Not everyone has that kind of appetite apparently. Businesses and lobbying firms are still complaining about the disclosure of contributions - both campaign and honorary - required in the new lobbying disclosure forms (LD-203). “This is insanity. It is grossly overreacting on the part of the Hill,” says one senior vice president of government relations.

The new lobbying reports are available online (you can search them here) and CQ Politics went through and picked out some of the contributions: (more…)

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Lame duck Rep. Al Wynn, recently defeated in a Democratic primary, announced that he would be retiring from Congress early to take a lobbying job with the law firm Dickstein Shapiro this June. Unlike previous members who have announced their retirement through the revolving door Wynn will remain in Congress, with a fully negotiated and signed contract to work at the firm, until June, giving him unparralleled access for a newly minted lobbyist. Dickstein Shapiro has already released a press release announcing the hire. Unlike Wynn, Trent Lott, Richard Baker, and Billy Tauzin all retired quickly upon announcing their completed lobbying job negotiations. This poses serious conflict of interest questions for Wynn but also serves as a true test of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act and its provisions governing member job negotiations (a provision already filled with loopholes). The Point of Order blog explains:

Congressman Albert Wynn has announced that he will leave the House in June and join the law firm of Dickstein Shapiro. According to today’s Roll Call: “Wynn claims that he got clearance from the House ethics committee to begin negotiating for his Dickstein Shapiro job after he lost his primary in February, but he refuses to disclose the document. He has filed a recusal form with the Clerk of the House certifying he will avoid actions that will create the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

What puzzles me is that statement that Wynn “refuses to disclose the document.” Section 301 of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act amended House Rule 27 to establish three new requirements for Members (and officers/senior staff) who conduct negotiations for future employment: (1) within 3 business days after commencement of any negotiation or agreement for future employment or compensation, the Member must file a “statement of disclosure” with the House Ethics Committee; (2) the Member must recuse himself from “any matter in which there is a conflict of interest or an appearance of conflict of interest” and notify the House Ethics Committee of such recusal; and (3) upon making the required recusal, the Member is required to submit the “statement of disclosure” to the Clerk for public disclosure.

As the Ethics Committee explains in a March 28, 2008 memorandum (interestingly, issued the day after Wynn’s departure was announced): “All Members, officers, and very senior staff who recuse themselves from official matters pursuant to Rule 27 must complete and submit the recusal form to the Committee. At that time, Members must also submit to the Clerk a copy of the completed employment negotiation form regarding that private entity, which they had previously submitted to the Committee. The Clerk will make that form available for public disclosure.” (emphasis in original).

The Roll Call editorial indicates that Congressman Wynn has filed a recusal form with the Clerk. This is somewhat confusing since the obligation is to file the recusal form with the Ethics Committee. Perhaps Wynn is contending that he has not yet recused himself in accordance with Rule 27 but is merely filing a notice of intent to recuse himself at some later date. If he has actually recused himself, however, he is clearly obligated to submit his previously-filed statement of disclosure to the Clerk, and the Clerk is required to make that statement public.

Wynn must publicly disclose these documents and similarly must recuse himself from committee business. It appears as though he is taking steps to remove himself from the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a fellow Maryland Democrat, is encouraging Wynn to do so.

If the new ethics and transparency laws passed in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act are to be taken seriously they must be enforced. This is a major test of the bill and the leadership ought to step up and require Wynn to fully comply with the laws. They should also consider the absurdity of allowing members to determine whether or not their job negotiations should be secret or not based on a personal determination of whether of not there is a conflict of interest.

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Last Friday, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed an amicus brief in support of the disclosure requirements of the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 (HLOGA), joining the Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21 and Public Citizen in defending the disclosure provisions. All were in response to the National Association of Manufacturers who earlier in February had filed suit in federal court challenging the disclosure provisions and saying they are "vague, overbroad and burdensome" and were in violation of the First Amendment.

HLOGA requires any organization actively participating "in the planning, supervision, or control" of lobbying efforts that ponies up more than $5,000 in a quarter to disclose their activities and expenditures. The law’s purpose is to shine a light on stealth lobbying and sham coalitions, pushing legislation such as those that are often promoted by groups like NAM. The law’s criminal penalties on groups that fail to accurately disclose their lobby efforts succeeded at getting their attention. NAM says that the clause in question is imprecise and impacts groups that it is not intended to target. They fear the law will also require it to disclose the names of its members. NAM has requested the court issue a preliminary injunction on the disclosure rules until the court decides the case.

OMB Watch’s blog reports that strong legal precedent exists on the disclosure of lobbyist activities, the 1954 United States v. Harris Supreme Court decision that upheld disclosure provisions in the Regulation of Lobbying Act. The court determined that Congress had a right to gather information about "those who for hire attempt to influence legislation or who collect or spend funds for that purpose." Federal and state courts have used this precedent to almost unanimously upholding lobbying disclosure statutes based on the state interest in informing the public of the persons and groups that are attempting to sway the legislative process, according to OMB Watch.

In announcing their filing, CREW quoted U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) from a statement he made last year explaining the necessity of HLOGA’s lobbying disclosure requirement: "(As) President Harry Truman said, ‘The buck stops here.’ But with stealth lobbying we don’t know where ‘here’ is or whose buck it is."

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Here’s a pleasant surprise in the just passed Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA). One of the law’s new filing requirements is that individual lobbyists have to report all "covered official positions" held for 20 years prior to their current filing period. This could provide an amazing amount of new information about where people have lobbied in the past — information that we’ve never seen before.

The new provision will be quite significant for lobbying firms. For them, the 20-year lookback applies to all lobbyists listed on any new registration filed for any client with an effective date of Jan. 1, 2008 or later. For most lobbying firms, this means that eventually all lobbyist employees will need to disclose their prior employment under the 20-year lookback.

The new requirement will have little impact on non-lobbying firm organizations with in-house lobbyists who were already registered as of December 31, 2007. For those organizations, only new lobbyists disclosed as of Jan. 1, 2008 or later will have to report their previous employment in accordance with the 20-year lookback.

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