Lobby Battle Splitting Parties (Dems prepare strong proposals)

[papau]

Per Newmyer "Included in the measure will be provisions that force lawmakers to report when they are sponsoring earmarks, require them to pay fair market value for travel on private jets and create an office of public integrity to oversee these and other new lobbying rules."

http://www.rollcall.com/issues/51_73/news/11893-1.html

Lobby Battle Splitting Parties

By Tory Newmyer
Roll Call Staff
January 26, 2006

House Democratic leaders are preparing to offer the toughest lobbying reform package yet, with a measure that would in some ways be more stringent than other bills offered so far.<snip>

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1. Abramoff, the triplets and the nanny fund (Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) )

From ABCNOTE "Does impending triplets on a government salary + solicited gifts to an expensive nanny service + a baby shower at Signatures = ethical impropriety? The Hill asks Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and friends."

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/012506/news2.html

Abramoff, the triplets and the nanny fund By Susan Crabtree

Before the lobbying scandal hit Washington and GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff was still one of the town’s most influential powerbrokers, it may have seemed like a normal, even run-of-the mill personal Washington event.Abramoff, who recently pleaded guilty to fraud, bribery and tax evasion, helped host a baby shower for Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and his wife in December 2003. The Rohrabachers were expecting triplets and feeling the pinch of the prevailing congressional salary of $154,700 at the time while maintaining homes in D.C. and the lawmaker’s pricey Southern California coastal district.Abramoff’s and his wife’s names appeared on the invitation, with Reps. George Radanovich (R-Calif.) and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) and their wives. The names of former Rep. David McIntosh (R-Ind.), who left Congress in 2001 and became a lobbyist at Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, also were listed as hosts.

The lobbyist, who had been friends with Rohrabacher since the early 1980s when the future lawmaker was a White House speechwriter and Abramoff was chairman of the College Republicans, allowed the couple to use his restaurant, Signatures, between lunch and dinner for the shower. Only hors d’oeuvres were served, Rohrabacher disclosed in a Los Angeles Times article two weeks ago.In the same article, Rohrabacher called Abramoff a close friend of 20 years and a “good person who’s done bad things and has to be punished for doing bad things.”The article did not mention that guests at the shower contributed to a fund for nanny service provided by After the Stork, a 24-hour child-care service based in the district.Since Abramoff’s plea agreement went public,

House Republicans have been scrambling to reform rules governing congressional ethics, lobbying and gifts to lawmakers.Rohrabacher did nothing wrong under current rules, but ethics experts say that in the new atmosphere of reform Congress may want to rethink whether the rules governing gifts at personal events such as weddings and showers are strict enough.<snip>

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2. GOP Freezes Jobs List, (for lobbyists) a Vestige of the K Street Project

the K Street Project: Republicans in Congress agreed to stop bringing lobbyists to the Hill to ask them to hire their aides and colleagues.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/25/AR2006012502240_pf.html

GOP Freezes Jobs List, a Vestige of the K Street Project

By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, January 26, 2006; A02

Republican lawmakers yesterday ended their long practice of routinely summoning lobbyists to the Capitol to try to persuade them to hire their aides and colleagues, in the wake of the Jack Abramoff political corruption scandal.

GOP lawmakers for years have regularly presented lists of job openings on K Street to lobbyists to encourage them to hire Republicans over Democrats. The program is a remnant of the K Street Project once championed by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) as a way to coerce trade associations and companies to hire Republicans as their top lobbyists and to warn firms that hired Democrats that they would not be welcome.

Yesterday, the staff director of the Senate Republican Conference said that a K-Street-job-vacancies memo -- the heart of Congress's remaining involvement in the effort these days -- will no longer be distributed during high-level meetings hosted by the conference on Capitol Hill between lawmakers and lobbyists. Responsibility for the listings migrated from the House to the Senate several years ago, according to lobbyists.

While lobbyists and others could still obtain the information elsewhere, the change removes the formal involvement of lawmakers from the process and any implied encouragement by them to transform K Street into a Republican bastion.<snip>