Concerned citizens across the country are flooding the Senate with phone calls TODAY. Join them.

The Abramoff scandal is only the tip of the corruption iceberg in Congress, as a system of legalized bribery by special interest lobbyists has overtaken the will of the people in determining legislative priorities.

The U.S. Senate is debating reform measures THIS WEEK. Go to our Action Center for the information to join our coalition partners and thousands of concerned citizens across the country by flooding the Senate with phone calls TODAY, demanding real reform now.

And when you have made your calls, come back here and post a comment to share with activists around the country what you heard from your senators offices!

Lead Story:

The Senate Rules Committee is meeting today to draw up its part of ethics reform legislation that will be hitting the Senate next month. The Washington Post is reporting that Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), the committee’s chairman, has worked out a framework of modest reforms that don’t speak to regulating the role of lobbyists in fundraising or an independent ethics enforcement body. The AP says the Democrats on the committee are keeping their distance from the bill. 

Reform Roundup:

The New York Times looks at proposed reforms through the lens of Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), who has moved from being a railroad company lobbyist to a Senator pushing pork for railroad companies.

Congressional Democrats are happy to propose reforms for lobbyists, but have shown less enthusiasm for supporting the effort of Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-Ill.) to hold lawmakers accountable as well, reports The Hill.

House Republicans are showing some signs of life on the reform front: Roll Call (subscription req.) is reporting that the leadership is close to installing a one-year moratorium on privately-paid travel while it evaluates reforms.

The LA Times has a rundown of recent state attempts to reform government ethics and how it’s a tough job.  Not surprisingly, those who are willing to spend serious money to influence lawmakers can be creative in their methods.

Corruption Roundup:

Our friends down at Texans for Public Justice have just passed their IRS audit. The audit was requested by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) ally Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas) after a lobbyist connected to DeLay’s fundraising operation complained to Johnson about the group, reports the Washington Post. TPJ Director Craig McDonald is alleging political retaliation. TPJ was instrumental in the discovery of the Texas fundraising shenanigans (some would say crimes) of 2002 that has helped spur many of the current media and government investigations into political corruption.

Speaking of laundering corporate money for state elections, Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) is in Washington this week for the National Governors Association conference and to raise a bunch of money from lobbyists, reports Hotline. Hotline also ticks off Riley’s connections to Abramoff partner Michael Scanlon, who steered half a million dollars to the Republican Governors Association in 2002, which then quickly gave money to the national party, which then quickly sent money to Riley and the Alabama Republican Party.

Ruth Marcus has an interesting piece in the Washington Post that says Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s fall from grace was predicated in part by the culture of money and politics in Washington. She also touches on the money Reps. Virgil Goode (R-Va.) and Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) took from Cunningham-briber Mitchell Wade, who we blogged about last weekend. MyDD, meanwhile, wonders if Democrats will challenge Goode in light of this news.

Talking Points Memo has a good rundown of the defense department officials also implicated in the Cunningham crony plea deal.

President Bush has tapped a Honeywell lobbyist to be the White House’s new liaison to the Senate, reports Roll Call (subscription req.). No doubt, the White House will soon announce that the lobbyist will recuse himself all matters involving Honeywell’s extensive defense contracts. Oh, wait…

Finally, we at Clean Out Washington haven’t handed out many kudos (we’d be happy to once Congress starts showing some backbone on reform), but let’s have a round of applause for former Cunningham chief of staff David Heil (now a lobbyist, but let’s look past that for now). After Heil discovered the depth of Cunningham’s corruption in 2004, he threatened to quit if the congressman did not resign or retire, reports Roll Call (subscription req.). When Cunningham refused, Heil quit. Good for you, Mr. Heil. It’s a shame we lost you to K Street, we could use more of you on the people’s payroll.

We’ve been chronicling the ethical travails of Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) on our Watchdog Blog since its inception, as you can see here. Doolittle is under increasing media scrutiny, especially in California, for his close ties to disgraced former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham’s “business” associates and his close friendship with admitted-felon Jack Abramoff. In fact, there have been so many reports of Doolittle’s questionable dealings that we’ve decided to add him to our Ethics Hall of Shame. Check back tomorrow when he makes his inauspicious debut.

There is some good that could come out of the mess with Doolittle, Abramoff and all their friends in hot water here in Washington: it looks like Congress is moving towards passing ethics reform legislation this year. You Californians, especially, should join in our National Call-Out Corruption Dayscheduled for tomorrow, because Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is on the Senate committee that will be looking at such legislation this week.

But, back to Doolittle: Shortly before announcing his bid for re-election this week, Rep. Doolittle sat down with staffers at The Auburn Journal for an in-depth interview on his ties to Abramoff, Cunningham and others.

After a round of softball questions and wilted rebuttals, staffers at the Auburn Journal got straight to the point:

How much money did you receive directly from Abramoff and through his other sources?

Doolittle’s answer was, in essence, “I don’t know.” When asked “How come?” Doolittle replied, “Because it is really of no concern to me…All I know is that I try to raise as much money as possible.” Wow. Now that’s chutzpah.

Why is Doolittle so brazen in his apathy over lobbyist-directed campaign contributions? For starters, the practice of accepting lobbyist contributions is completely legal. Lobbyists can butter-up members of Congress with generous, out-of-pocket donations without any fear of retribution – and have been doing so for years. The result is a Congress beholden to special interests, not the public interest. While Public Citizen’s Craig Holman Ph. D. and others are working hard to change the rules governing lobbyist contributions, activists can help by participating in our National Call-Out Corruption Day tomorrow, February 28th.

The weekend News Roundup will not be posted today. Please check back tomorrow for the most recent corruption and reform-related news items.

This news is just coming out: defense contractors Mitchell Wade, who bribed former Rep. (and current member of our Ethics Hall of Shame) Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), has just pleaded guilty to making at least $78,000 in illegal campaign contributions to Reps. Katherine Harris (R-Fla.) and Virgil Goode (R-Va.), reports the Washington Post. To avoid contribution limits, Wade apparently gave checks to his employees and then had them cut checks to the representatives in the hopes of getting defense appropriations. After receiving the contributions, a Goode staffer reportedly confirmed to Wade that a defense appropriations bill would include $9 million for his company and Harris tried but failed to secure funding beneficial to Wade.

Prosecutors said there is no indication that Harris or Goode knew the contributions were illegal but said the investigation was ongoing and refused to say whether the representatives were targets.

Tellingly, a Harris spokeswoman said, "this case demonstrates the perils of a process in which candidates are sometimes asked to determine the intent of a contributor." We couldn't agree more -- it's time to change the political fundraising system. If you'd like to help Public Citizen clean up that system, we've got a national call in day on Tuesday when the Senate will be debating two potentially landmark ethics reform bills. Click here for more details or click here to become a Citizen Watchdog.

Lead Story:

Two stories today highlighted how members of Congress often turn to lobbying once they are booted out of office or move into the congressional version of Sun City: K Street. The Washington Post reports that former Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kansas) is lobbying for the state-owned Dubai company seeking to take over U.S. ports, creating a tricky ethical call for his wife, current Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-N.C.). The Post also asks, “What happened to… Steve Largent.” Well, he’s a former member of Congress (from Oklahoma) who’s not dead or in jail, so the odds, as determined by Public Citizen’s recent study, are 43 percent that he’s a lobbyist. And, what do you know, he’s a lobbyist for the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association.

Read Roundup:

Congress is out of session this week, but check back next week to see if any senators step up to the plate on reform during the ethics legislation markups in the Senate Homeland Security and Rules Committee hearings.

Corruption Roundup:

Mitchell Wade, the defense contractor in the Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) bribery scandal, is pleading guilty today to his role in the case, reports the AP. This could be very, very bad news for a number of congressional Republicans who are linked to Wade’s co-conspirator in the scandal, including Reps. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.). See this San Diego Union-Tribune piece for more background. Doolittle, meanwhile, announced he’s running for reelection yesterday, reports the AP, claiming that the reason he’s been getting so much bad press lately is because he “wants to keep your taxes lower.” This reminds me of the stuff I was hearing from a certain other California Republican congressman shortly before he plead guilty a few months ago…

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) is now claiming that he “never had any personal or professional relationship with [Jack] Abramoff,” but Talking Points Memo has e-mails from an Abramoff associate telling Abramoff that Young had requested the use of two of Abramoff’s luxury skyboxes for fundraisers. TPM also has an amusing story involving Young, Abramoff and a pair of Bermuda shorts.

Think Progress has a recent handwritten note from DeLay denying having a personal relationship with Abramoff and a quote from a 1997 news story where DeLay calls Abramoff “one of my closest and dearest friends.”

In a surprising development, The Hill reported yesterday that Republican Sen. George Voinovich (Ohio) has been discussing public financing of congressional elections with Democratic Sens. Richard Durbin (Ill.) and Christopher Dodd (Conn.), and might join them in co-sponsoring  a public financing bill. Said the prescient GOPer: “Maybe it is the answer. Too much of our time is spent raising money, time spent campaigning, time buying TV ads. Everyone’s out there trying to raise money… until we deal with this issue, you’re going to continue to have problems.”

Give that man a cigar! We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

While any public financing plan will face an awfully tough slog in a Congress so controlled and corrupted by special interest money, the support of a vocal Republican senator promises to change the dynamic considerably. A related problem that will need to be tackled is the strange disconnect, reviewed here by Kevin Drum, between the popularity of public financing for state elections and the perception here in Washington that the public hates the idea. Hmmmm. Could members of Congress perhaps be getting their information from corporate lobbyists?

Back to Voinovich for a final thought: it’s worth noting that in addition to considering public financing, he is also talking up lack of enforcement of current lobbying rules.

“How are we enforcing our laws? Things are filed, and, in some cases, nothing’s done about it,” Voinovich lamented, calling the notion of exempting lobbyist-sponsored fundraisers from the congressional gift ban “ridiculous.”

Once again, we couldn’t agree more. The irony here, though, is that the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Ethics is none other than… yes, you guessed it… Sen. George Voinovich! So what IS up with that whole enforcement thing, George?

Lead Story:

The Department of Justice investigation into admitted-felon/former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has branched out into his relations with Russian energy interests, which could be very bad news for Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), the Boston Globe reports.

Reform Roundup:

Kevin Drum has a post up on how there is a disconnect between the popularity of state-level public financing of elections and the perception here in Washington that the public hates the idea.

Congress is in recess this week, but the Chicago Tribune has a summary up on how the drive for real ethics reform has cooled as members realize what they would have to give up. See our Tuesday Watchdog Blog entry for more.

In These Times says Democrats are coming a day late and a dollar short on defining themselves as the ethical party against the Republicans’ lack of leadership on reform.

One congressional candidate isn’t waiting for Congress to act: Louis Murphy, who is challenging Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-Pa.), is pledging to abide by a personal code of ethics that includes strict prohibitions on gifts, trips, secret meetings with lobbyists and having ex-staffers lobby her, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. Her opponent, predictably, scoffed at her pledge but demured to offer any details on the ethics proposals he says he’s working on. This may be the way forward for candidates and current members who want to distinguish themselves.

Corruption Roundup:

Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) is sticking to his story that it was he, not Jack Abramoff, that arranged the 1999 official congressional delegation trip to the Marshall Islands. The problem? Josh Marshall has documents showing that Abramoff’s firm billed the Islands’ government for “organizing a visit by the congressional delegation led by Represenative Don Young.” He’s also got a source in the Islands that confirms the content of the documents.

Speaking of Young, the Boston Globe has a story on how wealthy Massachusetts residents hired a lobbyist close to him to fight against a proposed windfarm off the coast of Nantucket, to great success.  

TAPPED has a nice synopsis of the “America for Sale” report from Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) that we blogged on yesterday.

An interesting development in the story we blogged on Tuesday about the “unholy alliance” between right and left wing 527 soft money groups: the alliance doesn’t apply to DeLay’s race, where both sides are advertising, reports the Fix.

Money Buys Access in Washington, Part XXVI:

Hotline reports that President Bush is headlining a fundraiser for Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), a member of our Ethics Hall of Shame, where $10,000 gets you a picture with the president. The location? Two blocks from the K street lobbying corridor.

Money Buys Access in Washington, Part XXVII:

Bob Novak reports that Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) comes a bit cheaper than Bush: A group of lobbyists will be gathering on Monday to pay only $1,000 for an audience with the champion of the “Bridge to Nowhere.”

