For once, Tom DeLay may have done the country a service, by confirming what voters have long suspected: There's something rotten in Washington. From the Credit Mobilier railroad stock fraud of the 1870s to Watergate in the 1970s, corruption has provided some of democracy's greatest teaching moments. Americans deserve more than just seeing the House majority leader lose the power he has been abusing. It's time to drain the swamp that breeds these scandals in the first place.
Washington, like Las Vegas, has never been entirely on the level. But today, an unfortunate series of events -- the polarization of American politics, the explosive growth of the lobbying industry, and the prolonged reign of one-party government -- has combined to give private interests their strongest grip on the nation's capital since the Gilded Age. Without sweeping changes in the way Washington works, the interests of ordinary people don't stand a chance.
Neither party has clean hands, but the party that runs the nation's capital deserves most of the blame for its corruption. Republicans have cynically and deliberately aligned themselves with private interests. They have coerced firms to hire Republican lobbyists, and made businesses agree to support all the president's budget-busting tax cuts if they ever want to see another tax break. George W. Bush pledged to restore integrity to government, but his party has done more to restore payola instead.
In part because Bush never kept his promise to "change the tone in Washington," the changes his company town needs are now much more profound. In 2008, Americans should demand a president who will put Washington in line with America's values.
From the outset, it's important to understand that most of Washington is not Jack Abramoff, the infamous lobbyist who charged clients $82 million for his close connections with DeLay and
other GOP leaders. Most members of Congress and their staffs are incorruptible. Most lobbyists aren't trying to corrupt them. Most organizations aren't running what my colleague Marshall Wittmann calls "a Global PGA Tournament" for members of Congress, the way Abramoff did.
Thanks to Abramoff, a few politicians may have found the rough at St. Andrews. But most endure the
kind of travel the Democratic Leadership Council offers, to such exotic locations as Columbus, Ohio;
Indianapolis; or Philadelphia. (Second prize: two DLC National Conversations in Philadelphia.)
Contrary to conventional wisdom, most politicians' votes are not for sale. Only one congressman in 10 faces a competitive race, and raising money is ridiculously easy for the incumbent, whether he votes like DeLay or like Vermont's socialist representative, Bernie Sanders. In my experience, most
members of Congress are Eagle-Scout earnest, and most nonprofits in Washington are, too.
For the DLC's sake, I wish it were possible to revive the vital center in American politics by luring elected officials to endless wonkfests in stuffy hotel ballrooms from Phoenix to New Orleans, but most politicians prefer to make up their own minds, even when we throw in a free bottle of Excedrin.
DeLay and Abramoff notwithstanding, the real problem with Washington today isn't that the players are corrupt. It's that the rules of the road weren't designed to withstand one-party rule.
The bipartisanship of Howard Baker, a lifelong Republican whose hard questions helped bring down the Nixon administration, has given way to a partisan era of people who spout the party line first, and ask questions later. Trust is low, and the stakes are high -- with a $2 trillion tax code up for grabs
and a burgeoning influence industry competing for advantage.
What's a democracy to do? Here are 10 sweeping reforms for draining the swamp. These ideas have one virtue in common: Washington won't like them, and America will.
1. Don't let the revolving door hit you on the way out. As if controlling
all three branches of government weren't enough, Republicans have created another one with equal
power: K Street. In today's Washington, the Fourth Estate is no longer the press; it's the lobbyists. The
Founders imagined that three branches would provide checks and balances. The new fourth branch is
more efficient: It just provides checks.
For more than a decade, DeLay has marshaled the K Street Project to muscle lobbying firms, trade associations, and companies into hiring only Republicans and not Democrats. Republicans didn't launch the K Street Project out of greed or partisan animosity. They had a more devious goal: to corner the lobbyist market. DeLay understood what a central and permanent role the lobbying community plays in the Washington scene: writing campaign checks; providing technical expertise; and offering every player in the cyclical business of politics a profession to fall back on.
There's nothing inherently wrong with lobbying. In a representative democracy, companies, groups, and individuals have the right to hire someone to represent their interests. All lobbyists maintain that they provide a service by helping government make informed decisions, and sometimes this is actually true.
