100 hours… And then back to “Sleaze as Usual”
So much for Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 100 hour blitzkrieg to return Capitol Hill to a higher ethical standard. Not only is she weakening her message by demanding that the Pentagon fly her around in a personal 757… But it is already evident that her new rules designed to curb the influence of lobbyists is an abject failure.
According to today’s New York Times article (Congress Finds Ways of Avoiding Lobbyist Limits by David Kirkpatrick, Sunday February 11, 2007), it has taken congressmen on both sides of the aisle only a few weeks to figure out how to get around the new ethics rules. (Actually, I am sure they knew how to get around them in advance… After all it was the lawmakers who wrote the rules and they were written to have loopholes a mile wide.)
Pelosi’s new rules prohibit lobbyists from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats, or discounted use of private jets. However, according to the article, within the last two months, lawmakers have invited lobbyists to help pay for lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 per lobbyist), margaritas and martinis at Washington area restaurants ($1,000), a California wine-tasting tour, hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up)… The list goes on and on…
The trick is that the lobbyists don’t pay the lawmaker directly. Instead the lobbyists pay a political fund-raising committee…which then pays for the lawmaker’s party, trip, etc. Apparently nothing in Nancy Pelosi’s new rules prohibits this… Is she a naive fool or “one of them”?
The New York Times article has the following table:
| Join Your Favorite Lawmaker For… (for a “small” contribution) | ||
| Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee | Weekend at the Harbor House resort on Nantucket |
$25,000 |
| Senator Max Baucus (Dem. Montana) | Skiing or snowmobiling in February or golfing or fly-fishing in the summer |
$5,000 |
| Senator Tom Carper (Dem. Delaware) | Skiing weekend at the Ritz-Carleton Bachelor Gulch in Colorado |
$5,000 |
| Senator Bill Nelson (Dem. Florida) | Super Bowl Party in Miami | $5,000 |
| Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (Dem. Ohio) | “Manicures and Muffins” at Capitol Nails in Washington |
$2,500 |
| Senator Mel Martinez (Rep. Florida) | Presidents’ Day Weekend at Disneyland |
$5,000 |
| Rep. Eric Cantor (Rep. Virginia) | Coffee at Starbucks (four mornings this Spring) |
$2,500 |
| Rep. Ron Manzullo (Rep. Illinois) | Valentine’s Day Reception at Landini Brothers in Alexandria, VA |
$1,500 |
| Rep. Mary Bono (Rep. California) | Concert by The Who | $2,500 for two |
| Rep. Vito Fossella (Rep. New York) | Performance of “Mary Poppins” on Broadway |
$2,500 for two |
| Rep. Kay Granger (Rep. Texas) | “Grangertinis” birthday party at a Washington Steakhouse |
$1,000 |
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