State Reports:

Kevin Drum also reports on the other obstacle in passing public financing: the current elected officials who would vote on any proposals raised all their money through the existing big-money outlets and may like the security. Apparently this is causing California state legislators to attempt to gut the current proposal there. 

New Hampshire is hopping on the reform bandwagon: legislative negotiators have closed a deal on a new ethics reform bill, reports the Union Leader.

Editorial Roundup:

The Sacramento Bee (Calif.) and Pioneer Press (Minn.) run an op-ed decrying the waning enthusiasm for reform in Washington.

Lead Story: The Cost of Corruption

Two big releases today detailing the cost of the rampant corruption and influence peddling in Washington: Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), the ranking Democrat on the House Rules Committee, released a report called “America for Sale: The Cost of Republican Corruption”. Among the abuses she details:

The main points can be found on her myDD page here or you can download the entire report here (.pdf).

The Center for Economic and Policy Research and the Institute for America’s Future also released a study this morning pegging the cost of corruption in the Medicare bill disaster at $80 billion annually over ten years – that’s $800 billion that taxpayers could be saving if the bill wasn’t written specifically to enrich pharmaceutical and insurance companies. For an introduction to their study, visit TPM Café.

Reform Roundup:

The Hill reports that Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, is leaning towards joining Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Senate Rules Committee Ranking Democrat Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on a public financing bill that is likely to be based on the bill by Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) discussed below. While neither party’s leadership is supporting public financing at this point, the idea is growing in popularity among members of Congress sick of the current system.

Another tidbit from the Hill article: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) says he wants an ethics reform bill on the floor by March 6th.

Chris Bowers has a post up at myDD where he delves into the public financing bill offered by Obey last month. The bill now has several Dem cosponsors. A case-in-point of how public financing could shift much of politics from fundraising to policy and constituent reach-out is found in a post by David Sirota on why Paul Hackett dropped out of the Ohio senate race. The bottom line: Hackett hated spending the hours a day on the phone begging for money that every candidate for Congress has to do these days (which is one reason why they rely so heavily on lobbyists to do that fundraising for them).

Sirota also has a post up on how the drive to reform earmarks will have the effect, intentional or not, of giving the executive branch more authority in deciding spending, which may just shift lobbying from Congress to the White House, which is not exactly a paragon of virtue these days.

Corruption Roundup:

Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.), a member of our Ethics Hall of Shame, apparently kept a “bribe menu” detailing how much he would demand from defense contractors in exchange for earmarks, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. Go read the whole thing; it’s unbelievable.

Fired Up! reports that Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.), another member of our Ethics Hall of Shame, is losing the support of Montanans fed up with corruption in Washington. Burns, meanwhile, is flacking his ability to bring home the pork as the reason to vote for him.

ThinkProgress reports that while President Bush is publicly supporting earmark reform he actually makes extensive use of them himself.

State Reports:

The reform momentum builds: David Sirota reports that the Republican Idaho House Speaker is moving to reform lobbying practices in his state.

Editorial Roundup:

Molly Ivins issues a blistering attack on Congress, House Republicans in particular, for the slowing down on reform enthusiasm that we blogged about yesterday. Her solution: public financing.

It might come as no surprise, but according to recent news reports the House of Representatives seems to be quickly losing its appetite for reform. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) originally promised quick action when the House returned from the holidays, but his initial, very modest proposals met with stiff resistance from his rank and file. Newly elected Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) further put the kibosh on reform by pronouncing some of Hastert’s proposals to be “childish,” and publicly warning that Congress should not “overreact” to the scandals roiling Washington.

Again, that’s not terribly surprising, coming from Republican House leadership that’s been in bed with Jack Abramoff and his ilk for years, and which has gotten very comfortable with the privileged lifestyle provided by corporate lobbyists, thank you very much. It’s also not surprising when you consider that the House has barely done any work at all since the year started, having met in session only a measly seven days  during the first seven weeks of the year. (The House’s current schedule would set a record for fewest days in session since recordkeeping began in 1947) Apparently, House leaders don’t think the "people's business" requires very much attention right now.

By contrast, the reform agenda is bustling along in the Senate, although the direction it’s heading is anyone’s guess. Two important Senate committees, the Government Affairs Committee and the Rules Committee, will be drafting reform legislation during the coming week, and virtually everything is on the table for consideration. This includes new disclosure provisions, new rules for earmarks, travel and gift bans, new proposals for ethics enforcement,  restrictions on campaign fundraising by lobbyists, and much more. The smart money would bet on senators passing as little reform as possible – “disclosure” seems to be the Republican buzzword now, as if we didn’t know enough already about the corruption in Congress. But once debate starts, it’s hard to tell where it will go. As noted in the National Journal, inaction or “no” votes on reform legislation by members of either party could cost them dearly with an electorate that’s disgusted with business as usual, especially with the Abramoff investigation still unfolding and more indictments likely around the corner.

So, what better time than to have a national call-in day, and jam the Senate phone lines with our demand for real reform now? Working with U.S. PIRG, the League of Women Voters, Common Cause and other reform groups, Public Citizen has organized “National Call Out Corruption Day” for next Tuesday, Feb. 28. Keep your eyes peeled for updates on this national action, and be prepared to give your senators a piece of your mind this coming Tuesday!

Lead Story: Buying Access

OK, it’s a collection of stories. What do a $2,500-a-shotgun fundraiser for Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), an exclusive dinner with Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), and the Malaysian prime minister admitting Jack Abramoff was paid $1.2 million for arranging a 2002 meeting with President Bush have in common? People forked over some cash, then a government official met with them. While this used to be considered unseemly (*ahem, will the real John McCain please stand up?*), the Malaysian prime minister said it best: “I did not touch the money. But, I think somebody paid. That is their practice… That is their system. It is not corruption at all. It is very open.” We’re trying to change that system – join us.

The New York Times has a piece on Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) extracting disproportionately more money for Katrina rebuilding after meeting with House Republicans for whom he raised hundreds of thousands of dollars back when he was a lobbyist.

Reform Roundup:

The National Journal has the straight dope on what’s happening with ethics and lobbying reform in Congress. Check back with the Watchdog Blog later today for a complete lay of the land on the prospects of Congress cleaning up its act this year.

Of course, voters may end up doing the job for them. Roll Call (subscrip. req.) details how the perpetually dirty Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas) – whom Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch division implicated as part of the group of lawmakers who received a surge of money from pro-CAFTA corporations just before the vote on the trade agreement – are facing tough fights as voting opens in Texas.

The Senate Finance Committee is now looking at documents sent to it by the Indian Affairs Committee regarding Abramoff’s use of sham non-profit groups, reports Roll Call (subscrip. req.).

Roll Call (subscrip. req.) also reports on an “unholy alliance” between right and left wing Section 527 groups who are fighting efforts to restrict their activities.

Corruption Roundup:

The American Prospect has an in-depth profile of a variety of ethically questionable personal financial dealings by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.). Santorum, you may remember, was tapped by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (who himself has a “dishonorable mention” in our Ethics Hall of Shame), to lead the Senate Republicans’ ethic reform efforts. Smart move.

The Washington Post profiles the lobbyist implicated in the scandal involving Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.).   It appears that the lobbyist got some help from Reps. John Doolittle (R-Calif.), Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Tom DeLay (R-Texas), too. See our Ethics Hall of Shame profiles on Cunningham, Blunt and DeLay for more dirt on the usual suspects. Federal prosecutors are now asking for the maximum 10 year sentence for Cunningham for accepting bribes to award defense contracts in a time of war, reports the LA Times. Some Cunningham defenders, meanwhile, are asking the judge for leniency, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune [via TPM].

Speaking of DeLay -- now that he and his staff are no longer under the spell of Abramoff and Abramoff’s pro-Internet gambling client --   the congressman is reversing his position and supporting an Internet gambling ban, reports Roll Call (subscrip. req.). Can you spell “flip flop” with dollar signs? Po$$ibly.

The LA Times has a story on how the ethics problems of Sen. Conrad Burns ethics problems may cost him his seat. See his entry in our Ethics Hall of Shame for more.

Due to the holiday, posting of the latest news will resume tomorrow.

We’ve blogged several times on the Bush administration’s cover-up of its ties to corrupt former Republican super lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Mr. Bush has refused to release photographs of himself with Abramoff, or any records of Abramoff's dealings with the White House, despite initial promises to the contrary by administration mouthpiece Scott McClellan.

Now, the story has taken a new twist, as 31 Senate Democrats have asked Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to remove himself from the Justice Department investigation of the Abramoff scandal. “FBI officials have said the Abramoff investigation ‘involves systemic corruption within the highest levels of government,’ ” the Democrats wrote in a letter to Gonzales. “In light of your previous service as White House Counsel and your close connection to many Administration officials, the appearance of conflict looms large.”

Gonzales’ response was the same as this White House’s answer to so many Congressional requests: No.

As head of the Justice Department, it’s not clear how Attorney General Gonzales might influence the work of the DOJ's famously independent Public Integrity division, which is leading the investigation.

But we do know that Mr. Gonzales is a long time friend of Mr. Bush, and is extremely loyal to him. As White House Counsel Gonzales helped develop the legal “rationale” (if you can call it that) justifying torture, and Sen. Feingold (D-Wis.), along with others, has accused him of misleading Congress while defending another one of the administration’s most controversial programs, the warrantless domestic wiretapping. We also know the administration has disrupted the Abramoff investigation by appointing one of the lead investigators to a federal judgeship, thus removing him from the case. (Funny, isn’t it, how this administration will never publicly comment on ongoing investigations, but will gladly remove the investigators who are conducting them?)

And now, with the President refusing to release information on his relationship with Abramoff, his good friend Alberto Gonzales is refusing direct requests to remove himself from the investigation, for what would appear to be a potentially strong conflict of interest.

If you want to get to the bottom of this as much as we do, take an action today by urging your senators to demand release of all records regarding the White House’s relationship with Abramoff. If Republicans are suddenly so big on disclosure, following the Congressional corruption scandals, how about a little of the same from the White House?

Lead Story:

Will the real Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) please stand up? McCain is scheduled to be the headliner at a Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) fundraiser in Beverly Hills, reports the LA Times via Fired Up!. Couples who contribute at least $100,000 get a table with the governor and photos with the governor. McCain once famously lamented private meetings he had held with large GOP donors as a moment of weakness and as part of the inspiration for his campaign finance reform crusades. But McCain’s current ethics reform bill is decidedly weak, as you can see in Public Citizen’s chart comparing the various proposals floating around Congress. Meanwhile, McCain continues to cozy up to President Bush’s bankrollers: he’s enlisted Bush-Cheney ’00 fundraiser Susan Duprey.

Reform Roundup:

The Democrats and Republicans are still competing to claim the mantel of the “reform party” through their various ethics reform bills, but one proposed reform that’s gaining bipartisan support is to increase protection for government whistleblowers, reports the NY Times.

Corruption Roundup:

Fired Up! has a great post on a call by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to investigate the role of one of the Alexander Strategy Group, a lobbying firm with ties to Abramoff, in the passage of the Medicare prescription drug bill. Fired Up! also delves into the story behind another group, 60 Plus Association, that President Bush singled out for praise for the group’s help in passing the bill. It turns out that group accepted $25,000 from an Abramoff client via, get this, Americans for a Republican Majority, the leadership PAC of Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas). Check out Public Citizen’s profile of DeLay and Abramoff in our Ethics Hall of Shame for more background on the dastardly duo. Also, see our investigative piece on the 60 Plus Association on our StealthPACS.org site for the dirt on that group.

Attorney General Albert Gonzales has refused to heed congressional Democrats’ calls to step aside from the investigation into his boss’s ties to Jack Abramoff, reports the AP.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) responds to the allegations we blogged about yesterday that he steered $50 million worth of defense appropriations to the lobbyist-husband of one of his top aides. He claims no impropriety but promises look into the matter further for possible referral to the Senate ethics committee, reports the Washington Post. For those of you who don’t like the idea of depending on members of Congress to refer themselves for ethical transgressions, may we recommend contacting your member of Congress to support the bill that Sen. Barack Obama (R-Ill.) announced yesterday to create an independent ethics enforcement commission?

Arianna Huffington has a round up piece on the Republican fundraiser-lobbyist who owns the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney shot a man last weekend. The place is a hotbed of cronyism.

Rep. Joe Hefley (R-Colo.) has announced he will not be running for reelection. Hefley has been on the House Republican leadership’s bad side ever since he resisted efforts to neuter House ethics rules.

