New contribution disclosure rules provide some transparency in the world of “soft” influence seeking. In this case, these disclosure rules require the disclosure of contributions made “in honor of” a covered official, a lawmaker, executive branch or military official. A Seattle Times article looking into these contributions in honor of Washington state lawmakers shows Rep. Norm Dicks, a senior member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, as a frequent honoree for contributions made by corporations seeking defense contracts.

Boeing gave $10,000 earlier this year to one of Congressman Norm Dicks’ favorite charities, the National Guard Youth Foundation.

So did Boeing’s archrival, EADS, the parent company of Airbus.

But that’s small change compared to another defense contractor, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which gave $100,000 to the youth foundation’s gala dinner in February honoring Dicks, a Bremerton Democrat, for his staunch support of the charity.

TriWest followed that up with a $50,000 contribution to another charity event hosted by Dicks and four other members of the powerful defense-appropriations subcommittee that doled out $459 billion in contracts this year.

Giving money to a charity favored by a lawmaker isn’t quite like giving to their campaign committee, but it will likely gain you brownie points when money for your business is on the table. In this case, the desire to influence behavior, while denied by all parties involved, is plain as day for anyone looking from the outside.

Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers for Common Sense is quoted in the article saying, “There’s nothing outrageous at all about giving to something that helps a National Guard entity … I think it’s a soft lobbying tactic that can make lawmakers think you’re in their camp and loyal to their interests.”

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Back in July, the New York Times and the New York Post appeared in competition for which publication could roll out the most damaging story about House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles Rangel. Four months later and they’re back at it.

Yesterday, the Post reported the Rangel receives a tax benefit on his home in D.C. that is intended for home owners and residents of the District of Columbia. Unfortunately for Rangel, he also receives perks in his Harlem home district, where he owns multiple rent-stabilized apartments. Both benefits require that the resident operate their home as a “primary residence.” So, where is it that you live congressman? Harlem? Or Washington? (FYI, we don’t have congressional representation here. So, if it was Washington, you’d be out of a job.)

The Times adds the pile-on today, with a much more serious story. Rangel, a long time opponent of off shore tax shelters, has, in recent years, sought to protect the tax shelter status of an oil-drilling company whose chief executive promised $200,000 to help fund the creation of the Charles Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.:

Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that benefited an oil-drilling company last year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging $1 million to the project, the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service at C.C.N.Y.

The company, Nabors Industries, was one of four corporations based in the United States that were widely criticized in 2002 and 2003 for opening offices in the Caribbean to reduce their federal tax payments. Mr. Rangel was among dozens of representatives from both parties who bitterly opposed those offshore moves and, in 2004, pushed unsuccessfully for legislation to make the companies pay more tax.

But in 2007, when the United States Senate tried to crack down on the companies, Mr. Rangel, who had recently been sworn in as House Ways and Means chairman, fought to protect them. The tax shelter for the four companies was preserved, saving Nabors an estimated tens of millions of dollars annually and depriving the federal treasury of $1.1 billion in revenues over a decade, according to a Congressional analysis by the nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation.

Rangel is already facing an ethics investigation targeting his solicitation for funding for the Rangel Center and his rent stabilized apartments. This revelation, while the congressman claims there is “no quid pro quo,” could do great harm to his stature in Congress. The Politico goes as far as to ponder whether President Obama will want to work through a scandal tarred committee chairman.

Back to the allegations in the Times article. Members of Congress and private interests have long stated that contributions by the latter to charitable interests connected to the former are nothing but simple good will. The understanding, as evidenced by the Times’ reporting, that these contributions constitute an unregulated form of influence seeking led Congress to finally establish some disclosure requirements.

The biannual lobbyist contribution forms mandated under the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act require the disclosure of contributions to entities if they are named after, in recognition of, established, maintained, or controlled by an elected representative. If that is the case, then the Rangel School has not received any contributions so far this year. Unless, of course, some groups are skirting the disclosure requirements.

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My colleague Anupama Naranswamy writes at the Real Time Investigations blog about the lobbying campaign waged by Dubai businesses in their efforts in 2006 to both purchase the operations of numerous ports and fight off a wave of public anger against the foreign ownership of those ports. Most illuminating in the story is how Foreign Agent Registration Agency (FARA) reports, the lobbying disclosure forms required for all foreign lobbyists, allow for a muckraker to follow the lobbying trail.

