By Elizabeth Williamson, The Washington Post, August 7, 2007

7 Aug 2007 // After eight months of behind-the-scenes kicking and screaming, the House and Senate passed ethics rules that promise to change how lawmakers raise money, travel and party. That is, if Congress devises a way to enforce them.

"We indicated that because of the culture of corruption that had infested Washington, that we were going to do something to change that. And change it we did," said Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.). "The bill that is now on its way to the president is the most sweeping lobbying and ethics reform in the history of our country."

The bill tightens disclosure requirements on multiple campaign contributions "bundled" by lobbyists and bans meals, travel and gifts from special interests. It requires sponsors of earmarks to make known their sponsorship of those pet spending projects tucked into legislation. And it bans lawmakers from requesting earmarks in which they hold a principal financial interest. The law provides for most of that information to be posted online.

After winning control of Congress in November, Democrats moved quickly to push tougher ethics rules, motivated by the lobbying-related scandals. The web woven by jailed lobbyist Jack Abramoff that ensnared lawmakers including former congressman Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) inspired freshmen such as Rep. Zack Space, the Democrat who won Ney's seat, to push hard for new rules.

Portions of the legislation would take effect shortly after the law's signing, and others, including new disclosure requirements for contributions bundled by lobbyists, would take effect on Jan. 1.

Government watchdogs and ethics lawyers generally agree that the bill would shed new light on the Washington influence game but wonder how those who don't play ball would be found and punished. Without an effective bureaucracy for managing the flow of new disclosures provided by the law, they say, the legislation won't mean much.

"This law will put a significant new burden on the ethics committees and the public disclosure offices in the House and Senate. They have to do more than sticking the reports in a filing cabinet," said Kenneth Gross, an ethics lawyer at the law firm Skadden, Arps.

Violations of the law would be prosecuted by the Justice Department, but "they rely on referrals," Gross said. The new legislation expands the jurisdiction of federal prosecutors beyond violations of lobbying laws to breaches of the gift ban and other provisions, imposing civil and, for the first time, criminal penalties.

Without a way to manage disclosure information, "the enforcement process will be weakened at its base," Gross said.

The bill's requirement that all congressional trips -- hundreds each year -- must be preapproved by congressional ethics committees "is just one brand-new rule that would overwhelm the existing ethics committees," said Craig Holman, legislative representative for governmental watchdog Public Citizen.

The bill requires new lobbying reports to be posted and maintained online, but Holman asked: "Who's supposed to be in charge of this centralized database?"

Melanie Sloan, who heads Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the bill "puts more onerous reporting on lobbyists, but the House and Senate don't have new responsibilities -- except to keep hold of all of this."

She continued: "So many concerns raised by the Abramoff scandals were enforcement issues. There is no change to that here."

The key driver behind the bundling disclosure rules was Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Van Hollen, charged with raising money and consciousness for the next election cycle, calls the new rules "vital" for showing voters that Democrats are serious about cleaning up Washington.

Sloan and others noted that while Democrats trumpeted the ethics bill last week, they were largely silent about a key part of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's promise to "drain the swamp" with a revamped ethics enforcement body.

In January, Pelosi (D-Calif.) appointed a task force to study and develop recommendations for improving ethics oversight in the House. But Rep. Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.), chairman of the task force, says the group has "as many opinions as members." An announcement of the group's findings was due May 1, but Congress went home without any further word.

To end a Republican-led blocking of the bill in the Senate last week, provisions were watered down. The reporting threshold for bundled contributions was raised from $5,000, reportable quarterly, to $15,000, to be disclosed twice a year. Earmark disclosure rules slipped a bit, too. Senate rules prohibiting lawmakers from sponsoring earmarks that financially benefit them or their immediate family were changed to bar pet projects that "principally" benefit lawmakers -- a change that Holman said was based on conflict-of-interest standards but others criticized as narrowing the rule.

The earmarks section of the bill "went from six to 11 pages and got weaker," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense. Ellis pointed to a key provision on using earmarks to influence votes. Just two months ago, Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, was taken to task by Republicans for telling Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), "You will not get any earmarks, now and forever," because Rogers had criticized one of Murtha's pet projects.

But the provision that would prevent lawmakers from using earmarks to reward or punish voting behavior, Ellis said, has "disappeared."

The new rules also target corporate jet travel. In the House, travel on private planes is banned unless the lawmaker owns an interest in the plane. Senators would be required to pay for corporate jet travel at charter rates, which could run tens of thousands of dollars per trip.

The ban is aimed at lobbyist-sponsored junkets, such as Abramoff's infamous European golf trips. But some say it could have unintended consequences for frequent-flier presidential candidates and lawmakers considering travel to unglamorous but educational locales, who may find complying with the new rules not worth the trouble.

"This drives up the cost of campaigning and how much time people have to spend raising money," said Cleta Mitchell, a lobbying lawyer at Foley & Lardner and a frequent critic of the new ethics laws. "It also means that members of the House and Senate will be moving closer and closer to being hermetically sealed in the Capitol and have as little interaction as possible with anyone outside that rarified environment."