A top fundraiser for Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) may not have taken a personal check from an Abramoff client, but the RNC sure did, Hotline says.

The Fix has the scoop on Democratic efforts to gin up soft-money fueled organizations to get out the vote in 2006 and beyond.

Local Reports:

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D) have the right idea: they are supporting a bill that would ban lobbyist gifts and require the instant disclosure, on the Internet, of any fundraising done by lobbyists, reports the LA Times. If this were a federal bill we’d call it the Jack Abramoff Prevention Act – the question is whether anyone in Congress really wants to prevent more Jack Abramoffs.

It’s that time of year again, folks—when lobbying outfits are required to file their year-end lobbying disclosure reports. This year, due to a new rule requiring electronic filing of disclosure information, the whining from K Street is actually newsworthy. Somehow, even with the lobbying industry’s record-breaking revenues, these multi-million-dollar outfits are still unable to handle the alleged burden of submitting their forms via the internet.

Last summer, the chairman of the House Administration Committee, Bob Ney (R-Ohio), surprised us all by making mandatory the electronic filing of lobbying reports. (Previously, lobbyists had the option of filing electronically or via snail mail.) In a “Dear Colleague” letter dated June 29, 2005, Rep. Ney explained that the change would improve transparency by making disclosure reports more readily available to the public. Public Citizen, along with others, lauded this change as a major boost for public disclosure.

Jeffrey Birnbaum of the Washington Post writes that shortly after Ney’s order, “lobbyists began to complain the Internet-based system was cumbersome, complicated and expensive.” I find this a little hard to believe. Sure, learning a new system can take some work. But this isn’t rocket science – millions of people file stuff through the internet every day.

The truth is, lobbying firms have never taken disclosure seriously. To them, it’s an unnecessary burden and it reveals information they’d rather keep private.   But for the public (and for watchdogs like us), lobbying disclosure is one of the most important means for investigating whether elected officials are representing our interests—or the interests that send members on lavish golfing trips. If lobbying firms spent as much on filing their reports as they do on jetting members off to faraway lands, I’m guessing they’d have figured out by now how to submit a “digital signature” to the clerk of the House.

Lead Story:

The Washington Post profiles Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), a member of our Ethics Hall of Shame , and his woes as the target of a federal corruption investigation. With House Democrats mum on starting up ethics committee investigations into the numerous questionable dealings of members of Congress and in the absence of a substantive Democratic reform bill filed, voters may begin to wonder about the sincerity of the Democrats’ commitment to reform. However, that hasn’t stopped them from using ethics as an issue against the Republican House hopeful from Vermont, reports Roll Call (subscription req.)

Reform Roundup:

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced legislation to create an independent ethics enforcement agency this morning, says the Raw Story.

The Hill has an amusing story on how pork was often the only thing that unified Democrats and Republicans, and increased scrutiny could bring on increased partisanship. Speaking of earmarks, USA Today reports that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) has directed almost $50 million in earmarks to the clients of one of his top aide’s lobbyist-husband.

Some non-profit groups are fighting the proposed ban on privately funded travel, The Hill reports.

Corruption Roundup:

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.), of all people, started an investigation into the $7 billion giveaway to the oil and gas industry that we blogged about recently. Pombo is a member of our Ethics Hall of Shame.  His profile is available here. Peruse our archives on Pombo for the rest of the dirt.

Stuart Rothenberg has a list of the top ten endangered House incumbents at Roll Call (subscription req.) . It’s no coincidence that the top two – Reps. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Bob Ney (R-Ohio) – recently earned induction into our Ethics Hall of Shame.

Think Progress and Fired Up! report that the Bush fundraiser/lobbyist/crony that owns the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney shot that guy in the face can’t keep her story straight.

David Sirota reports that a new anti-union group is run by a long time corporate lobbyist-cum-union buster. Matt Stoller at myDD says the group might be violating its tax status.

The Washington Posts’s Jeffrey Birnbaum says lobbyists are frustrated with the antiquated electronic lobbying disclosure system. Check back later for more on this from the Watchdog Blog.

The Hill has another story on the booming times in the lobbying industry, as does Roll Call.

TAPPED points out that booming times for the lobbying industry give us a pretty sorry government.

State Reports:

David Sirota reports that Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) has announced a ballot initiative on government ethics after the state legislator rejected the measure last year. Schweitzer, frequently cited as a new model for Democrats, is hopefully leading a trend here.

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) chose an interesting way to start as chairman of the House Interior Committee: by taking his family on a taxpayer-funded RV adventure to some of America’s most beautiful national parks.

Rep. Pombo has already distinguished himself as a notable practitioner of the sleazy, self-serving political maneuvering that makes it difficult to think about Congress on a full stomach. As outlined in our Hall of Shame Pombo has intervened in federal regulatory matters when his family’s income might be affected, and he paid his wife and brother more than a quarter-million dollars out of his campaign treasury in 2003 and 2004, in some cases for unspecified duties. He also ranks 8th on the list of members taking money from admitted felon and former Republican super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and he has gone to bat for clients of “Team Abramoff” – even when those clients happened to be on the other side of the country from his congressional district.

The latest allegations, reported in the Los Angeles Times , focus on a trip he took in 2003 after becoming chairman of the influential Interior committee. The official purpose of the trip was to visit parks under his jurisdiction and speak with federal officials there. And what better way to do that than by renting a $4,935 RV at taxpayer expense and taking your family along?

Pombo’s spokesman said the trip lasted 10-12 days, and ran through five states and ten national parks, where his staff set up meetings with local park officials. A funny thing happened on the way to the forest, though – apparently Pombo didn’t always make it there. "We had set up camping for him and gone to a lot of work, and then he did not show," said Pam Livermont, secretary for the park superintendent at Badlands National Park in South Dakota. “We never heard another word from him. We were disappointed." Same thing from officials at Joshua Tree National Park in southern California, although in their (lame, if you ask us) defense, Pombo’s staff said their boss showed for the meeting but park officials “weren’t there.” Did anyone mount a search party?

For good measure, on a separate issue two Democratic House members are accusing Pombo of "questionable use of a significant amount of taxpayer funds," for allowing his committee staff director to live in Stockton, Calif. and charge taxpayers $87,000 for commuting to Washington… with none of the expenses properly reported.

Steve Filson, a Democrat running for Pombo's seat in this fall's congressional election, has asked the House Administration Committee to investigate the family vacation. If that panel finds a problem, it could refer the matter to the House ethics committee. Given that the House Administration committee was until very recently run by Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), who was forced to step down from that position after he was identified as “Representative #1” in the Abramoff indictments, and that the ethics committee has been moribund for more than a year, we’re not holding our breath for any action.

But in the meantime, Pombo is more than justifying his induction into our Hall of Shame. Keep at it, Mr. Pombo, and you might even earn bonus points!

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Lead Story:

NBC picks up on the crony-lobbying angle of the Cheney hunting accident we blogged about a few days ago. The White House apparently appreciates the hundreds of thousands of dollars ranch owner Katharine Armstrong and her family raised for Bush’s presidential campaigns: she brags that, on behalf of one of her clients, “I got them Karl Rove.”

Reform Roundup:

The Hill  has an interesting story on how members of Congress have automated the process of requesting earmarks. Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) says that this only makes it easier for lobbyists to request them. However, don’t get too excited about earmark reform – TAPPED points out that earmarks are a small part of the federal budget and getting rid of the worst pork won’t put much of a dent in the deficit.

Some members of Congress are fighting back against the $7 billion giveaway to oil and gas companies we blogged about yesterday , reports the NY Times. Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and Reps. Edward Markey (D-Mass.), Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), George Miller (D-Calif.), Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) and Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) are introducing legislation this week to roll back the giveaway at a time of record profits for the industry.

Corruption Roundup:

Let us put this very plainly: money buys access in Washington. Hotline reports that House Republican leaders are holding a “thank you” event in Las Vegas this weekend for donors who have given at least $15,000 to the National Republican Congressional Committee. The piece also highlights a gaping loophole in the proposed gift and travel bans: newly minted House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) says that he plans to use campaign funds to pay for the junket. Even with a gift ban and travel ban, lobbyists could still woo members of Congress simply by writing them campaign checks to pay for their perks.

Another we-built-this-city-on-money (not rock n’ roll) vignette: Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) wants to be the new Senate majority whip and is taking the tried and true path towards shoring up support among his fellow Republicans: doling out campaign money, reports Roll Call (subscription req.).

Another division at Public Citizen, Global Trade Watch, released a report yesterday detailing how the members of Congress that pushed the CAFTA vote over the edge received a surge in corporate campaign cash around the time of the vote. The report also shows that these reps are feeling a backlash in their home districts. On that note, DailyKos has more on who else is funding pro-CAFTA Rep. Henry Cuellar (R-Texas). Cuellar is receiving a vigorous challenge from former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (R-Texas). David Sirota has info on the primary challenge to pro-CAFTA Rep. Ed Towns (R-N.Y.).

Abramoff apparently collected $1.2 million from the Malaysian government to arrange a meeting between the country’s prime minister and President Bush. Abramoff coordinated the meeting via several phone conversations with Karl Rove, reports the LA Times.

As we blogged yesterday, federal investigators have just issued subpoenas to a sham non-profit connected to Abramoff. They have requested documents related to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist. Fired Up! has more on yesterday’s subpoena news.

The AP follows up on the Abramoff-Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) story, detailing more contacts between the lobbyist and the senator. The article doesn’t catch Reid changing his position on anything Abramoff wanted. On the issue that was the subject of most of the communication between their offices, Reid steadfastly opposed the position of Abramoff’s client. However, the article does note that one of Reid’s aides passed through the revolving door to become a Team Abramoff lobbyist and that Abramoff’s firm hosted a fundraiser for Reid at its offices. Reid’s office rightfully points out that the senator didn’t take any special actions for Abramoff. Still, if members of Congress would stop cozying up so blatantly to lobbyists, inquiries like the AP’s wouldn’t have to be made.

Congressional Democrats are attacking Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) for his questionable taxpayer-funded vacation that we’ve blogged about previously, reports the LA Times. Check out his place in our Ethics Hall of Shame for more on Pombo.

State Reports:

The Los Angeles city ethics commission is calling for public financing of elections after finding that $4.9 million in independent election expenditures were made last year, reports the LA Times.

Voter backlash? A Democrat picked up a usually safe Republican seat in the Texas legislature after the sitting Republican left to become a lobbyist, reports DailyKos.

Editorial Roundup:

The Washington Post calls on the White House to release the details of its meetings with Abramoff. If you agree, tell your senator.

Rep. Jean Schmidt (R-Ohio) recently ran an op-ed pledging her support for lobbying and ethics reform, but failing to mention anything about the loophole left by addressing the question of lobbyists and fundraising. Conveniently, she prints her phone number at the end of the op-ed. If you’re an Ohio resident, consider giving her a call.

Even as lobbyists and their cozy ties to lawmakers come under increasing scrutiny by watchdog groups such as Public Citizen, the industry is enjoying a boom in revenues.  It received a $1.8 billion kiss from those seeking to influence lawmakers – most of them special interests—in the first six months of 2005, marking a record-setting 8 percent increase in revenue from the same period in 2004. For all of 2004, the industry raked in a staggering $2.4 billion, a 40 percent increase from 1999. The rash of business-pandering legislation zipping through Congress these days has no doubt contributed to this spike in spending.

And here’s a companion statistic to chew on: Since 2004, the Bush administration has spent $1.4 billion in taxpayer dollars on 137 contracts with advertising and public relations companies, according to a GAO report released Monday. Why would the White House spend over a billion big ones on advertising and PR? Could it be that while special interest money poured into K Street with the goal of producing corporate-friendly legislation, the Bush administration followed suit by diverting taxpayer dollars to dress up these new laws in sheep’s clothing?

One place to look for PR dollars may be the Medicare prescription drug debacle. The government has had to spend a lot of money to help confused seniors navigate that train wreck of legislation, which has resulted in a windfall for drug companies. I just wonder who has spent more—the taxpayers who are picking up the cost of re-educating the public, or the 952 lobbyists who spent $141 million in 2003 trying to ensure that Medicare money would be directed to their clients. Who’d like to bet me that taxpayers got the bum end of this deal?