By using disclosures required under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which require firms lobbying for foreign political parties, governments and government owned organizations—including for-profit companies—to list their meetings with government officials, it is possible to trace part of the campaign to win approval for the deal. The Sunlight Foundation released a prototype database with records from lobbyists for 15 countries, which was used in this report.

FARA records show that Glover Park Group was active early. Lobbyists from the firm first met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s national security adviser, then with staffers from the House Intelligence Committee. Lobbyists working on behalf of DAE also made early contacts with Rep. Peter King, R-NY. Both Pelosi and King had opposed the Dubai Ports deal.

At least another seven contacts were made during March with the offices of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., both of whom questioned the DP World ports deal. In all, the Glover Park Group made contacts at least 18 times during the month of March.

Lobbyists for DAE began seeking the support of members of Congress in March 2007—before a formal deal to purchase the two aviation firms hammered out. The company was joined in its efforts by the Carlyle Group and trade groups including the U.S.-U.A.E. Business Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Overall, DAE spent $780,000 on lobbyists between February 2007 and August 2008.

Read the whole article here.

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The idea of far greater transparency in government affairs is spreading fast. How can you tell? Today’s Washington Times carries an op-ed by one of Washington’s top lawyers, Lanny Davis, that includes both a full-throated defense of the lobbying profession and an endorsement for “total transparency.”

Here’s a simple proposal:

Every lobbyist visiting a member of Congress or the executive branch to influence official action (the definition of lobbying) should first be required to sign in on an online, real-time computer (and thus, immediately accessible to all).

Information to be disclosed before the meeting should include the lobbyist’s name, the client represented, the amount paid by month or year for lobbying, the specific purpose of the meeting, the position to be taken by the lobbyist, the legislation to be discussed, the action to be requested (the “ask” or “asks,” to be updated after meeting), and the amount of current and prior campaign donations made by the client, the lobbyist and relatives associated with both.

Every time, every meeting. It’s as simple as that.

One of the biggest failures in lobbying transparency is the absence of any disclosure of actual meetings. The current state of transparency for lobbyists is poor. Lobbyists only have to file quarterly reports that do not detail with whom they are meeting, what they are meeting about, and what their client is seeking. Lobbyists are also only required to file semiannual reports detailing their contributions to lawmakers. All of this amounts to a less-than-satisfactory system of disclosure providing the public with an incredibly limited view into the workings of their government.

It’s heartening to see that some who travel in the highest circles of Washington lawyers and lobbyists, like Lanny Davis, are backing a more robust version of transparency. For another take on real lobbyist disclosure see Sunlight’s Transparency in Government Act.

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The Presidential transition is a costly effort for both the incoming and outgoing administrations. The Presidential Transitions Act appropriates $5.2 million to the transition, but the Obama transition team is anticipating much higher costs.

According to the transition chief John Podesta, the Obama-Biden Transition Project (change.gov) intends to solicit private donations with a contribution limit of $5,000 from private individuals, excluding federally registered lobbyists. In the end, Podesta expects the transition to spend $12 million (including the publicly allocated funds) and employ 450 people.

The immediate issue that comes to mind when discussing contributions of money to an organization representing the President-elect is disclosure. How? What? When? Where? After spending a few hours today trying to gather this information myself, I clicked on the Open Secrets blog, Capital Eye, and found this short and sweet answer:

According to the Presidential Transitions Effectiveness Act, a single donor can contribute a total of $5,000 to the transition effort, even if the donor already gave money to Obama’s candidate committee or leadership PAC. Unlike contributions to these committees, however, donations to the nonprofit won’t have to be reported to the Federal Election Commission as political contributions because the organization is set up as a 501(c)(4), as designated by the Internal Revenue Service (these contributions are generally not tax-deductible as charitable contributions). Instead, Obama will have to disclose the source, date and amount of each contribution to the General Services Administration by February 20, a month after he’s already taken office.

Obama’s transition chief, John Podesta, told the Washington Post the team would be disclosing the names of all donors at the end of every month. Obama has also decided to bar registered lobbyists from contributing to his transition team, continuing his ethics rules on the campaign trail.

In 2000, then President-elect George W. Bush posted the donors to his transition online (although I’m not entirely sure as to whether this occurred prior to or after his inauguration). Back then, however, disclosure involved posting a giant .zip file on the front page of his bushcheneytransition.com web site.

