Print
Email
ShareWASHINGTON—Can anyone really change this town?
On the heels of a scandal-plagued Congress that saw three lawmakers indicted, Democrats came to power vowing to purge the sins of everyday life in Babylon-on-the-Potomac.
But despite just-passed, much-trumpeted ethics legislation, the entrenched Washington culture appears to be adapting and enduring.
Consider: A Microsoft lobbyist takes temporary leave to help a top House Democrat set up a key office. Lobbyists and politicians party their way through a gaping loophole in ethics revisions. Fundraising—mainly from lobbyists—continues unabated in the absence of effective campaign finance changes.
“I don’t think people come in evil,” said Melanie Sloan, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “The way the system works is inevitably corrupting. People who do favors for you, you’re more likely to help. It’s just human nature.”
Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat, won election last year with a populist campaign bashing special interests and corporate lobbyists. Last week, she invited dozens of them to a fundraiser: $1,000 per political action committee, $500 per individual. Among the invitees were some of Washington’s biggest interests: Big Ag, Big Pharmaceutical, Big Telecom, Big Tobacco.
Hosting the fundraiser: Blackwell Sanders, a law and lobbying firm that Richard Martin, McCaskill’s campaign manager, just went to work for as a “government affairs” specialist.
McCaskill has called for more transparency in lobbying, but she didn’t allow a reporter to attend. Spokeswoman Adrianne Marsh said it’s McCaskill’s policy to close all her fundraisers to the press.
The freshman senator also created a leadership PAC, Missourians for Accountability and Change (MacPac). She’s one of six Democrats who started such committees after the election, including Sens. James Webb of Virginia and Tim Johnson of South Dakota, according to politicalmoneyline.com, which tracks campaign finance.
Such committees allow politicians to raise money to fund political activities not related to their campaigns. They spread the money around to other candidates and win loyalty in return. The individual contribution limits are $5,000 per year to a leadership PAC, potentially more than six times the amount allowed to a Senate campaign fund over the course of a six-year term.
If it all sounds like business as usual, McCaskill insisted it isn’t.
“I think I’ve offended about half the people who’ve given me money so far,” McCaskill said. “I imagine I’ll offend another two or three this week.”
McCaskill touted the ethics legislation, which banned most gifts and travel and made spending “earmarks” more transparent, as a strong tonic to flush Washington’s corrupt system.
Critics say it didn’t address the major issue.
“A lot of the underlying problem here is the campaign finance system and the fact that members of Congress are constantly in need of money,” said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “It’s very hard to regulate and disclose everything. It all goes to the need for a system where you’re not constantly having to rely on lobbyists for a lot of money. Then you don’t have to worry about private conversations with lobbyists.”
Those conversations will continue. A loophole for “widely attended events” means it’s still OK for lobbyists to wine and dine members of Congress and their staffers so long as it’s at an event that includes more than 25 people from outside Congress and attendance has something to do with official duties. Such parties already are occurring, lobbyists and watchdog groups say.
“That means a lot more junior people at lobby shops will be roped into attending,” Sloan said.
Lobbyists also can still buy private meals for members of Congress as long as they give them campaign contributions and deduct the cost of the meals from that. Some members have suggested another loophole to lobbyists: Max out donations to the members’ leadership political action committees and campaign treasuries, then let members pay for the get-togethers.
Republicans claim that when it comes to lobbyist ties, Democrats aren’t so different from the Republicans they replaced. They point to a handful of corporate lobbyists whom Democrats tapped to fill influential staff positions on Capitol Hill.
Take Matt Gelman. The Microsoft lobbyist took a two-month leave from the software giant to help House Democratic Whip James Clyburn of South Carolina set up his vote-counting operation.
Clyburn spokeswoman Kristie Greco defended the hire, saying that Gelman is a veteran Hill aide with specialized knowledge, that he isn’t being paid by Microsoft during his tenure with Clyburn and that Microsoft is banned from lobbying Clyburn’s personal and leadership offices while Gelman works there. The House Ethics Committee approved the arrangement.
“This is not meant to give him any special access,” Greco said.
Asked why Microsoft would allow the arrangement if the company didn’t think it would benefit, Greco said, “You’d have to ask Microsoft.”
Ginny Terzano, a Microsoft spokeswoman, said it was a personal decision by Gelman that actually put the company at a disadvantage: “Microsoft has its hands tied a little bit because Representative Clyburn is in a leadership role on the House side, and we can’t do any outreach to his office.”
Terzano is a former press secretary for the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton White House.