Lead Story:

The National Journal reports that federal prosecutors have issued new subpoenas in the Abramoff investigation that center on a sham non-profit group, the U.S. Family Network, which Public Citizen has frequently mentioned in its own investigations. The subpoenas are related to payments that may have been made from Abramoff and his clients to the wife of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) ex-Deputy Chief of Staff Tony Rudy while he was still working on the Hill. Also mentioned in the subpoena are Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Rudy, DeLay and his wife, and former DeLay aide Ed Buckham and his wife. Read our profile of DeLay in our Ethics Hall of Shame for details on the U.S. Family Network’s links to DeLay. Also see our report Rep. Roy Blunt: Ties to Special Interests Leave Him Unfit to Lead, which details the House majority whip’s ties to the group.

Reform Roundup:

Roll Call (subscription req.) reports that House Republicans are still split on how far to carry ethics reform and are continuing internal discussions this week. New House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) still appears to be resisting the modest reforms backed by Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) and Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), opting instead for mere proposals to increase disclosure. However, Senate action in the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, which intends to mark up legislation by the end of the month, may force the hand of House leaders. The Hill reports that Republicans acknowledge that in any case, they have to pass some sort of ethics reform to try to clear the cloud hanging over the party caused by the current investigations.

The Hill reports on Democratic efforts to demonstrate how corruption affects people’s pocketbooks through higher energy, health care and tuition costs.

If you don’t see much of Sen. McCain on C-SPAN fighting for congressional ethics reform, it could be because he’ll be on the road for much of the next two months raising money for Republican candidates. The Fix has his schedule. The Hill has a report on McCain’s earmark reform plans and its lukewarm reception by many Republicans.

Corruption Roundup:

Talking Points Memo has more details on the owner of the ranch where Vice President Dick Cheney shot that guy, and her deep connections to Bush. Remember, she is a Bush “Pioneer” fundraiser and recently became a registered lobbyist specializing in lobbying the White House, despite having little to no lobbying experience and a residence far away from Washington, as we blogged about yesterday. Apparently, she’s on the White House speed dial: Rove called her within 90 minutes of the shooting.

In other news involving Bush’s fundraisers, a “Pioneer” was charged yesterday with 53 counts of theft.

The Washington Post has an interesting story that reports that lobbying expenditures in 2004 topped $2.4 billion, a 40 percent increase from 1999. The story gives several examples that illustrate the extent of payoffs that special interests receive in exchange for their lobbying investments, sometimes as much as a $100 in return for every $1 invested. Beyond the explosion of special giveaways that have dramatically expanded the federal deficit (which has increased pressure to cut social services), how else does this affect your average American? When your analog TV stops working in a few years thanks to a congressionally mandated conversion to digital broadcasting, you can thank the wireless companies who spent almost a million dollars to lobby for the deadline so they could get their hands on the analog broadcast spectrum.

The federal government is on track to give the oil and gas industry $7 billion in free petroleum from public land, reports the NY Times. DailyKos reminds us that ExxonMobil is currently setting records for corporate profits.  Here at Public Citizen, we’ve been looking through the personal financial disclosures of members of Congress and would like you to know that Tom DeLay’s single largest investment is a fat pile of ExxonMobil stock. Political Animal also points out two stories that speak to the Bush administration’s attempts to stifle discussion by government scientists of the industry’s effect on global warming.

Speaking of DeLay, he doesn’t appear to be on the pork reform bandwagon: US News and World Report says that he is unlikely to try to return to the House Republican leadership but will instead concentrate on bringing the bacon home to NASA, which is in his district.

The LA Times profiles Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif), who holds a place in Public Citizen’s Ethics Hall of Shame. The article notes that Pombo spends a lot of time trying to tear down endangered species protections, but read his Hall of Shame profile closely and you’ll find that at least one of those efforts would have ended up significantly enriching his family if he succeeded. Think Progress has more dirt on Pombo.

Former associates of Jack Abramoff say that he frequently bragged about his close relationship with Karl Rove, reports the AP.

The Hill has a profile of a revolving door Pentagon staffer-turned-lobbyist who takes pride in his ability to effectively lobby his former colleagues.

Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has beaten off challenges from Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) to become the heir apparent to Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) when he retires, reports Roll Call (subscription req.) . His weapon? Raising money from his large donors and then doling it out in $10,000 checks to Republican senators. So much for the idea that campaign contributions are largely grassroots efforts to support a hometown candidate… McClatchy Newspapers reports that reforming leadership PACS, the mechanism McConnell used to distribute the money, is not on the radar this year. The story has some good background on how Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) has used his PAC in the thriving trade between members of Congress in campaign contributions and pork.

Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) have both made corporate-subsidized trips aboard private jets in the past year or so, reports the AP. MyDD follows up on the revolving door angle to the recent mine tragedies that we’ve blogged on previously.

Editorial Roundup:

The Portland (Maine) Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram say “real reform [is] critical to restore [the] public trust” and calls on Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to lead the charge in the Senate on several ideas, including the “intriguing” idea to ban contributions from Washington lobbyists. The papers point out that it is no “coincidence that Abramoff and other top lobbyists are as notable for their fund-raising prowess as they are for their ability to move legislation.”

Florida Today slams the Democrats for their cluelessnes in not offering a clear alternative to Republicans, including a response to the Republican ethics scandals.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has an op-ed in the NY Times and Arizona Republic calling for an end to earmarks.

The Des Moines Register finds fault with the Bush administration’s stifling of prescription drug imports from Canada and says they are bowing to drug company lobbyists.

Vice President Dick Cheney’s shooting of a man last weekend during what’s being called a hunting accident pointed the way toward an as-yet-unreported example of another Bush fundraiser cashing in on White House contacts. Cheney and company were hunting at the Armstrong Ranch in Texas, which was owned by Tobin Armstrong – a member of the Bush “Pioneers,” the elite fundraisers who raised at least $100,000 for one of the Bush-Cheney presidential campaigns – until he died in 2005. But here’s where it gets interesting: His daughter, Katharine, now the owner of the ranch, is also a Bush Pioneer, and became a federally registered lobbyist, without moving to Washington, after Bush became president.   As a lobbyist, she is well-positioned to exploit her deep ties to Bush, having received several state government appointments while he was governor and an invitation for a White House sleepover once he became president.

Since she became a lobbyist in 2004, she has registered for only four clients: her ranch, the mega-law firm of Baker Botts, and two of its clients. Why would such a legal heavyweight as Baker Botts need an outside lobbyist with no experience? The answer lies in her Baker Botts lobbying disclosure forms, which state that she lobbied only the White House and not Congress or any regulatory agency. Her activities consisted of “communicating with the White House on behalf of various Baker Botts clients regarding South Korean policy,” the forms say. But Baker Botts’ only obviously South Korean lobbying client, Hyundai, had terminated its lobbying contract months before Armstrong filed her registration. This apparently means that Baker Botts was providing lobbying services for at least one of its clients through the Armstrong subcontract without filing disclosures for those services.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that we will find out who exactly Armstrong was shilling for on “South Korean policy.” The House and Senate offices that handle lobbying disclosure forms are notoriously lax on enforcement, and Baker Botts is unlikely to face any action for failing to register on behalf of the mystery South Korean client. However, this Google cache page does point to a press release (no longer available directly) on a South Korean “reception” in Seoul  attended by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and put on by Baker Botts, Hyundai and a “U.S.-Asia Network” group that the two sponsor. The Network also happens to be co-chaired by Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.). Sounds like business as usual in Washington, but some of the current lobbying reform proposals could prevent the kind of secrecy in this story by creating an independent body that would audit lobbying disclosures and take action against those that do not follow the law. (See Public Citizen’s profile of Armstrong on our www.WhiteHouseForSale.org project.)

In other Pioneer-lobbyist news, the New York Times has released the first photo of Bush and admitted felon/former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff and some of his Indian gaming clients. As we’ve blogged on before, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) is sponsoring a Senate motion to demand that Bush release all the details of his meetings with Abramoff, and several Republican members of Congress have been calling for the same. Go to our action page to tell your member of Congress to jump on this wagon.

Reform Roundup:

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) introduced legislation on Thursday that would strip the pensions of members of Congress should they be convicted of certain corruption-related crimes, reports Roll Call (subscription req.). He’s calling it the “Duke Cunningham Act.”

Former Rep. Joseph DioGuardi (R-N.Y.) placed an op-ed in Roll Call (subscription req.) today calling attention to the bill he filed in 1988 with Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) to create an independent ethics commission. He still thinks it’s a good idea.

Corruption Roundup:

The Washington Post reports that “Republicans are scrambling to associate themselves with Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) image as a reformer” in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandals at the same time that McCain is cozying up to the same “Pioneer” fundraisers who financed President Bush’s presidential campaigns. McCain has reportedly been visiting Bush Pioneers including Tom Loeffler, who raised at least $300,000 for Bush’s campaigns; corporate raider Thomas Hicks, who also raised $300,000; and Bank of America bigwig James Hance, who raised $200,000. (Click on the names to see Public Citizen’s profiles of the fundraisers at our www.WhiteHouseForSale.org project.)

Is McCain’s new interest in the established campaign money pipeline related to his recent distinct lack of enthusiasm for substantive ethics and lobbying reform? Think Progress notes that McCain’s former enthusiasm of the public financing of elections has disappeared.

Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) has also recently been tapping the lobbyist fundraising machine: Bob Novak reports that two Republican lobbyists held a fundraising dinner for the senator last week. [Via DailyKos]

The White House acknowledged that the photos of Bush and Abramoff together that were posted online by the NY Times and Time Magazine are indeed authentic, reports USA Today. CNN reports that the Abramoff e-mails about Bush that we blogged about previously tell “a different story” about the extent of the lobbyist’s relationship with the president than the explanation provided by the White House. Check back with the Watchdog Blog later today for more news on Bush Pioneer fundraisers who have been exploiting their connections by turning into lobbyists.

The LA Times reports that one of the ways Abramoff funneled money around Washington was through various sham non-profit groups he set up. Public Citizen has been following part of this trend: the use of non-profit groups for electioneering purposes. See our StealthPACS website for more.

More on the Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.)-Abramoff brouhaha: The Team Abramoff lobbyist who contacted Reid’s office says that he merely called to find out when a vote was on the legislation. Reid’s office meanwhile, has released a 10-page memo rebutting the initial AP story, noting, as we blogged previously, that he actually favored one of the measures that Abramoff was trying to get him to oppose. See Roll Call (subscription req.) for more. A “senior Democratic hill staffer” wrote to Josh Marshall with his take on the story.

Think Progress notes that new House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has hired the communications director of Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas). So much for changing business as usual. Boehner has been taking some steps to publicly distance himself from lobbyists. Roll Call (subscription req.) reports that he has removed lobbyist Bruce Gates from serving as treasurer of   his leadership PAC. Rep. Jim McCrery (R-La.) took a similar measure.

The New Standard highlights the role of lobbyist fundraising in the Abramoff scandal.

State Reports:

The LA Times has a great case study of lobbyists using campaign contributions to win approval for wasteful projects.

Lobbyist Chad Marlow calls for increased regulation of his industry at the state level in the Albany Times Union.

Editorial Roundup:

Former Oregon state legislator Ron Eachus calls for comprehensive ethics and lobbying reform in the Salem (Ore.) Statesman Journal.

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New revelations cast additional doubt on President Bush’s assertion that he does not know admitted felon and former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

As reported by several sources (see our headline roundup, below), Think Progress revealed the existence of emails from Abramoff claiming he met with Bush nearly a dozen times, in a variety of settings. Kim Eisler, editor of The Washingtonian and the journalist who first received the Abramoff emails, refuted President Bush’s claims during a CNN interview last night, saying that Bush "definitely knows" Abramoff. Eisler also confirmed he has seen photographs of the two together at settings other than White House holiday functions – the only place Bush says such photos could have been taken – including a photo in the Old Executive Office Building, where Abramoff took some of his clients to shake hands with Bush. (There are also photos of Abramoff’s wife with First Lady Laura Bush.)

But as we have blogged several times in the past few weeks, how could Mr. Bush possibly NOT know Jack Abramoff, a famously connected Republican lobbyist who raised more than $100,000 for the President in his last election campaign, and who is – or at least was – a close friend and associate of Karl Rove and Grover Norquist.

Yet in response to these new revelations, White House mouthpiece Scott McClellan says the President’s claim he does not know Abramoff "still stands."

When will the stonewalling on Bush’s relationship to Abramoff end? What is the White House trying to cover up?

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) is intending to offer a "sense of the Senate" amendment urging the administration to release all information regarding the Bush administration’s dealings with Abramoff. Click here to tell your senators they need to support Boxer’s amendment, and demand that White House come clean.

