Posted on 02/09/2006 4:57:30 AM PST by RWR8189
That is the message from Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.). Don’t wait for legislation or ethics rulings, just follow his example and voluntarily announce that you and your staff will not accept gifts, meals or travel from lobbyists or groups with interests before Congress.
As Lieberman says, “It’s time to try to set some examples here.”
Lieberman, the most ethical member of the Senate (this is not damning with faint praise!), is setting up the only way to avoid fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandal and get clean for election day.
The lobbyist scandal is penetrating deeply into the public consciousness. Only the House bank scandal loomed as important in the past three decades. Before that, one has to go to Abscam and Watergate to find parallels.
But, unlike the other scandals, this one has a clear partisan skew. Because it has absolute power, the Republican Party is proving Lord Acton’s admonition that “absolute power corrupts absolutely.” In the latest Fox News poll, voters, by 2-1, see the scandal as primarily implicating Republicans.
All the focus on legislation to correct lobbying abuses raises the central point: Those who pretend to oppose these practices have the option of simply not participating. As Nancy Reagan said: “Just say no.”
The Lieberman Pledge will catch on. In the elections of 2006, insurgents will happily take the pledge (they have likely never even met a lobbyist or accepted a ham sandwich from one) and incumbents will be hard-pressed not to follow. Pledges have a way of being contagious.
It is worth bearing in mind how the current corrupt system of lobbyist funding of trips and favors originated. Back in the 1970s and ’80s, taxpayers picked up the tab for most foreign travel by legislators. It was called junketing, and it was relatively clean — wasteful and hedonistic, but clean.
A lot of political consultants seized on these junkets and asked voters if they really wanted to pay for their congressmen and senators to take trips they could not afford to take themselves. Voters answered no, and many members went down to defeat.
The result was that no legislator would rack up a large public tab for travel. Enter the lobbyists who offered a way to take vacations without making the taxpayers pay for them.
But the political impact of this issue is as great now, with lobbyists in the spotlight, as it was then, with tax money involved. Its potency is enormous. Any member who faces a vaguely difficult fight for reelection had better find shelter behind the Lieberman Pledge.
In the always-entertaining game of raising public expectations of honesty versus the growing ingenuity of the politicians in fooling them, the newest battlefront is going to be earmarking. Once the debate over the line-item veto raged between the parties, but the greater and greater use of earmarking by members of Congress to pay off campaign contributors has made the line-item debate obsolete. Voters understand that earmarking is not to create jobs but to generate and reward campaign contributions.
So while legislators are considering pledges, they might want to follow the example of newly elected House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who has refused to earmark appropriations bills. Voters are coming to understand that these special amendments are increasingly responsible for runaway federal spending, and they are no longer willing to reward it or even to tolerate it.
This scandal is not going away, nor will it be without electoral consequence. The response must come form the Republican leaders in the House and Senate. They must make sure that reforms keep pace with the exposures as the scandal deepens.
But no legislative action can replace the actions of individual legislators in taking the Lieberman Pledge.
Take it before it gets too late.
Morris, a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton, is the author of Condi vs. Hillary: The Next Great Presidential Race.
I agree 100% with Joe Lieberman on this.
But wait! It's not their fault! You have to help protect them from the evil lobbyists. They are the ones who make our blessed congress-critters take the ill-gotten gains. If only there was a law to keep us from taking stuff.....
How about honoraria, Senator? And postitions held outside government? And how about spouses? I can see some pretty humongous loopholes here...
Joe is leading by example. For a 'rat, he's okay.
I've been a gov't employee for the past ten years. I am allowed to accept small tokens, meals, etc ... but I refuse to accept anything beyond a glass of water.
Congressional ethics have nauseated me for years.
But how fair was it when the Democrats controlled the purse strings. I doubt many Republicans got to take many junkets.
I dont realise how this author can say this scandal has a clear partisan skew against Republicans, when every citizen in the United States , no matter how ignorant they be, knows every politician including Lieberman has their fingers in the lobbying pie.
Whats the sense in working so hard and paying so much for a job like this if you cant reap the Bennies?
The idea of Liebermans pledge may be good but ideas are one thing and getting it done ia another.
No offense, Dick Morris, but this is utter nonsense.
Too many loopholes here, folks. This is a joke.
Oxymoron of the day!
Dick Morris is largely an idiot. The democrats had larger majorities in the house during the other scandals. The republicans are nowhere NEAR having "absolute power".
An interesting tidbit: Virginia has very weak rules. Governor Tim Kaine (the guy that just gave the Democrat State Of the Union response) took 18,000 from a lobbyist for a vacation. It was just a vacation.
I agree with Leiberman as well -- And Russ Feingold, who professes to have always followed this principle.
However, I can also make a good contrary argument. We know democrats hate that businesses make money. They would love to increase taxes on business whenever they can.
Well, the plan HERE is that if a trip is worth taking, the government should pay for it -- meaning an increase in government spending.
If the trip is worth taking, and the government decides to fund the trip, then taking lobbyists money is almost like a tax increase for the people giving the money, because the money goes to pay for a government expense.
That was the one good thing about all this spending -- other people were paying for government, keeping the taxes down.
OK, it's a weak argument, because they weren't paying for good trips, they were paying for boondoggles.
It's really too bad Joe is a Dem, I like the guy and almost always uses good common sense. I'll forgive him for that brief backslide with Gore. Amen.
ROTFLMAO!
Might as well pledge not to look at a woman's breasts while they are at it.
What I want to know is how they all get rich, and it is not by accepting lunch or by lobbying in the gym.
The Constitution says that the people have the right to petition their government for redress of grievances.
That is lobbying.
It should be legal. Lobbying is a first amendment right to be heard.
If I want to give the congresscritter a cup of coffee while I talk to him that is my business.
If he accepts it, then it is my business.
Congressmen should avoid all appearance of impropriety. In my book, accepting gifts from lobbyists is unacceptable.
What's Dingy Harry's take on this pledge? That is what he thinks will make him majority leader right?
Actually, my cup of coffee as I petition my congressman is part and parcel of my right to petion my government.
To petition means: "earnest request; entreaty." It does not mean "piece of paper with lots of signatures" in the era the constitution was written.
It does not say that the petition must be at the congressman's location. And it does not say that the petitioner is forbidden to be hospitable.
IN FACT, the assumption would be that hospitality would be part and parcel of an effective entreaty.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.