[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 9103]
[From the U.S. 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 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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