Many Republicans are responding to the snowballing corruption scandal by urging further disclosure, saying that "sunshine is the best disinfectant." Shouldn't a little of this same light shine on the White House’s relationship with Jack Abramoff?

Reform Roundup:

TAPPED notes that while the public financing of elections is considered pie-in-the-sky to some, there’s a lot of things in this country that are more expensive and a lot less important than, say, the presidency. For example, while Hotline editor Chuck Todd says the 2008 presidential candidates could raise as much as $500 million for their campaigns, that’s about what it would cost to make two King Kong movies or three F/A-22 fighter jets. See yesterday’s Watchdog Blog for important news on inroads on public financing.

At the House Republican retreat yesterday, GOP chairman Ken Mehlman said “the public clearly wants reform,” reports Reuters. House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) also said that ethics reform legislation would a central topic and that “we're going to have, frankly, an ethics seminar for all our members and staff so that they know what the rules are.”

Corruption Roundup:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) secretly inserted a provision protecting pharmaceutical manufacturers from lawsuits into a defense appropriations bill in December, denying any member of Congress the chance to debate or vote on it separately, reports Gannett. The provision was inserted at a meeting also attended by Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), according to congressional aides. The article is a must-read salacious tale of what even Republican congressional staffers are calling “a travesty of the legislative process” and it also notes that Frist has taken more than a quarter million dollars from pharmaceutical and medical device companies. For more details on Frist and Blunt’s misdeeds, see their entries in our Ethics Hall of Shame.

The AP drops a bomb of a story today on contacts between members of Jack Abramoff’s firm and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), and contributions from Abramoff’s clients and partners to Reid. With so much money changing hands in Washington and the Reid’s longtime involvement in tribal gambling issues, it is not surprising that they at times coincided, but nothing in the article sticks out as a quid-pro-quo of money-for-legislative action. In fact, Josh Marshall points out that although the AP article details the lobbying that Team Abramoff did on the Northern Mariana Islands, it fails to note that Reid remained was one of the senators most opposed to the policy sought by Abramoff’s client. Mashall also notes that at least one outlet publishing the story is already starting to backpedal from its breathless promotion of the story. However, the story does contain all the elements of business as usual in Washington that makes people outside the beltway justifiably suspicious of their government: aides-turned-lobbyists, privately paid junkets, and lobbyists directing campaign contributions. If we clamped down on these practices, we wouldn’t have to squint to try to tell the difference between real corruption and the stuff that just doesn’t smell right.

The ThinkProgress-obtained e-mails about President Bush-Abramoff relations that we blogged about yesterday have been picked up heavily by the press, including coverage in the Washington Post, New York Times, Reuters, CNN and MSNBC. Check back later today with the Watchdog Blog for more updates on the effort to get Bush to release the details of his meetings with Abramoff.

The Tracy (Calif.) Press has a scoop today on Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) spending $5,000 to $6,000 of taxpayer money to finance his family’s 2003 vacation.(Pombo claims there were a few official meetings thrown in during the two week trip.) This isn’t the first time Pombo has misused his official powers – read about the others in Pombo’s profile in our Ethics Hall of Shame. [Via Fired Up!]

Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said in a Senate Rules and Administration Committee hearing yesterday that he never engaged in lawmaker junkets and the “only traveling I do is to and from my state and driving my kids all over the place.” He must have forgotten his trips to Rome (twice), Florida, Ohio and his fundraising trip to Florida aboard Walmart’s corporate jet. [Via Atrios]

Josh Marshall breaks a story about a trip that Abramoff arranged to the scenic locale of his client, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, for Reps. Don Young (R-Alaska), John Doolittle (R-Calif.), Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) and Delegates Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa), Bob Underwood (D-Guam) and Donna Christenson (D-Virgin Islands). Young later came through for Abramoff’s client.

State Reports:

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (R) once employed Abramoff partner Michael Scanlon and part of a half-million dollar payment from Scanlon’s firm to the Republican Governor’s Association was channeled to Riley, according to the Hotline. [Via TPM Café] Perhaps coincidentally, a new lobbyist disclosure bill is advancing in Alabama, reports the Birmingham News.

Editorial Roundup:

MSNBC commentator Flavia Monteiro Colgan publishes an op-ed in the Centre Daily Times (Pa. ) blasting congressional Democrats for failing to respond to the Republican ethics scandals with meaningful reform. She says the current Senate Democratic ethics package simply nibbles at the edges of the true problem in Washington: campaign contributions and the lobbyists that lawmakers rely on to raise them. She praises Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.), Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and John Tierney (D-Mass.) for their public financing bills and says, “Obey, Frank and Tierney have it right - the only response to the ethics scandals facing Congress is to fundamentally change the system by taking money completely out of it. It's good policy and good politics, and a plan that the Democratic leadership should embrace.”

The Lansing (Mich.) State Journal blasts Democrats and Republicans for backpeddling on ethics reform and calls on Michigan’s congressional delegation to step up and lead the fight for meaningful ethics reform.

Although the conspicuously-public sparring of Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) has been quelled -- publicly, at least – their exchange this week seems a good sign that those hoping for a bipartisan ethical clean-up would be wise not to bet the farm on it.  At least not yet.

In an apparent misunderstanding, McCain, the go-to guy in the Republican drive for lobbying reform, lashed out at Obama, a Democratic leader of the effort, after Obama wrote to McCain, stating the Democrats’ preference to work through the committee system.  McCain interpreted Obama’s letter as an affront to their budding working partnership—and with one letter, seemed willing to kill that partnership altogether.  See the Chicago Sun-Times for more on this bizarre exchange.

McCain had previously called Obama's reform work "genuine and admirable."  So his biting smackdown of Obama, in which he characterized the junior senator’s interest in reform as "self interested partisan posturing" and "typical rhetorical gloss," came across as more than a bit hasty—and possibly counterproductive, too.  If there's one big, fat pitch for Democrats to hit in the upcoming campaign season, corruption in government is it.  With that in mind, it's probably ill-advised for a Republican like McCain to burn bridges with the Democrat most eager to cooperate across party lines—all the while, damaging the likelihood of passing meaningful legislation.  Though his  reform efforts are to be applauded, McCain’s "bipartisan" push is not going to get anywhere if he insists on bowling over those who make an effort to work with him.  Perhaps realizing this, McCain and Obama have apparently come to a truce, agreeing in separate interviews that it’s time to move on.  However, it  unclear so far how the tiff might affect their working relationship. 

Not surprisingly, the heat of scandal can bring suspicions and tempers to a rapid boil.  Though rhetorical showdowns are common inside the Beltway, they are unlikely to grease the rusty wheels of bipartisanship that surely will be needed to craft reforms that actually have a chance of making a difference in Washington.  If Obama and McCain are truly sincere about serious reform, they must intuitively realize that getting there requires the force and cooperation of both parties.

Reform Roundup:

Following up on yesterday’s news that 80 percent of congressional Democrats support restricting the role of lobbyists in fundraising, Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) announced that they will be introducing legislation for the public financing of congressional elections, reports the Hill. Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) announced similar intentions last month but the addition of the Senate heavyweights to the cause significantly improves the proposal’s profile. Two other key senators, Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), however, have balked at supporting public financing at this time.

In the NY Times’ roundup of the status of ethics reform, there is an apt quote from Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill.) on his call to establish an independent ethics enforcement body (which Republicans have not embraced): “This is a clubby institution, Congress… and the idea that there might be a watchdog process outside of it, I think, will be tough to achieve.” The rest of the lay of the land: McCain wants to subject earmarks to increased scrutiny and challenge and says he will introduce such a bill today with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.). Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have proposed similar earmark reforms. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) has proposed banning all privately-funded travel but House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) are opposed, while McCain is on the fence. Lott intends to hold sessions of his Senate Rules Committee to draft reform legislation at the end of February.

Roll Call (subscription req.) has more details on the various reform bills, including the news that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) is still heading the Senate Republican leadership’s effort and plans to introduce a bill later this month. The Hill notes that Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) co-sponsored a proposal for an independent ethics enforcement body in 1997 that is virtually identical to Obama’s but now refuses to support the idea.

Just how much do some members of Congress hate the idea of reforming business as usual? The same NY Times article reports that some House members who support reforms say they fear retaliation by reform opponents. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) sought to achieve unilateral disarmament by demanding that reform proponents sign a letter requesting their own home-district transportation projects be removed from last year’s highway bill. Only Rep. Charlie Bass (R-N.H.) stepped up.

Speaking of pork, Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) may be trying to hitch his re-election wagon to the idea that he can bring home the bacon in his new position on the House Appropriations Committee. He has also managed to land a seat on the subcommittee that oversees the budget for NASA, which is in his district, reports the NY Times. Josh Marshall also notes that DeLay’s new subcommittee controls the budget of the Department of Justice, which is reportedly investigating him.

McCain said yesterday that he was considering legislation that would remove the loophole that allows Indian tribes to make large direct contributions to candidates, a practice barred for everyone else except wealthy candidates who finance their own campaigns. Another piece of evidence undercutting the much-loved Washington line that contributions don’t buy influence: the treasurer of the National Congress of American Indians complained that if his group’s members were unable to make large campaign contributions, they would lose what little influence they have in the Capitol.

Corruption Roundup:

It looks like Abramoff’s relationship with Bush goes a bit deeper than Bush is letting on: new e-mails obtained by ThinkProgress show Abramoff bragging that he had personally met with Bush at least a dozen times and that Bush remembered details about his family. [Via Atrios] 

Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.)just can’t keep his nose clean: the AP reports today that one of his former top aides took a “fact finding” trip to Puerto Rico on Abramoff’s dime while on Doolittle’s staff. The article also notes that Doolittle has received tens of thousands in Abramoff-related campaign contributions, took actions that favored Abramoff clients, and that his wife was employed by Abramoff at one point. The article also notes that these connections “have caught the attention of federal investigators.”

DeLay has sent a letter to constituents contending that, despite a direct quote to the contrary, he and Abramoff are not “close personal friends,” reports Roll Call (subscription req.).

We've updated our website to include an Ethics Hall of Shame. The list includes such notorious ethics-evaders as Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-Calif.), but you may be surprised at who else made our list. The press release is available here.

As the Senate this week took up a controversial proposal for a federal asbestos compensation trust fund, the legislation's Republican sponsor, Pennsylvania's Sen. Arlen Specter, unwittingly provided yet another demonstration of why the current corruption scandals cry out for reform.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) called the plan to create a $140 billion fund a terrible idea, Reuters reported, saying the bill was on the Senate floor only because lobbyists representing companies that would benefit had dumped $144 million on lobbying efforts to get it there. That enraged Specter: "To accuse us to have been pawns in the hands of lobbyists is beyond slander, beyond insult, beyond outrage," he thundered.

Reid was certainly playing games. Still, he spoke to a political reality in this age of scandal: even if a member might not be in the pocket of lobbyists, the money mess makes it easy for people to assume that they are – and public confidence goes in the tank, whether perception matches reality or not. It’s just one more reason why we need to clean the whole town up.

Reform Roundup:

One party in Washington is definitely starting to see the light on reform: a National Journal poll of members of Congress finds that 80 percent of Democrats think Congress should restrict lobbyists from holding fundraisers for members of Congress while only 37 percent of Republicans think so, reports U.S. News and World Report. [Via TPM Café]

Bipartisan ethics reform, however, is still looking iffy in the Senate: while Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) have reportedly made up, the two senators are going to testify separately before the Senate Rules Committee on their respective ethics proposals, reports the Chicago Tribune. McCain’s will emphasize earmarks while Obama’s will focus on creating an independent ethics commission. Josh Marshall theorizes that 2008 electoral politics could be behind the dust up.

Kathleen Reardon makes the case that lobbying and ethics reform is about personal economics and security – namely that they’re threatened unless voters start demanding their representatives get going on reform.

Roll Call (subscription req.) reports that other “nonprofit” groups with heavy connections to lobbyists are starting to fret about being targeted in the reform drive. [Via TPM Café]

Corruption Roundup:

House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) rents his Washington apartment from a lobbyist who works on issues that are at the heart of Boehner’s committee work and bill sponsorships, reports the Washington Post. The lobbyist says he never lobbies Boehner, but has “no idea” if someone else at his firm has. The firm’s Web site says, “at mCapitol Management, we specialize in leveraging relationships on our clients’ behalf.”

