Jeb Bush’s Lobbying Reform Plan Probably Won’t Rein In K Street
Mother Jones
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Jeb Bush says he wants to curb the influence of lobbyists in Washington—starting with stanching the flow of lawmakers who leave Congress to cash in on K Street as influence peddlers. “We need to help politicians discover life outside of Washington,” he said during a speech on Monday, during which he proposed an array of lobbying reforms. The centerpiece is a six-year ban on ex-members of Congress going into the lobbying business. (Currently, House members can officially start lobbying one year after leaving office and ex-senators must wait two years.) Government transparency advocates were heartened by Bush’s remarks, but they say the moratorium alone won’t solve the problem.
The issue is that the six-year ban would only prevent former members of Congress from taking part in “official” lobbying—a very specifically defined set of activities. Avoid those activities—or earn less than 20 percent of your income from lobbying activities—and you can avoid registering as a lobbyist. There’s no shortage of high-profile ex-lawmakers who have used this loophole to sell their insider expertise and thick Rolodexes to the highest bidder without ever registering as a lobbyist. Former Democratic Sen. Tom Daschle has worked for three lobbying firms since his departure from Congress 10 years ago, never once officially registering as a lobbyist. Instead, Daschle has served as a “senior policy advisor.” Similarly, upon leaving Congress in 1999, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich immediately went to work for a number of private interests offering “quasi-lobbying” services, but called his work anything but lobbying. Notably, Gingrich was paid $1.65 million for his work as a “historian” for mortgage lender Freddie Mac.
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Jeb Bush’s Lobbying Reform Plan Probably Won’t Rein In K Street