But let's face it: The rules lobbyists live by were written before the Gold Rush. According to the Center for Public Integrity, lobbying expenditures have doubled in the past six years, to a breathtaking $5.4 billion during the last Congress. That's twice what candidates spent running for federal office.
Abramoff, DeLay's favorite lobbyist, is the poster child for why the old rules don't work in the new moneyed era. Abramoff stands charged with both wielding excessive influence and fraudulently overstating it. The parable is one any conservative economist or preacher could have written: The wages of sin may be death, but you can't beat the year-end bonus.
In Washington's jaundiced view, Abramoff's real sin isn't peddling influence; it's price gouging. The tribes, the oversight committees, and the national press might have looked the other way if he
hadn't pocketed $82 million for his services. Abramoff committed the ultimate breach of ethics and etiquette: demanding eight figures in a seven-figure town.
Democrats need their own K Street Project -- not to get more Democrats hired as lobbyists, but to reform the political system so that Washington lives by a clear set of rules that protect the public interest.
The place to start is by closing the revolving door. According to the Center for Public Integrity, more than 240 former members of Congress and agency heads are active lobbyists -- double the number of a decade ago. So are more than 2,000 former senior government officials. DeLay has sent more than half a dozen top staffers to lucrative careers on K Street, including Michael Scanlon, who became
Abramoff's partner.
Look at the list of former members and cabinet heads who have moved downtown since the last election: Tom Daschle, Don Nickles, Jennifer Dunn, John Ashcroft. Former Sen. Bob Dole made headlines when he switched firms for a reported $1 million salary, then enticed Daschle to join him.
No one can begrudge Dole and Daschle, two of the classiest men in their respective parties, the chance to earn a good living after decades of public service. But you know something's awry when the K Street Caucus of members-turned-lobbyists rivals the size of either party's caucus in the House of Representatives.
The greatest danger of the lobbying boom may be its "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" impact on those who haven't yet left government. Rep. Billy Tauzin took a $2 million-a-year job as the pharmaceutical industry's top lobbyist just months after writing the Medicare prescription
drug bill. Tom Scully, Bush's point man on that bill, and several Hill staffers from both parties also
left to lobby on the issue.
We may never stop the revolving door completely, but we can slow it down. Today, the only restriction on former congressmen and former administration officials is a one-year "cooling off " period during which they can advise clients on legislative strategy but can't lobby face to face.
In practice, the rule is more about warming up than cooling down, giving ex-officials time to find clients and get used to life after government.
To stop the revolving door, we need a real cooling-off period of at least four years for members of
Congress, their senior staff, and senior administration officials. Private interests would still be
able to hire former officials for their political and policy expertise. But for four years -- two congressional cycles, one presidential term -- those who've served couldn't lean on those
they hired or others with whom they served.
Lobbying has its place, but it shouldn't be a jobs program. In 1993, House Speaker Tom Foley
warned President Clinton not to pursue campaign finance and lobbying reform: "Members will think you're out to take away their current livelihoods and their future livelihoods in one fell swoop." The irony is painful, and instructive: Failing to embrace reform before the 1994 election was one reason Foley and a record number of his colleagues found themselves looking for that next job when
it was over.
2. Check your conflicts at the door. One of the biggest loopholes in our
current ethics laws is what might be called the Cheney rule: Conflicts of interests are forbidden for one year after you leave government, but when you enter government service, you can bring in all the conflicts of interest you like. The law assumes that the revolving door goes one way -- out. But Vice
President Dick Cheney, who headed the administration's energy task force just months after stepping down as CEO of an energy company, showed how you can bring them in. He is the latest proof that conflicts can be the work of a lifetime.
Presidents often tap a top lobbyist to be the top lobbyist for the agendas of their administrations. But Bush went further, and put one in charge of his White House: Andrew Card, who was a $600,000-a-year lobbyist for the automobile industry. When a senior administration official leaves to become a lobbyist, he can't lobby the government for a year on issues that crossed his desk. But when a
lobbyist becomes a senior administration official, he can cajole his government colleagues on the same issues he was paid to represent on K Street -- to the benefit of interests eager to repay him when he returns from his foray into government.
If protecting the public trust is our first concern, revolving door rules should be even tougher on the
way in than on the way out. The next president should issue an executive order prohibiting appointees from working on matters that affect companies and industries they used to represent.