Boehner’s former chief of staff helped plan an infamous 1996 congressional junket to the Northern Mariana Islands with then-Jack Abramoff aide David Safavian, who later became a Bush Administration official and one of the first people indicted in the Abramoff scandal. The Boehner aide apparently decided not to attend the trip, but not until after meeting with Abramoff associates, the AP reports. Boehner has denied ever meeting Abramoff, but now remembers “a brief, incidental conversation at a widely attended event that he estimates was about five years ago.” Boehner has also justified his refusal to return the $30,000 that Abramoff’s Indian tribe clients have given him by citing his work on tribal issues. However, he did not receive any money from those particular tribes until after Abramoff began representing them.

Newsweek has posted an article that details Boehner’s long and deep ties to lobbyists, including the fact that he has accepted more than $150,000 in privately-financed junkets since 2000, putting him in the top 10 members of Congress. [Via TPM] At least two of those trips has been through the Ripon Education Fund, which was recently exposed by Public Citizen as, essentially, a front for lobbyists.

Several industries that have given heavily to Boehner over the years are hoping to cash in their chits now that Boehner is House majority leader, reports the Hill.

Several lawmakers have ditched the lobbyists who have until recently headed their Political Action Committees, including Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) and Reps. Clay Shaw (R-Fla.), Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) and Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), reports Roll Call (subscription req.). The practice of putting a lobbyist officially in charge of a lawmaker’s fundraising is one of the more transparent methods of tapping into the lobbyist fundraising machine. Sens. Obama and Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) have proposed banning the practice as part of ethics reforms this year. According to the Center for Public Integrity, 79 lawmakers have installed lobbyists as treasurers of their PACs and campaign committees since 1998. Among those who have kept their lobbyist-treasurers: Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) and Tom Petri (R-Wis.).

The asbestos bill, which Public Citizen opposes, took another step toward becoming law yesterday. The bill has been the subject of millions of dollars worth of lobbying, reports the Washington Post.

MyDD features the Democratic challenger to disgraced former congressman (and admitted felon) Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.). Ethics, not surprisingly, is the top issue.

The Democratic primary challenger to Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas), has pledged to use the House Ethics Committee to “root out” the corruption in Congress, reports MyDD.

The Seattle Times profiles another part of the Abramoff scandal: his work at the lobbying firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis. [Via TPM Café]

Lobbyist Fundraiser Watch:

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) held a $500 a plate fundraiser on Monday that included many asbestos lobbyists. Monday also happened to be the first day of debate on the contentious asbestos bill. When Sen. Reid pointed the fundraiser out, Specter blew his top, reports the HuffingtonPost.

Revolving Door Files:

The former Bush Administration mine safety official who scuttled a safety regulation in 2001 that could potentially have saved miners’ lives was the former safety and training director at a Utah mine when it had a 1984 accident that killed 27 miners, reports Knight Ridder. The kicker: the Mine Safety and Health Administration concluded at the time that a contributing factor was a lack of the same safety devices and training that the later regulation sought to require.

The Bush administration’s senior Senate liaison has just been tapped to be the be the senior lobbyist for the Hartford Financial Services Group, reports Roll Call (subscription req.).

Bush administration Abramoff stonewall watch:

The Wall Street Journal explores the administration’s extensive ties to Abramoff. [Via TPM Café]

State Reports:

The Republican Governors Association held two Texas fundraisers Monday that featured three governors embroiled in political and campaign finance scandals, reports Fired Up! America.

Editorial Roundup:

The Bloomington, Ill. Pantagraph calls for Congress to pass meaningful ethics reform with an independent ethics enforcement body and getting lobbyists out of fundraising, possibly through public financing of Congressional elections. It notes that Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) has told lobbyists he no longer wants them to raise money for him now that the ethics spotlight is on Congress.

The Winston-Salem Journal says ethics reform is fizzling out in Congress and is not happy about it.

The Palm Beach Post says that Boehner is failing to bring the reform Congress needs and may just be too in bed with lobbyists to reform himself.

Jonathan Gurwitz of the San Antonio Express-News says Democrats are missing the boat on defining themselves as the party of reform.

We blogged a few days ago that House Republicans were already starting to balk at proposed reforms in the wake of the Abramoff bribery scandal.  Now, their newly elected majority leader, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), seems to be moving to complete denial.

In a news interview Sunday morning, Rep. Boehner restated his opposition to bans on lobbyist-funded travel for members of Congress, as well as to bans on the “earmark” provisions that members use to slip pork barrel spending into legislation. Saying that Congress has in the past    “overreacted” to scandals, he made the following remarkable statement: “…taking actions to ban this and ban that, when there’s no appearance of a problem, there’s no foundation of a problem, I think, in fact, does not serve the institution well.”

No foundation of a problem? Not even an appearance of a problem?? Pardon our incredulity, but has the new majority leader been living on another planet for the past six months?

We’ve got the largest Congressional bribery scandal in decades, members of Congress resigning, being indicted and/or being investigated by the Justice Department, trips to lavish resorts and Scottish golf courses, lobbyists pleading guilty to criminal charges, a White House refusing to disclose its ties to the guilty lobbyists, Indian tribes being bilked out of tens of millions of dollars, major legislation (prescription drugs and energy) being written by and for corporate interests while members of Congress and their staff are writing legislation one day and turning around to take high-paying lobbyist jobs with the same firms that benefit the next… and Mr. Boehner does not even see a problem?

A more bullheaded example of arrogant obstructionism is hard to imagine, even for a member of Congress. Do you want to help the Republicans’ new majority leader adjust his ethical vision? Click here to send him an appropriate message.

Reform Roundup:

House Republican Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) comes out publicly against the more modest reforms proposed this year, including those aimed at travel and earmarks, report the Washington Post and LA Times. Boehner defended the free trips he has taken, including one from the Ripon Society, which Public Citizen recently exposed as essentially a front group for lobbyists.

It looks like bipartisan ethics reform in the Senate just hit a major landmine: Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barak Obama (D-Ill.) have essentially called each other out on being duplicitous on creating a bipartisan ethics taskforce. You can read McCain’s opening salvo here and Obama’s response here.

Jeffrey Birnbaum has a piece in the Washington Post where he speculates about the effect of the speed of the Jack Abramoff investigation on reform legislation. The piece also contains several tidbits on how things are changing on the Hill, including lobbyists who are offloading their unusable Washington Nationals baseball tickets (now that members of Congress don’t want their aides to be seen out with lobbyists), a lobbyist and aide who normally dine at top-tier restaurants splitting the tab for a meal in a House cafeteria and a rush of Hill staffers to lobbying firms before proposed revolving door reforms are passed.

A business coalition called the Committee for Economic Development has been gearing up to push for lobbying and ethics reforms in the wake of the Abramoff scandal, reports the National Journal. The coalition is made up of CEOs and university presidents who believe that the current system is a “lousy way to do business” with ever-escalating demands for campaign checks and lobbying contracts. The group supported the 2002 McCain-Feingold legislation as well.

Corruption Roundup:

TalkingPointsMemo follows up on the story that Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.) approved earmarks worth $37 million for a company owned by Brent Wilkes, who was one of the central characters in the bribery scandal of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.). Wilkes, it turns out, didn’t even do the work that was appropriated but rather took a cut off the top and passed the work along to a subcontractor. See the San Diego Union-Tribune for more.

The New York Times had a piece this weekend reporting that congressional aides are passing through the revolving door in ever-increasing numbers to become K Street lobbyists and that those from the offices of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), Boehner and Abramoff have been at the forefront of this trend. Having former aides on K Street makes it that much easier to tap into the lobbyist fundraising machine. Boehner has also been at the forefront of GOP fundraising in recent years, USA Today reports. Toughening revolving door restrictions is one reform consistently mentioned by watchdog groups and members of Congress as likely to pass this year. [Via TPM Café and Fired Up! America]

Asbestos is a big topic today, with Public Citizen releasing a new report today on the money behind the politics of the asbestos bill and two pieces in the Hill in a similar vein. One is based on an internal memo by the companies opposed to the asbestos bill detailing a budget for the beginning of this year including $1.3 million for coalition work (possibly of the kind targeted for increased disclosure in Sen McCain’s proposed reforms) and $1.4 million in advertising. The other shines the spotlight on the role that ex-Senate aides are playing in lobbying their former bosses on the asbestos bill.

ThinkProgress notes that the Bush administration is on day 32 of its stonewalling on its dealings with Abramoff.

Roll Call (subscription req.) reports that the Senate Employees’ Day Care Center was a hotbed of lobbyist activity in the 80s and 90s. It also provides another window into how lobbyists steer their clients’ fundraising in Washington through the vignette of a tobacco lobbyist promising to show up to a Center fundraiser with a check from himself and some from his clients.

Roll Call (subscription req.) reports that indicted Bush administration official and Abramoff associate David Safavian is fighting back against Senate investigators by challenging their authority and issuing subpoenas against Senate staffers.

State News

Tennessee has jumped on the 2006 ethics reform wave, with new reform legislation in the wake of its own lobbying scandal, reports the NY Times.

As noted in this morning's Headlines entry, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) are seeking to end corporate-subsidized jet travel for all members of Congress. Current rules allow members to accept payment from private sponsors for food, lodging and transportation costs, so long as the travel is deemed "educational" and related to official duties (i.e., speaking engagements, fact-finding, etc.). But what can be spun as a "fact-finding" tour (Mr. DeLay, I’m looking in your direction) would make even the most cynical policy wonk stutter.

It's a relief to hear congressional leaders talk about banning the use of corporate jets for official travel, but what about banning privately-sponsored travel overall?

McCain's proposal so far does not even touch upon private sponsors paying for the part of trips that aren’t official business – the hotels, restaurants and entertainment. Obama’s proposal, on the other hand, would prohibit a lobbyist or groups with ties to lobbyists from paying for junkets, while non-profit groups with no ties to lobbyists could still sponsor congressional trips. Thus, both proposals have loopholes that, at the very least, threaten their effectiveness.

No one is surprised that even these proposals are encountering resistance within the ranks. (Who would voluntarily give up their luxurious "fact-finding" vacation to St. Andrews golf course in Scotland?) What is surprising, at least to this cautiously optimistic author, is newly-elected Majority Leader Rep. John Boehner’s (R.-Ohio) fierce opposition to the plan.  Boehner ran against Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R.-Mo.) on the platform that he had fewer ties to special interests, and suggested that he would represent a new era in GOP ties to K Street. But in a report this morning by the Associated Press [via the Houston Chronicle], it was suggested that Boehner "defends privately funded travel as essential and suggests continuing to allow the trips if they meet House rules." No explanation was given as to why Boehner thinks these privately-funded trips are "essential." Perhaps he just needs the extra leg room. Any readers out there care to investigate Boehner's ties to the charter jet industry?  Hey, it never hurts to check!

The reasoning behind corporate-sponsored travel has even veered into that wacky, "put a patriotic bumper-sticker on your SUV" territory: Rep. Zach Wamp (R.-Tenn.), suggests that continuing the "Air Congress" lifestyle is critical to fighting the war on terror. Said Wamp:

"We are now in a long-term war against terrorism. If we think that we are going to have cooperation from other freedom-loving countries in the world by isolating ourselves, we are kidding ourselves."

In the end, Sen. Obama puts it best: "Look, this is a subsidy, and this is a way of circumventing finance rules," he said.

We agree whole-heartedly, but even if Obama’s proposal is enacted, there still remain significant loopholes. As Public Citizen noted in a report on Richard Kessler and the Ripon Groups, lobbyists such as Kessler use loopholes in ethics rules to funnel lobbyist money to members in the form of subsidized travel.

McCain might end up banning the use of corporate jets for congressional junkets, but this has yet to be seen in his legislative proposals. Even under Obama's more sweeping proposal, it is possible that a lobbying entity could establish a non-profit group that would pay for congressional travel, as long as the lobbyists involved did not control or direct its finances.

Here's hoping that each party's designated "captains of reform" are serious about shutting down the legalized lobbyist money-laundering that is Air Congress.

Reform Roundup:

Sen. Barak Obama (D-Ill.) turned down an offer on Thursday by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to form a bipartisan task force to write reform legislation, reports Chris Cillizza. Obama is pushing a Democratic bill sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) while McCain has introduced a bipartisan bill cosponsored by Sens. Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.) and Bill Nelson (D-Neb.). The offer apparently was made at a Wednesday meeting convened by McCain to discuss the possibility of bipartisan reform that was also attended by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) and David Vitter (R-La.).

