They render a vital service to their constituents and to
Congress. So I want everyone to know we are not trying to berate
lobbyists. What we are saying with this legislation is we need to know
more about what lobbyists are doing. I think it is going to help them,
it will help us, and it will certainly give the American people more
confidence in Government.
Think what this country has gone through. For the first time in 131
years, a person working in the White House is indicted. That trial is
starting today. In addition to that, a person the President appointed
to handle Government contracts involving billions of dollars, Mr.
Safavian, was led away from his office in handcuffs and has been
convicted.
Two former Members of the House of Representatives are now in prison
for selling legislative favors--in prison. A third Member of the House
of Representatives, one who has served as the second highest official
in the House of Representatives, was forced to resign from Congress
because he was indicted. There are other investigations going on as we
speak. If there were ever a time when Congress and the executive branch
needed to take dramatic action to show the American people we are
serious about restoring public trust in Government, this is the time.
That is what we have tried to do.
That is what I tried to do with this legislation. In order to send a
message about the importance of ethics reform, I designated the bill as
S. 1 and brought it to the floor on the first day of legislative
activity, meaning that it is an extremely important piece of
legislation in the minds of the country, the Congress, the Democrats,
and the Republicans. I say the Republicans because I asked the minority
leader to cosponsor S. 1 with me, something that hadn't been done for
more than 30 years. I did this because I wanted to show this issue
transcends partisan politics.
The bill I introduced with Senator McConnell on the first day of the
110th Congress is a very strong piece of legislation. It is based on
the text of the bill that passed the Senate last year.
What does it do? It prohibits lobbyists from giving gifts to
lawmakers and their staffs. It prohibits lobbyists from paying for
trips or taking part in privately funded congressional travel. It
requires public disclosure of earmarks. It slows the revolving door by
extending to 2 years the ban on lobbying by former Members of Congress.
[[Page S548]]
It makes pay-to-play schemes such as the ``K Street project'' a
violation of Senate rules.
It makes lobbying more transparent by doubling the frequency of
reporting and requiring a searchable electronic database.
The K Street project. What was that all about? What it was all about
is that lobbyists met with Members of Congress--initially they even met
here in the Capitol, and then they moved the meetings downtown at a
later time. They would discuss what job openings there were and, of
course, the only people who were eligible for hire were Republicans
and, in fact, companies actually got in trouble with the K Street
project, members of the Majority party at the time, for hiring
Democrats. That is what part of this legislation is going to prevent.
This bill we have introduced, S. 1, would require for the first time
the disclosure of shadowy business coalitions that engage in the so-
called ``astroturf'' lobbying campaigns. What does this mean? It means
these grassroots campaigns will be able to continue, but there will
have to be disclosure of paid campaigns that are, in effect, financing
these so-called grassroots campaigns. The American people should know
why, suddenly showing up here in Washington or the State capital or one
of the other States, these groups are trying to affect legislation, and
they wonder why they are trying to do it. The fact is it is because we
have lobbyists representing different organizations paying for all
this. This would be prevented.
Even though S. 1 is an extremely sound, strong piece of legislation,
I wanted to show that we heard the electorate loudly and clearly. So
the minority leader and I offered a substitute amendment to make the
bill even stronger. Not only did Senator McConnell and I, for the first
time in three decades, cosponsor legislation which is the first bill to
come before the Senate, but we moved even farther to include new
protections to prevent dead-of-night additions to conference reports,
to add new rules to say that Members may not engage in job negotiations
with industries they regulate, to require fuller disclosure by
lobbyists, to ensure proper valuation of tickets to sporting events, to
make sure that the Senate gift and travel rules are enforceable against
lobbyists, and we toughened criminal penalties for corrupt violations
of the Lobbying Disclosure Act.
Senator McConnell and I offered the substitute amendment at the start
of the debate, and it remains pending. Since then, we have had a debate
in the Senate that strengthened the bill even more. The Senate has
adopted other amendments on a bipartisan basis, including Senator
Kerry's amendment to strip pensions from Members convicted of
corruption, Senator Salazar's amendment to ensure public access to
committee proceedings, and two amendments by Senator Vitter to
strengthen enforcement of ethics rules.
