Editorial: Reining in the lobbyists

Monday, April 3, 2006 | 8 a.m.

The U.S. Senate has, for the first time in a decade, proposed a rules revision to curb ethics abuses, but some lawmakers say the measure doesn't impose enough limits or enforcement.

Senators voted 90-8 last week to approve legislation that bans all meals and gifts from lobbyists and increases to two years the period of time former lawmakers must wait before lobbying former colleagues. Lobbyists would have to electronically file quarterly reports, rather than submitting paper versions twice a year, and they also would have to disclose the amount of money spent on grassroots lobbying and campaign donations. Senators rejected provisions that would have created an independent agency to enforce the rules and that would have curbed lawmakers' use of corporate jets. They didn't even discuss limiting privately funded travel or lobbyists' fund-raising activities.

The result is a small step toward solving a very big problem that was laid so publicly bare by the ethics scandal involving Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy and fraud, among other federal charges, in connection with his Capitol Hill dealings. On Thursday - the day the Senate passed its proposed ethics revisions - Abramoff was sentenced to nearly six years in prison in an unrelated Florida fraud case.

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., voted against the legislation, saying its lukewarm approach didn't make sense "given that Mr. Abramoff got five years in the pokey today."

Indeed, the Senate could have gone further and set some limits on privately funded trips. They also could have demanded better disclosure of the players behind the private corporations and groups that make campaign contributions. The proposal does move toward reforming the use of earmarks - pet projects lawmakers tack onto bigger bills - by making it harder for senators to slip such measures into legislation at the last minute. The revision says lawmakers would have to publicly disclose and explain such earmarks. It also calls for increasing the number of votes needed to attach earmarks.

While we agree that this measure probably doesn't go far enough, it promises to be better than the free-for-all that exists now. What remains to be seen is whether the Republican-dominated House will pass anything beyond a handful of recently passed revisions that have done little more than curb serious discussion of this issue.