Sens. McCain and Obama are leading the charge on preemptively adopting ethics reforms that may be passed this year: both have quit using corporate-subsidized travel in the form of corporate jets, reports Roll Call (subscription required). Under current law, members of Congress are allowed to take a corporate Lear jet across the country and only reimburse the owner of the jet for the cost of a first class ticket, which is far less than the cost of the flight. McCain said he would like to see the practice banned and sees a Senate rule change as the first avenue to do so. Additionally, Sen. Reid has barred his office from accepting any gifts from lobbyists and any gifts of travel from anyone but non-profits. This is not a foolproof ban, however, since Public Citizen uncovered last month that the “non-profit” Ripon Society was being used by lobbyists as a front group to fly members of Congress all over the world; the practice was also a favorite of admitted-felon/former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The LA Times has more on resistance to travel reform by members of Congress.

New House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) is backing the House Republicans away from reform bills proposed by Sen. McCain and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), reports the Washington Post. Boehner’s office has expressed displeasure at Hastert’s plan to ban all privately funded travel and said that the majority leader endorses “only in concept” McCain’s bill to open every earmark up to challenge. Boehner has signaled that he favors a more disclosure-based approach instead of regulating the relationships between lawmakers and lobbyists. Boehner is expected to push for a plan at a Republican retreat next week. Not everyone is happy with the weak Republican response to the scandal within their ranks. Rep. Mark Souder (R-Ind.) told the Republican conference on Thursday that:

Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff, and the ongoing and disgusting saga of abuse of power and public trust are not just made up by the Democrats… Our entire philosophy is at risk because the American people, and even a large percentage of our own supporters think we have been corrupted.

Roll Call says that legislation to address the Indian gaming aspect of the Abramoff scandal will be introduced by Sen. McCain in his Senate Indian Affairs Committee and by Rep. Pombo (R-Calif.) in his House Resources Committee in the next month or two. The bills could address both the loophole in campaign finance law that allows tribes to make what amounts to corporate campaign contributions to candidates, which are otherwise barred, and the increased regulation of tribal gaming. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) also introduced similar legislation last week.

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), the former House ethics committee chairman forced out by Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Hastert, will introduce ethics reform legislation as early as this week, reports Roll Call. (subscription required)

National Democratic leaders are rushing to put together their 2006 message package, reports Roll Call. (subscription required)  The “honesty plank” is said to be the foundation of the agenda, but it remains to be seen how serious Democrats are about reforming the heart of the lawmaker-lobbyist scandals: the money lobbyists raise for lawmaker’s campaigns.

Corruption Roundup:

New House Republican majority leader Boehner was been working overtime to dispel any notion that he is any different than DeLay: on Sunday he said he would discuss stepping aside from his post for DeLay should he beat the money laundering conspiracy rap down in Texas.  ThinkProgress expands more on the cozy relationship between SallieMae lobbyists and Boehner that Public Citizen pointed out when he was elected majority leader. He also spent time on the Sunday talk shows defending his close ties to lobbyists, reports the LA Times.

Sen. David Inouye (D-Hawaii) and lobbyist Jane Hoover will be honored by a Washington lobbyist group, the Bryce Harlow Foundation, at a black-tie event in April, reports Roll Call.

Bob Novak caught something about Rep. Mike Oxley’s (R-Ohio) loud protestations against revoking the congressional gym privileges for lawmakers-turned-lobbyists: Oxley is retiring this year and is expected to become a lobbyist and will thus lose his own privileges come 2007. [Via ThinkProgress]

The LA Times reports that the Environmental Protection Agency’s own scientific panel lambasted the EPA’s new air pollution regulations that significantly weaken standards for some industries, especially mining and agriculture. Not surprisingly, the changes closely resemble language suggested by industry associations and are  supported by the American Mining Association, among others. [Via PoliticalAnimal] Political Animal also notes that it took lobbyist pressure for Bush to take interest his American Competitiveness Initiative, which is aimed at increasing science and technology education.

Matt Stroller says that the Rove 2006 game plan is likely to include the characteristic play of attacking Democrats on their strongest issue, which this year is congressional ethics. Stroller predicts that Republicans will use the moribund House ethics committee as their tool.

The Nation has a story about a U.S. attorney in Guam who was demoted after investigating Abramoff’s dealings there. Now, the FBI and Department of Justice inspector general are reportedly looking into the demotion. [Via TPM Café]

Ezra Klein echoes the sentiment that Democrats were foolish not to have gone after the Republicans on Abramoff and ethics in the SOTU rebuttal.

Fired Up! America caught an ad in last Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal in which the National Republican Congressional Committee named and saluted the “2005 Businessmen of the Year” who “have successfully integrated business and financial success with the support of Republican ideals.”

Wavering Republican John Cole has this to say about the Republican congressional response to the Abramoff scandal: “I guess the organized strategy for dealing with corruption really is limited to trying to pretend the Abramoff scandal was bi-partisan, because these clowns clearly have no intention to clean up their own house.” Interestingly, a former lobbyist left a comment on his blog that supports Public Citizen’s thesis that “it’s the money, stupid!”: [Via MyDD]

Legislators know how bad it looks that they are in bed with lobbyists, but the alternative, at least in their minds, is to lose out on a lot of money, which means losing their next election, which means being out of power… When I worked at a lobbying firm, we knew we could count on two things: the politicians would accepts the checks, and they would do what we want. It was just that simple. Even the ones that appear to be more principled are not untouchable, because they all need money to fund their campaigns so they can stay in office.

To us, the system doesn’t work – it is [hopelessly] corrupt. To THEM, the system works just fine as long as they stay in office. That helps to explain Shadegg’s “overreact” comment: sure, he wants reform as long as it helps him and the party publicly, but he doesn’t want Congress’ reform efforts to go so far he finds himself out of a job!

Lobbyist Fundraiser Watch: DeLay will be attending a $2,100 a plate fundraiser at the home of a local lobbyist while he’s in Austin for his various legal obligations.

Editorial Roundup:

The Lansing State Journal notes Boehner’s ties to tobacco and SallieMae lobbyists and says “if this is the best Michigan can hope for when it comes to reformist leadership, the worst would be chilling indeed.”

Leadership Roundup:

The Washington Post reports that even though Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) is just as cozy with lobbyists as Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), many House Republicans voted for Boehner because they saw him as a symbolic break with the Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas)-Jack Abramoff scandals. Boehner is not quite the reformer  he portrays in public, however:

He penned a 37-page manifesto calling for a new Republican direction and highlighted his career-long opposition to special-interest pork projects in the federal budget.

He struck a more cautious note in private, assuring Republicans that he would not overreact to the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and eviscerate the lax travel and spending rules they had come to enjoy. As the candidate himself realized, Boehner as the reform candidate was not an easy sell. His beach parties for rich donors were notorious, as were the stories of how he handed out checks from tobacco executives on the House floor a decade ago.

"Yes, I am cozy with lobbyists," he told lawmakers concerned about his K Street connections, "but I have never done anything unethical."

Overall, reporting across the media is fairly uniform: Republicans felt Blunt was too publicly close to lobbyists, and they hope Boehner will help pull them through the DeLay-Abramoff-Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham scandal wave, despite the fact he is no reformer and is just as tight with lobbyists as Blunt. See the AP, N.Y. Times, David Broder , Boston Globe, USA Today, and Roll Call.

More coverage of Boehner’s lack of enthusiasm for substantive ethics reform, and his close ties to lobbyists (including handing out the checks on the House floor), can be found in the N.Y. Times, L.A. Times, Washington Post, more L.A. Times and the Nation.  DailyKos has a good roundup of his ethical lapses and dredges up an old Hill article on his “K Street Cabinet.”

Josh Marshall covers an old story that may come back to haunt Boehner: In 1996 Boehner, Reps. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), DeLay and Dick Armey (R-Texas) held a conference call in which they conspired to plot a “counterattack against a finding of the House ethics committee – something Gingrich was explicitly prohibited from doing as a condition of the punishment he received for various ethical infractions.” Long story short, someone picked up the signal from Boehner’s cellphone, recorded it and sent it to Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wa.), who in turn leaked it to the press. Boehner then sued McDermott (thus taking the attention off the unethical act he was caught doing) and is still pursuing the case to this day. Go to TalkingPointsMemo for more.

The Hill reports that both Boehner and Blunt distributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to their colleagues’ campaign committees in the final month of 2005, in anticipation of the leadership race. As usually happens in elections, the bigger spender won – Boehner distributed $160,000 ($150,000 on one day) versus Blunt’s $110,000.

Other news:

On the reform front, the House Republican ethics bill, originally scheduled to be released this week, will be delayed by at least another week. Rep. Mike Oxley (R-Ohio) led the charge against the recent change to House rules that would revoke the gym privileges of lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. In the Senate, Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), chairman of the Rules and Administration committee, has scheduled a hearing for Feb. 8 to look at ethics reform, and Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Joe Lieberman (D-Conn.), and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) announced  they will work with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on a bipartisan reform bill. All this and more in Roll Call.

The Washington Post gives a backgrounder on earmarks and their growth over the last few years. Roll Call reports that Sens. Lott and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) proposed “modest” earmark reform yesterday that would put some earmarks up for specific votes and disclose the sponsors of earmarks.

TalkingPointsMemo points out that the now might be a good time for the House ethics committee to start investigating the multiple representatives embroiled in ethics scandals.

TPM Café has a story on a bankruptcy judge who is openly deriding how financial services industry lobbyists helped turn last year’s bankruptcy “reform” bill into a tragic burden for the indebted    families that produce the industry’s profits.

Rep. Ernest Isatook (R-Okla.) held two fundraisers at Abramoff’s Washington Redskins skybox – and forgot to pay for them for two years, reports the AP. [Via TPM Café]

Most Senate Democrats have signed a letter calling on the Department of Justice to appoint a special prosecutor, a la Patrick Fitzgerald, to take over the Abramoff investigation, citing the Bush administration’s stonewalling on releasing records of Abramoff’s meetings at the White House.  Public Citizen’s Clean Up Washington has an action page where you can call on your representative and senators to demand that Bush release those records.

ThinkProgress reports that Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are digging deeper into the Abramoff-Safavian scandal and a new figure in it: a former White House lawyer named Timothy Flanigan, who withdrew his nomination for deputy attorney general as the scandal heated up.

Abramoff’s former firm, the Alexander Strategy Group, shut its doors last month under the weight of the scandal, but its principals are already looking to form another firm, reports the Nation. It also uncovers connections between Alexander, the disgraced Cunningham and DeLay. [Via TPM Café]

A little-noticed section of the Medicare drug bill will result in up to $40 billion in extra profits for pharmaceutical companies, reports Knight Ridder. The windfall is due to a shifting of seniors from Medicaid, which requires drug companies to give the government the lowest price available for drugs, to Medicare, which depends on market forces to lower prices, which turns out to be not so effective. [Via PoliticalAnimal] For more on how the drug industry is using corrupt Washington practices at the expense of Americans, see Public Citizen’s write-up.

Editorial Roundup

The San Francisco Chronicle notes Boehner’s ties to lobbyists and calls on him to propose tough new ethics rules for lawmakers to “break their unholy alliances with special interests.”

The Boston Globe scoffs at the ethics proposals made thus far and calls for public financing of Congressional elections as the only way to clean up Washington.

The Houston Chronicle says it would “take a finely calibrated scientific instrument to discern differences between DeLay and Boehner or Blunt” and call’s Boehner’s election a choice for “minimal reform.”

The Orlando Sentinel calls for comprehensive earmark reform:

The Allentown (Pa.) Morning Call prints an op-ed that calls for the state legislature to pass ethics and lobbying reform.

Would you lobby a sweaty member of Congress?

As House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) attempts to show he is serious about reform in the midst of the Abramoff lobbyist/bribery scandal, his efforts are already being met with derision – and opposition from his own party.

The first reform put up for a vote in the House yesterday would remove the Congressional gym privileges, enjoyed by all former members, from those who become lobbyists. (As 43 percent of them have done since 1998, according to Public Citizen research.)

Looking at many members of Congress, it’s hard to imagine they are in the gym long enough to be lobbied, and the bill passed overwhelmingly, 379-50. But it was also met with skepticism by some Republicans, and outright derision by Democrats. As Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said, "I've been going to the gym for 14 years, and nobody's in there lobbying.” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) noted that he hadn’t been lobbied in the gym in 24 years, thoughtfully adding, "Of course, I'm pretty ugly naked." (Thanks for the image, Harry.) Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) jokingly suggested a compromise, in which former members would have to give up an exercise machine to current members, if asked.