Soon we will adopt the Durbin and DeMint amendments to require full
and timely disclosure of all earmarks. The Durbin amendment is a
necessary addition to the DeMint proposal because it strengthens the
definition of tax earmarks and because it requires public disclosure of
earmarks before floor debate. In effect, we have combined the best
ideas from both sides of the aisle, Democrat and Republican, to
establish the strongest possible disclosures rules in this regard. Once
we are done, the Senate earmark rules will be even stronger than those
recently adopted by the House. That is why I said we need to look at
what we are doing. Senator Durbin's amendment gives the DeMint
amendment structure that was lacking last week in the original
amendment. That is why it didn't pass. Taxes need to be included in
detail and now will be when the Durbin amendment passes. So the work
done by Senator DeMint and Senator Durbin is noteworthy and very good.
After we vote on the Durbin and DeMint amendments later today, we
will vote on whether to invoke cloture on an amendment to strengthen
the ban on gift and travel bans in the underlying measure. I recognize
Senators Feingold, Obama, and McCain have contributed to this and I
appreciate their work for a number of years in regard to airplane
travel in this country and other issues. This amendment will profoundly
change the rules, banning not only lobbyists but entities that hire
lobbyists from providing gifts and travel. Most notably, it will
require that when Senators travel on airplanes, they must pay the full
charter rate. Last week I modified the amendment to include additional
ideas from Senator Inhofe, Feingold and McCain.
Let me say a word about corporate jets. The State of Nevada is very
large areawise. The cities of Las Vegas and Reno are separated by about
450 miles. There is good travel between those two cities. But to get
around the rest of the State is not easy. When you travel from Las
Vegas to Reno, I again say it is easy. But then let's say you want to
go to Elko. By Nevada standards, it is a pretty large city. Going on a
commercial airplane, it is very, very, very difficult, and to go to Ely
is next to impossible. These two cities, both important in their own
right, have required on a number of occasions calling upon people you
know who have an airplane to take us up there. Under the old rules, you
could pay first-class travel. An example of that is Senator Ensign and
I, last August, had to go to Ely. It was extremely important. We were
working on a piece of legislation that has since passed. We wanted to
sit down in person and talk to the people in Ely about what we were
doing.
For us to get there was very difficult. The time factor was
significant. To drive up and back is 2 days, 1 day up, 1 day back. It
was complicated by the fact that Senator Ensign had a longstanding
engagement in Reno. To go from Ely to Reno--it is hard to get there. If
you drive very fast, you can make it in 6 hours. So I called a friend
of mine, Mike Ensign, Senator Ensign's father. This good man has done
very well in the business world. He is a man with limited education but
a great mind. He started out working in somewhat menial jobs in the
gaming industry. He worked his way up. He became a dealer, a pit boss,
a shift boss, and then Mike Ensign moved into the corporate world and
became an executive and then ultimately started buying hotel properties
himself and has done very well. He is the principal officer and owner
of Mandalay Bay, a huge company. It is the second largest hotel-casino
operator in the country. I called him and I said: Mike, with one of
your airplanes, can you fly me and your son to Ely?
He is a wonderful man, just the greatest guy. He said: Sure, I will
be happy to do that. And he did that. He is an example of the type of
people we have called upon for these airplanes.
I tell this story. I have used these airplanes a lot because I live
in Nevada and because of other duties I have here. The reason I tell
the Mike Ensign story is because Mike Ensign doesn't want anything from
me. There isn't a thing in the world I can give this man. He is famous,
he is rich, he has a wonderful family. I can't do anything to help Mike
Ensign. He did this because he is my friend.
Most every--I should not say most. For every airplane I fly on, of
course I don't have the relationship with them that I have with Mike
Ensign, but I want everyone who has allowed me to use their airplanes
to know I am not in any way denigrating them. They have done this out
of the goodness of their heart. I have never had anyone say: I will
give you an airplane ride if you give me something, or, I have a piece
of legislation pending, will you help me with that? That has never
happened. I want all these people to know that I am certainly not in
any way disparaging these good people who have allowed me and others to
fly on their airplanes.
What I am saying, though, is that in this world in which we live,
because of all the corruption that has taken place in the last few
years here in America, that you not only have to do away with what is
wrong but what appears to be wrong. I am confident I have never been
influenced by anyone who provided me with the courtesy of a private
airplane, but I have come to the realization that this practice
presents a major perception problem. It is a major perception problem
because the American people have the right to insist that we do what
seems right as well as what is right. Does it appear it is OK? For us
to fly around in these airplanes doesn't appear to be the right thing,
no matter how good-hearted these people
[[Page S549]]
are, just like Mike Ensign. So because a perception isn't right, this
amendment is pending, and it means Senators should pay the full fare
when they fly on someone's private airplane. This is an important
amendment. Any Senator who is serious about ethics reform will vote to
invoke cloture so this amendment can be included in the final bill.