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In what may be considered one of the greatest feeding frenzies since the Night of Living Dead, lobbyists are working hand-in-foot to get their clients, even if they do not fit the profile, a piece of the $700 billion bank bailout pie. From plumbers to boat dealers, automakers to credit card companies, the type of companies applying for bailout bucks expands by the day.

On Monday, American Express, a credit card company, was approved to receive bailout money. You may ask yourself, “Why American Express? They don’t fit the profile required under the TARP law.” The New York Times, in an article detailing the lobbyist frenzy, explains the logistics of who is able to receive funds under TARP authorization:

Under the terms of the $250 billion capital purchase program announced last month, cash infusions are available to “qualifying U.S. banks, savings associations, and certain bank and savings and loan holding companies, engaged only in financial activities.”

The massive lobbying effort put forth by corporations and industry groups has led to an expansion of those included in the bailout. For others, including American Express, the best option was to have the Treasury Department reclassify them as a bank holding company, thus making them eligible. According to the New York Times, both GE Capital and GMAC, the financial arm of General Motors, are also attempting to reclassify as “a bank or savings and loan holding company.”

The lobbying is intense, putting Treasury Department staffers at the front lines under extreme pressure. Some are even receiving calls from lobbyists representing clients with no interest in receiving funds, like hedge funds, who are trying to gather intelligence for trading in markets. Other companies are hiring lobbyists for the first time to get a piece of the pie.

At this moment there is no way to gauge lobbyist activity outside of the reporting of some journalists. In this “ocean of money” lobbyists operate at depths not viewable by the public. The public will not get to see how much money is being spent until the next quarterly reports are released. Even then, lobbyists are not required to list their contacts with government officials and do not need to list the specifics of what they are lobbying for. In the quest for bailout bucks, the public will never truly be able to know what is going on as more and more companies try and get a piece of the pie.

If we are going to dole out $700 billion in taxpayer money the government ought to mandate real disclosure for lobbyists.  Just as important as how the bailout bucks are spent is how the bailout bucks are acquired. Lobbyists are playing a vital role in helping all sort of corporations and organizations gain access to the bailout pie. They must disclose their activities fully if there is to be real transparency in the bailout give away.

Here’s a good place to start.

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The 2008 presidential campaign featured blistering attacks, particularly from the eventual victor Sen. Barack Obama, on Washington’s chief money-making industry. Lobbyists are now trying to assess where they stand in Washington with a reformer in the White House and an economic downturn that is now actually stretching onto K Street.

Most of the change that will occur on K Street relates to the partisan makeup of firms. With Republicans falling further into the minority, lobby firms will need fewer GOP lobbyists and more Democratic ones. Some changes are already underway with Comcast replacing a Republican as chief lobbyist with a former staffer of prominent Obama supporter Tom Daschle.

Despite the Politico’s suggestion that, “The repositioning highlights how little Washington is likely to change, despite all the anti-lobbyist rhetoric tossed around in the campaign,” lobby firms certainly fear what kind of access and what new reforms they could face under President Obama’s administration. If we had the sense of smell of a lion, we could smell the fear emanating from the monitor when reading this Congressional Quarterly article from today. This article is ridden with quotes from lobbyists not only attempting to sell themselves and their business to a new administration, but also trying to prebut the coming reforms and changes.

I sincerely hope that the promises of reform do not end at the ballot box as so many on K Street seem to be projecting. Further transparency requirements are needed to reel in the influence industry. A good place to start would be to enact the reforms contained in the Transparency in Government Act, available at PublicMarkup.org.

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In January of 2007, freshman Democratic congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand became the first member of the House of Representatives to post her daily schedule on her official web site, a historic step for transparency in Congress. At the time, many feared that this level of transparency would harm her reelection prospects in a mostly Republican district. Those fears turned out to be wrong. Last night, every non-retiring candidate posting their daily schedule online was reelected to Congress, proving that transparency does not harm electoral prospects.