All joking aside, though, the fact the Republican leadership would start with such a minor reform is not a good sign. While Public Citizen supports this (and the more consequential measure of banning ex-members-turned-lobbyists from the House floor, also included in the measure), such reforms are merely a drop in the bucket, given the magnitude of the current scandals.

Ominously, the Washington Post reports that many House Republicans are already resisting Hastert’s more serious proposed reform, namely banning all privately funded travel by members. (Think golfing trips at lavish resorts…) Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), who just won an election to replace Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) as House majority leader, calls the ban “childish.” Others are balking at a proposed limit on gifts from lobbyists, saying that mere disclosure is good enough.

Of course, travel bans or gift limits are themselves only next steps, and so far, no one is talking about the real heart of the issue, which is stopping lobbyists from fundraising for members…and ultimately public financing of federal elections.

House Republicans appear to be headed toward rejecting the chance to install a leadership free of the ties to lobbyists that have defined the current leadership of Reps. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), Tom DeLay (R-Texas) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), reports the LA Times. First, House Republicans rejected a bid to put all the leadership posts below the Speaker up for election and now appear poised to elect Blunt as majority leader, whose extensive ties to DeLay and Washington lobbyists are detailed in the Public Citizen report Unfit to Lead. Salon has more on Blunt. The Washington Post has more background info on the leadership elections and Townhall.com has details on how Boehner and Shadegg responded to a questionnaire from Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) that puts ethics reform in the spotlight.

The Bush Administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court today defending the 2003 redistricting in Texas, reports the Washington Post. Justice Department lawyers initially judged the plan to be in violation of the Voting Right Act, but they were overridden by political appointees. The redistricting effort was led by DeLay, whose actions led to an admonishment by the House Ethics Committee and are at the heart of his Texas money laundering indictment.

DeLay, meanwhile, is having problems raising enough money for his campaign and his legal defense fund. [Via DailyKos] He may need to kick fundraising into high gear because his legal expenses could mount as Texas prosecutors dig deeper into his relationship with Jack Abramoff, including the golf junket they took to Scotland together in 2000.

The Washington Post’s Jeffrey Birnbaum details how a loophole in campaign finance law allows Indian tribes to make more campaign contributions than are otherwise allowed. Political Moneyline estimates that tribes contributed about $25 million from 2000 to 2005. 

The DailyKos fleshes out the links between the Bush Administration, Abramoff, Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Calif.) and others.

Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) absurd denials of his involvement in the K Street project are given the once over by SantorumExposed.  The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Tom Ferrick Jr. has more.

Hotline profiles a secretive group of wealthy businessmen that have financed the campaigns of Sens. John Thune (R-S.D.) and Mel Martinez (R-Fla.) and will be sponsoring Senate hopeful Michael Steele and Santorum this year.

Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) is in more trouble, this time for utilizing a Pentagon employee a military appropriations aide in an apparent violation of House rules and a definite conflict of interest, reports The Hill. Lewis was recently exposed by USA Today for preserving the pet project of an investment firm that just happened to have raised over $100,000 for him a few days previously. [Via TPM Café]

Mark Schmitt asks reporters to call B.S. on the conflation of corruption scandals and “activist judges” in the State of the Union at TPM Café.  Reed Hunt, meanwhile, says the appropriate Democratic response to the speech opens with a pledge to clean up the corruption scandals sown by Republicans.  Bush may have gotten the memo: yesterday he told Reuters that “we've got to examine what laws are necessary to prevent people from, you know, taking advantage of the system.”

A Coalition Provisional Authority official will plead guilty today to conspiracy in relation to the $1 million he defrauded the CPA out of and $2 million in kickbacks he received from contractors. [Via TPM Café]

California got one step closer to the public financing of elections yesterday when a clean elections bill passed the state assembly, reports the LA Times. The bill’s author explained the problem succinctly: “Everybody's worn out by this incessant fund-raising, the ceaseless dialing for dollars… Everybody knows that it skews the system. Who do we work for? The people pay our salary. But then we are dependent on special interests to get elected.”

Peddling influence in Georgia is a growth industry: more than $1.1 million was spent by lobbyists on entertainment for state officials, up a quarter million dollars from last year, reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

New Jersey politicos just don’t seem to be getting the message: nearly 2,000 lawmakers, businessmen and lobbyists will be riding what reformers are calling “the greed train,” a chartered train that makes an annual trip to Washington, reports the AP.  [Via TPM Café]

Editorial Roundup

The Washington Post supports reforms proposed by House Democrats to bring more openness into House operations.

The Arkansas Leader calls the ethics reforms proposed thus far decidedly ineffective and calls for comprehensive reform of the same practices at the state level.

As one of the few Americans who stayed awake or tuned in long enough to see the Democrats’ response to President Bush’s State of the Union address last night, I was not particularly bowled over. And that’s putting it mildly.

There was one striking aspect of the speech by newly elected Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine, but the problem is that it was striking only by its conspicuous absence. Kaine didn’t mention the word “corruption” a single time - not once. Nor, for that matter, did the word “Abramoff” cross the governor’s lips.

Did the Democrats think there was a shortage of material on this subject? If so, here’s a quick review of just the past six months, which might help jog their memories and get them back on message:

• Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) was forced to step down from his majority leader position after being indicted for money-laundering in Texas.
• Former Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, a close friend and colleague of Tom DeLay as well as Bush’s political guru, Karl Rove, has pled guilty to bribery and related crimes in the largest corruption scandal to hit Washington in decades.
• President Bush is stubbornly refusing to discuss the many meetings Abramoff had within the White House.
• Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) had to resign after admitting he took up to $2.4 million in bribes, and is probably facing jail time as a result.
• Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) has been identified as “Representative #1” in the Abramoff indictment, and has been forced to step down as chair of the House Administration Committee while the federal investigation continues.
• David Safavian, the Bush administration's top federal procurement official, was arrested and charged with lying and obstructing the criminal investigation into Jack Abramoff's dealings.
• Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, “Scooter” Libby, was indicted for lying to a grand jury in the investigation of who leaked the identity of former CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame.
• Members of Congress are taking trips to lavish resorts courtesy of special interests and their lobbyists.
• Lobbyists are raising millions of dollars for the very members of Congress they lobby.
• The House ethics committee has failed to launch a single investigation into any of this.
• Millions of senior citizens are failing to get basic medicine under the new Republican Medicare drug plan, a $500 billion monstrosity written to benefit drug companies and the HMO/insurance industry…and states are having to pick up the tab, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
• Oil companies like Exxon-Mobil are making record, profits -- $10.7 billion for Exxon-Mobil in just the last quarter of 2005 -- while you pay record prices for gas and heating oil… yet the energy bill passed by Congress last year delivers billions in taxpayer subsidies to these same oil companies.

All this, and the Democrats did not see fit to mention the word “corruption” in their official response…not even once? Not to sound clichéd, but where’s the outrage?

Rep. Tom DeLay’s (R-Texas) legal defense fund is finding that one of its biggest sources of funding – Republican members of Congress whom he used to rule as majority leader – is drying up while his legal bills escalate, reports the Houston Chronicle. The Chronicle got the records ahead of their release, but as soon as they’re out, look for them on CleanUpWashington.org.

Another reason for Bush to release all the records of his administration’s contacts with admitted-felon/former super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff: protecting national security. Fired Up! America details how actions taken by the administration at Abramoff’s urging were judged in an internal review to “seriously jeopardize the national security” of the U.S. If you’d like to urge your representative or senator to push Bush to release these records, take the latest CleanUpWashington action here.

The Hill notes that Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) has had more former aides become K Street lobbyists than the other two candidates for House Republican majority leader, Reps. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and John Shadegg (R-Ariz.). Public Citizen, however, noted in a recent report  that Blunt’s former aides have wasted no time in moving into highly influential K Street positions that have given Blunt access to vast fundraising efforts. A few academic commenters note that while the revolving door has traditionally served as an avenue to power, the renewed public attention to the often scandalous role of lobbyists in Washington may make it a liability this year. The Hill and the Washington Post also note that the upcoming budget vote could make or break Blunt’s bid for majority leader.

Several Capitol Hill offices are restricting their dealings with lobbyists – including rules on acceptance of gifts and trips – in advance of expected lobbying reform legislation, The Hill reports. Sen. George Allen (R-Va.), meanwhile, has scheduled a Super Bowl fundraiser hosted by two lawmakers-turned-lobbyists: former Reps. Steve Largent (R-Okla.) and Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), reports the Fix.

A new poll from the Club for Growth, of all groups, shows that congressional Republicans could get their clocks cleaned by Democrats in 2006, and voters cite ethics issues as second only to Iraq in their calculations. Democrats, however, don’t entirely have it in the bag, as their favorable/unfavorable ratings are not much better than the Republicans. A new CBS/NY Times poll also shows low approval ratings for Congress, while revealing that a stunning 77 percent of Americans think that bribes from lobbyists to lawmakers are just “the way things work in Congress.”

The LA Times reported today that majority leader candidate Boehner denounced parts of House Speaker Dennis Hastert’s (R-Ill.) new – and decidedly mediocre – ethics plan as an overreaction to the Abramoff scandal. The bill is expected to include a ban on privately funded travel, impose tighter restrictions on gifts, require more disclosure for lobbyists and, possibly, place restrictions on 527 groups, one of the last remaining avenues for soft money. Meanwhile, some Republicans not in the party’s leadership are pushing for earmark reform, reports Roll Call. Meanwhile Rep. David Dreier’s (R-Calif.) House Rules Committee voted yesterday to revoke the floor and gym privileges of lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Real reform, however, must restrict the number one conduit of questionable money into Congress: fundraising by lobbyists. Look for Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook to advocate just that at the House Government Reform Committee hearings today.

The Hill notes that Reps. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) and John Doolittle (R-Calif.) have managed to amass substantial campaign war chests despite their deep involvement with Jack Abramoff. Public Citizen notes that this is not a coincidence – until you get lobbyists out of fundraising there will always be another scandal around the corner.

Blunt, the acting Republican House majority leader, is refusing to schedule a vote on giving the Marianas Islands a non-voting delegate in the House, The Hill reports. This is consistent with DeLay’s past practice of protecting the Marianas’ sweatshop-permitting labor laws, which he did at the behest of Jack Abramoff, who represented the islands. Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), in fact, lays the blame for the years of stalling on the non-voting delegate measure squarely at the feet of Abramoff’s mechanizations.

In more Abramoff news, TPM Café outlines how Abramoff’s former firm, the Alexander Strategy Group (which has since shut down under a cloud of scandal) and the Heritage Foundation were involved in a web of front companies and fake non-profit groups used to launder lobbying cash from Asian clients through Hong Kong.

Roll Call has an amusing story on how a dinner for current and former DeLay aides is being held not at some fancy four star restaurant but in a mediocre restaurant on the Hill. Not attending: several former DeLay aides under investigation for their involvement in the Abramoff affair.

Sen. Rick Santorum’s (R-Pa.) denials of his heavy involvement with the K Street project don’t fit the facts, says Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute in Roll Call.

Rep. Tom Feeney’s (R-N.Y.) questionable fundraisers involving lobbyists are given the once-over by the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle [Via TPM Café]

Rep. Ander Crenshaw (R-Fla.) may have some DeLay-Abramoff problems of his own, reports the Florida Times-Union. [Via TPM Café]

Grassroots groups, by and large, have no problems with the new reforms proposed by Reps. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) and Marty Meehan (D-Mass.), and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) that would require  lobbyists to disclose their involvement in grassroots organizing activity (or it’s disreputable cousin, the fake grassroots campaign practice known as “astroturf”), reports The Hill. A representative of the National Association of Manufacturers, however, is concerned that such requirements would be too onerous and dissuade his members from lobbying Congress. But we’re sure his multi-million dollar organization and its corporate members will do just fine.

Roll Call notes that the effort to put the entire House Republican leadership up for reelection has failed.

A final note to finish off the idea that lawmakers go through the revolving door to become lobbyists because they believe in their clients’ causes: former senator and trial lawyer hater-in-chief Alfonse D’Amato (R-N.Y.) has just signed up to be a lobbyist for – wait for it – some trial lawyers. The Hill has more.