Editorial: Cleaning up the Abramoff mess

01/29/2006

Banning junkets is only a start.

Star Tribune
Last update: January 28, 2006 – 10:09 PM

Since the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal broke wide open three weeks ago, the halls of Congress have become crowded with ethics experts and awash in reform proposals.

A cynical voter might wonder why, if they had such good ideas about cleaning up Washington, these lawmakers kept them a secret until now. But the bigger danger is that Congress, in its haste to do something, will adopt reforms that are incomplete, toothless or both.

For a better blueprint, lawmakers need look no further than Common Cause, the venerable public-interest watchdog group, which has pulled together several fine proposals into a reform agenda that is both comprehensive and tough. It includes:

• An independent ethics commission to investigate misconduct charges. Perhaps the biggest scandal in Washington is that Congress fails to enforce rules already on the books; the House Ethics Committee, for example, has been all but silent for the last six months. “Peer review simply is not the answer,” Common Cause observes. Granted, independent commissions are not omnipotent, but the very threat that alleged ethical lapses might get a thorough, public investigation by outside professionals would suffice to chasten many lawmakers.

• A ban on gifts and privately financed travel. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., observes that travel can help educate lawmakers trying to bone up on, say, disaster relief or foreign aid. We agree. But lately trips have too often become camouflage for something else—cozy face time between a member of Congress and a well-heeled lobbyist. Sen. Mark Dayton, D-Minn., has a better principle: If a trip genuinely serves the public interest, then the public should pay for it.

• A new website with timely reporting of lobbying contacts and fundraisers. The current system relies on paper reports, often filed months late, at an obscure office in the Capitol where voters and voter watchdogs seldom see them.

To that list we would add the “earmarks” ban proposed by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Earmarks are special-interest items—costly bridges, for example—tucked into big bills at the last minute, when most lawmakers don’t read them. They are probably the single most effective way for lawmakers to covertly deliver favors to favored constituents, and they produce horrible legislation as well.

Washington will never stop politicians from representing special interests in their districts, but McCain’s plan would at least expose the favors to scrutiny and a vote.

Of course the biggest favor a lobbyist can do for the typical member of Congress is to help raise the hundred of thousands of dollars it takes to run for reelection. And the biggest item on the Common Cause agenda is public financing of congressional campaigns. That idea is a long shot, but is long overdue. If Jack Abramoff’s fall from grace can bring it to pass, he might just redeem himself in the eyes of history.