Since Rep. Gillibrand’s daily schedule went online, eight other lawmakers (including Sen. Jon Tester, the first senator to post a daily schedule) began posting daily schedules - you can view a map of their meetings here. They include Reps. John Doolittle, Dennis Rehberg, Kathy Castor, Jan Schakowsky, and John Yarmuth and Sens. Tester, Max Baucus, and Bill Nelson. Of these lawmakers, Rep. Doolittle retired and Sens. Tester and Nelson were not up for reelection. Reps. Rehberg, Castor, Schakowsky, and Yarmuth and Sen. Baucus all joined Rep. Gillibrand in winning reelection.

From her first day, Rep. Gillibrand has been a leader on operating a unilaterally transparent congressional office. Aside from posting her daily schedule, she was among the first lawmakers to post on her web site a list of her earmark requests and her personal financial disclosure. Since then, unilateral transparency (the disclosure of information not required by laws or congressional rules) has become much more prevalent throughout the House and Senate.

Today, over forty lawmakers disclose their earmark requests to some degree, while dozens more provide some lesser form of earmark disclosure. Others post their personal financial disclosures and travel reports.

The movement towards transparency continues unabated. The proven ability of transparent lawmakers to win reelection provides further space for more lawmakers to operate in an open and transparent manner.

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Now that it is official that the Feds are investigating Countrywide’s “VIP” home loan program, it’s time to revisit one of the key problems in disclosure that abetted the hiding of these loans. Since every member of Congress is required to file an annual personal financial disclosure report it would seem as though the public would have the ability to know which lawmakers received loans from which mortgage company and at what rate. Unfortunately, personal financial disclosures do not require lawmakers to list private residences or any home that does not generate income (ie: rent).

This is a problem with an easy solution. Earlier this year, numerous lawmakers, including Rep. Mark Souder and members of the Senate Ethics Committee, introduced bills to require limited, but adequate, disclosure of personal residences. Now that this issue is back in the headlines Congress should move quickly to address future concerns and tackle the myriad other problems with the personal financial disclosure forms.

The Sunlight Foundation’s Executive Director Ellen Miller had an op-ed in Roll Call (sub. req’d) earlier this year that addressed the failings of the personal financial disclosure:

…Congress must make personal financial disclosures more transparent and accurate. All of the manners in which lawmakers obscure their finances must be eliminated. Exact dollar figures must replace ranges. Loopholes for residences that do not generate income should be closed. Lawmakers must reveal how much stock they own, show who they are doing business with when engaged in a partnership, and list property in a more transparent manner. Personal financial disclosure reports must live up to the desire of Congressional leaders to operate in an open and honest manner.

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After a year of operating under the new reforms Congress enacted after a series of lobbyist-related scandals, lobbyists are reporting little disruption in most of their activities. The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act was the major piece of legislation embodying Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s effort to lead the “most honest and open” Congress. The biggest impact of the law appears to be on the hosting of parties by lobbyists.

A recently released study from Lobbyists.info shows that forty percent of lobbyists report less involvement  in “hosting events at their offices where a covered official may attend, and 28 percent reported less participation in fund-raising events.” There are a variety of reasons for this, including reluctance among members of Congress to accept invitations and a lack of clarity among lobbyists regarding reporting requirements for event on the new contribution disclosure forms (LD-203).

The study also reports little disruption in lobbyist day-to-day activities. Seventy-five percent of respondents said that they have had no change in the number of face-to-face meetings with members of Congress or staff. A larger number, eighty-five percent, reports no reduction in phone or email contact.

Grassroots activities do not seem to be effected much by the new disclosure requirements. This is despite claims by the National Association of Manufacturers claiming that the disclosure rules would silence organizations and keep them from joining coalitions and engaging in grassroots engagement. NAM filed a lawsuit against the disclosure rules, eventually losing in the Supreme Court.

An oft repeated complaint about the reform before it was passed involved the amount of time spent on record keeping. Lobbyists feared that this would impede their ability to do their jobs. While more than eighty-five percent of respondents reported a heavy impact on record keeping, as indicated by the lack of impact on ordinary lobbying practices, the new disclosure requirements have not impacted their ability to do their job. Also, the new disclosure requirements have led to seventy-eight percent of respondents to have a tracking system for both lobbying activities and contributions, up from forty-three percent prior to the reforms.

This record keeping data holds a lot of promise for future, more detailed disclosure reforms. If nearly all lobbying operations have a record keeping system in place for lobbying activities and contributions it will be much easier to increase the amount of disclosure as recommended in the Transparency in Government Act.

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