In the course of this debate on this bill, the Senate has properly
focused on ethics and lobbying reform, not on other matters, such as
campaign reform. The Senate has wisely tabled matters dealing primarily
with campaign finance issues, but Senator Feinstein has assured the
Senate and me that campaign finance reform will be addressed separately
and comprehensively in her committee, the Rules Committee.
I have some concern about campaign finance rules. I think we need to
have serious public hearings on these issues. We have problems dealing
with so-called 527s, their foundations--they are basic campaign finance
problems we need to look at, and we need to look at them in detail.
Senator Feinstein has said she will do that, and I am grateful to her
for doing that.
There will also be separate consideration of the proposal to
establish an independent ethics enforcement agency. We debated that
proposal last year, and it was defeated resoundingly after a bipartisan
group of Senators on and off the Ethics Committee questioned the wisdom
of such a proposal. Again, the Rules Committee has said they will take
this matter up and look at it very seriously.
Senators Voinovich and Johnson served as chair and vice chair of the
Ethics Committee in the last Congress. They both spoke vigorously
against a new ethics agency. Senator Johnson, as we know, is recovering
from an illness. As a matter of fact, I spoke to his family not long
before coming here. He is doing very well. Here is what he said last
year, though. I quote Senator Johnson, who is the chair of the Ethics
Committee, who said this last year:
The two-tiered ethics process that would be created by this
amendment would undoubtedly slow consideration of ethics
complaints, create more doubt about the process, and make our
colleagues and the public less confident in our ability to
address these issues. . . .[The proposal would leave] open
the possibility that Members will be forced to live under the
cloud of an investigation as a result of every accusation
brought before the Office of Public Integrity, regardless of
its merit--regardless of its merit. Such a situation would
only interject more partisanship into the ethics procession
and create a blunt tool for extreme partisan groups to make
politically based attacks.
Despite the defeat of the proposal last year, it makes sense for the
Rules Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings
on ways to strengthen enforcement of the ethics rules. I can assure my
colleagues that worthwhile proposals which emerge from these two
committees will receive meaningful consideration by the full Senate. I
have spoken about this in detail, in fact, in my last conversation with
Senator Lieberman this morning.
There are other pending amendments that have nothing to do with
ethics and lobbying reform. The line-item veto is a good example. It
has no place in this bill. I have great respect for Senator Judd Gregg
from New Hampshire. He is a wonderful man and a great Senator. But on
this bill is not the place to bring this up. No matter how strongly you
feel on this, you should not bring up line-item veto. Should we be
debating what is going on in Iraq on this bill? We should not, even
though some people believe strongly that we should. But the line-item
veto is no different from debating Iraq in this bill. They have no
place in this bill, just as there is no place for campaign finance
reform in this bill. We are trying to do serious, sound ethics and
lobbying earmark reform, and that is what we are doing.
Workable mechanisms for fiscal discipline are certainly important. I
hope Senators Conrad and Gregg take a look at this line-item veto
issue, which I personally don't support. But whether I support it or
not, it should not be a part of this bill, and I hope they would take
this up in the budgeting process along with the pay-go rules which I
think are so important. This bill is about ethics and lobbying reform,
not budgeting.
Let's focus on what we need to do to move forward on the ethics and
lobbying reform. We need to adopt the Durbin and DeMint amendments on
earmark disclosure. We need to invoke cloture on my gift and travel
amendment and then adopt that amendment. Then we need to invoke cloture
on the substitute and debate the various germane amendments that will
be pending during the 30-hour postcloture period.
This is a glidepath to finishing the ethics bill this week so we can
move to other vital matters: the minimum wage, the President's new Iraq
proposal, funding the Government, fixing the Medicare prescription drug
plan, expending opportunities for lifesaving stem cell research, pay-go
rules, and other important issues.
Ethics reform is the first step in convincing the American people
that we, Democrats and Republicans, are hard at work on their behalf.
It seems so important that we complete this legislation and move on to
the other matters that are so important. But this is something we need
to do to help the American people feel better about their Congress.
I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I know the time has come to speak on
the bill, but I would like, since there is only one Senator on the
floor, to ask the body's indulgence and ask unanimous consent to speak
in morning business.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
____________________