Senators Call for Greater Transparency in Legislation
By Sara Hatch
WASHINGTON, Feb. 8 -Senators called for greater transparency in lobbying practices in general and, in particular, on earmarking of money for pet projects during a hearing Wednesday before the Senate Rules and Administration Committee.
In his opening statement to the committee, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut., the committee’s senior Democrat, called for comprehensive, bipartisan lobbying reform legislation.
“Regulating the relationship between lawmakers and lobbyists in not new.,” Dodd cautioned, adding that “reform is an organic process, not an event.”
One of the witnesses before the committee, Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said that privately financed travel for members of Congress must end. “If Members of Congress can’t justify spending taxpayer money to do a fact-finding trip, they shouldn’t go and neither should their staffs.”
But Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., another witness, said privately financed travel is not always bad, especially when sponsored by nonpartisan organizations such as the Aspen Institute, but that there should be transparency in all privately financed travel, a practice he said he has always maintained.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a member of the committee, called for a ban on all gifts from registered lobbyists and a two-year waiting period for all former congressional staff members, not just senior staff, before they can lobby Congress.
On the subject of earmarking of appropriated funds and how transparent the process of earmarking should be, Sen. Trent Lott, the committee’s chairman, said he and Feinstein are sponsoring legislation that would allow a 60-senator majority to reject any item, particularly earmarks, in a conference report that has not been considered by either chamber
Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, a member of the committee, said, “I do not think earmarks are automatically evil.” Bennett, who is also the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Related Agencies , said that on his subcommittee all earmarks must go through the chairman and senior Democrat of the appropriate authorizing committee before his panel will approve them.
Sen. Barrack Obama, D-Ill., testified that everyone must work against the abuses of lobbying, not one party or the other.
“All of us-Democrats and Republicans-are responsible for cleaning it up,” Obama said.
Obama and John McCain, R-Ariz., who also appeared as a witness, spoke in favor of full disclosure of earmarks and said that each earmark should be connected to the member of Congress who proposed it.
McCain and Obama made a splash in the past two days over an exchange of letters on lobbying reform. In his letter to Obama, McCain accused him of “self-interested partisan posturing” on ethics reform and said Obama was not really seeking a bipartisan compromise on the subject.
Obama, in his response, wrote that he was “puzzled” and had “no idea” why McCain was complaining, saying that he was committed to bipartisan reform.
At the hearing, McCain and Obama greeted each other warmly, and Lott joked, “Well, we got the moment we came to see.”
Both Obama and McCain made complimentary remarks about each other in their testimony and lightheartedly referred to each other as “pen pals.”
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