True Lobbying Reform

After many months of watching its public image take a shellacking as a result of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal, Congress is finally starting to move on lobby reform. With all the enthusiasm of a convert to the cause, it is now awash in ideas for curtailing the practices that have so embarrassed the Capitol.

Pretty much every aspect of lobbyists' relations with Capitol Hill is up for debate. There are bids to rein in, or even abolish, the privately sponsored travel of members of Congress. There are efforts to ban or drastically restrict lobbyists' gifts to office-holders, or at least to disclose them fully. There are proposals to lengthen the amount of time between when a member of Congress or high-ranking staffer leaves Capitol Hill and when he or she can start lobbying. And there are demands that Congress create an Office of Public Integrity with the ability to investigate possible breaches of lobby laws and with the power to refer what it finds to congressional ethics committees and the Department of Justice.

These are worthwhile ideas. Yet even if we enact them all, we will at best have skirted the real issue.

Don't get me wrong. You have to start somewhere. Banning trips by members of Congress that are paid for by private interests, for instance, makes plain common sense. If a trip is in the public interest, then the government should pay for it. If it's not, then why risk the appearance of a too-cozy relationship with some special interest?

Similarly, full disclosure of all lobbying activities is a simple necessity.

And if we're going to have such laws on the books, then creating some sort of enforcement body with sharp teeth is vital. We have plenty of lobbying laws already, but they are so rarely enforced that lobbyists consider them a joke. If we're going to have rules, let's enforce them.

Still, the heart of the matter is not travel or gifts or even enforcement.

The issue that underlies all is money. Simply put, politicians who want to be re-elected are desperate for money, because elections today are extraordinarily expensive. On the other side, lobbyists just as desperately want to influence legislation. And the tool they have at their disposal is the same substance that politicians crave.

Lobbyists have endless ways of pumping money into the system. It's not just the growing amounts of money they spend each year to influence the federal government — an estimated $2.4 billion in 2003 alone. It's also their expanding role in filling a candidate's campaign coffers. They fund campaign events. They solicit and bundle large campaign contributions from their clients. They underwrite "independent" campaigns targeting members' campaign opponents. They even serve as politicians' fund-raising treasurers. And the amounts at stake are growing, not shrinking.

So what does this mean for lobbying reform? It means that there are limits to what it can accomplish. We may be able to stop a lobbyist from buying dinner for a member of Congress, but we are not going to stop him from throwing a lavish fund-raising dinner. We can prohibit a lobbyist from buying a member a fancy tie or a bronze sculpture as a gift, but we cannot stop her from collecting and distributing donations from players in the bronze-sculpture or tie-making industries.

There is no law, in other words, that can keep these two powerful forces — politicians seeking money, and lobbyists seeking influence — apart.

What can we do? To begin, we ought to resolve to constrain and expose the relationship. Sunshine is a powerful disinfectant, and disclosing the details of members' encounters with lobbyists — who is involved; whom they represent; what they discussed; how much was spent; how much money was raised for the politicians who are lobbied — can make a difference.

Yet we need to go beyond that. Making sure that the public knows about every dollar spent to affect legislation — through campaign contributions, grassroots lobbying and public relations campaigns — is crucial. So is placing limits on how campaign money can be collected, with constraints on what lobbyists can raise and distribute. We should not try to wring lobbyists out of the campaign system — after all, they have a right to perform their responsibilities — but surely we can keep their activities within bounds.

And finally, just as I argued above that it is in the public's self-interest for the government to fund congressional travel, so I believe it is in our interest to start moving toward some kind of public financing of congressional campaigns in this country, as we already do for presidential campaigns.

Let's be clear what we're talking about: the integrity of our representative democracy. We are in trouble when money can buy access that ordinary citizens cannot get. We are in trouble when ordinary citizens come to think of the legislative process as a game tilted against them.

Until we can change the culture of money and politics in this country, we are sure to have more scandals, and we will have to work even harder to restore the public confidence that underpins our system of government.

Audio Version

The Press is Good, But Not Good Enough

These have been bracing times for those of us who believe that an energetic press is key to the health of American democracy. Matters of great importance to this country — the proper extent and reach of presidential power; the relation of money and lobbying to policy-making on Capitol Hill; the rationale for and the conduct of the war in Iraq — have been getting a thorough workout in the media over the past year.

In fact, several of the key stories you see on the front pages or on the nightly news got their start because of enterprising reporting. The lobbying scandal linked to Jack Abramoff, for example, began unraveling after a newspaper story two years ago detailed the exorbitant fees paid him by Indian tribes. The decision by the Bush administration to permit spying on Americans by the National Security Agency was uncovered by the press, as were revelations of the various abuses of prisoners at Abu Ghraib.

So this might seem like an odd time to take the press to task for its shortcomings. Yet that is precisely what is in order at the moment.

An energetic press corps sits at the heart of a free society and is essential to the proper functioning of Congress. It helps set the national agenda. It enables people to be heard. It provides a forum for the arguments, discussions and debates that comprise the marketplace of ideas. It acts as a watchdog and makes it possible for the people to hold those in power accountable. It disseminates information, educates our citizenry and allows them to make more informed and discerning judgments.

In short, it makes it possible for Americans to understand and perform their roles in a representative democracy, not only making it more likely that they can get the system to work for them, but also giving them the knowledge they need to be engaged and active in the political system.

So it is disturbing that, all too often, journalists and their editors fall short of their responsibilities. Many journalists in Washington rely too heavily on official sources for their information, and believe "cultivating" those sources to be more important than risking offending them. They follow the pack, rather than pursue stories that no one else has covered. And too much of the press today has an uncritical fascination with celebrity and power.

In the interest of "balance," the press corps allows itself to be used by our capital's hyper-developed spin industry, instead of using its own judgment and knowledge and telling readers or viewers what is actually happening. I prefer a press that expresses its opinion to one that maintains a spurious balance or yields to the tyranny of "evenhandedness," making two sides of an issue appear even, when in fact they are not.

It is equally frustrating to see a press that is reluctant or even unwilling to report disturbing truths that Americans need to hear: stories of innocent Iraqis killed by American action, for instance, or the challenges faced by the poor and working class in this country.

Some stories — steroids in baseball, say — get a disproportionate amount of coverage, while less glamorous but often more important stories go mostly uncovered. Investigative reporting is going out of style, and the press has let slip its oversight role — its responsibility to look into every nook and cranny of government, and shed light on the doings of officialdom. When was the last time you saw extended coverage of how regulatory decisions have affected you? Or of the ins and outs of U.S. agricultural policy?

The close ties between the "K Street" lobbying community and some members of Congress have gotten ink lately, but they have been a central feature of life on Capitol Hill for many years, and deserved much more coverage much sooner. Even the federal budget gets little play, even though it is arguably the single most important story to come out of Washington for the average American.

Perhaps the Washington press corps is getting its legs under it now, as one good story leads to another on the inner workings of Capitol Hill, the lobbying community or the administration. The American public may prefer entertainment and sports, but that is not a reason for the press to shirk its responsibility to help our society stay free and ensure that our citizens can gauge whether our system of government is working.

I want the press to be skeptical, professional, independent and self-disciplined. I want it to act on the belief that good, accurate, straightforward reporting is the best antidote to cant, complacency, incompetence and dishonesty within the halls of government. Because if the press doesn't fulfill its role in our democracy, who will?

Audio Version