3. Require lobby disclosure in real time. Under current law, lobbyists only have to disclose who they're working for once every six months -- and they don't have to reveal anything about which elected or appointed officials they talked to, or what they talked about. If disclosure is going to do any good, it should happen in real time, not six months later. Twice a month, lobbyists should disclose on the Internet the names of members of Congress, administration
appointees, and staff they meet with, and what specific legislative or regulatory matters they discuss. This is what John Kerry and John Edwards proposed in the 2004 campaign. If we require
members of Congress to disclose every dollar they receive in campaign contributions, it's not too much to ask lobbyists to disclose their clients' requests for favors from members. This is especially
true in light of revelations that DeLay's chief whip in the House, Roy Blunt (RMo.), uses K Street lobbyists as part of the Republican whip operation to round up votes for their shared agenda.
4. Take the quid out of quid pro quo. Former Rep. Nick Smith (RMich.) claimed that during the Medicare debate, the Republican leadership offered to raise $100,000 for his son's congressional campaign if Smith voted their way. It should be a federal
crime for any interest to do what Smith accused the GOP leadership of doing: offering to raise or threatening to withhold campaign contributions in exchange for a member's vote.
5. Break the fund-raising circuit. Campaign money doesn't affect member
voting as much as one might think. Even so, the money chase has a less direct, but still pernicious effect, by enshrining a Beltway culture far removed from heartland values.
Members of Congress and lobbyists spend much of their waking lives on the Washington fund-raising circuit -- and most of them hate it. A system of public campaign financing -- along with a
cap on consultant fees -- would spare members even the appearance of conflicts of interest, and let lobbyists walk away from a never-ending ante that nobody wins. My colleague Paul Weinstein of the Progressive Policy Institute has proposed a perfect way to pay for it: a $2,000 annual fee for lobbyists,
consultants, and government contractors.
6. Create a real Ethics Committee. Republicans are running Congress like
the Soviet politburo, continually changing the rules to protect the guilty. In November, they tried to drop a longstanding requirement that indicted party leaders resign their posts. In January, the leadership restored that rule, but diluted the Ethics Committee's other powers -- only to restore them
under pressure three months later.
The bipartisan bitterness of these chronic partisan wrangles, from Jim Wright to Newt Gingrich to DeLay, suggests a stronger cure is needed. The institution ought to establish an independent ethics committee, made up of retired members, retired federal judges, and ordinary citizens. In the end, Congress has to police itself. But a truly independent, bipartisan committee of outsiders would have its own policing power: the power to shame.
7. Make Congress put responsibility before personal gain. As DeLay's defenders point out, some of the charges against him involve practices that are commonplace and perfectly legal. For example, many members hire their children to help run their campaigns. Yet, just because this practice may be widespread doesn't mean it should be legal. Most states have strong anti-nepotism laws. A federal judge can go to jail for five years for appointing her great-grandson
as a trustee in a case before her. The issue is not whether politicians' children are qualified to run political campaigns; it's whether public officials should be able to use their public position for personal benefit. Why should a member of Congress be able to pay his daughter a campaign salary
that would raise eyebrows if she were the congressman's administrative assistant?
There's another easy way for Congress to prove it understands that public responsibility comes
before personal gain. Members of Congress should stop giving themselves cost-of-living increases until the federal government stops running a deficit and spending the Social Security trust fund. Responsibility begins at the top.
8. Reform begins at home. Retiring from Congress or the presidency is a
better deal than getting Social Security. Members receive an inflation-adjusted defined benefit based on how long they served. Like other federal employees, they can put up to $14,000 a year into the Thrift Savings Plan, a third of which is matched by the government. Former presidents receive an annual pension of $180,000 -- even though they can earn that much for a single speech.
As Congress and the president set out to reform Social Security, they should put their own house in order. Any changes in Social Security should also apply to congressional and executive branch pensions. Ordinary citizens who save for retirement should qualify for the same match as members
of Congress. Congressional and presidential pensions should be means-tested for retirees who earn
more than they did in office.
9. End corporate welfare. The Washington swamp feeds off one
source above all others: loopholes in the tax code. Take away the font of special privilege, and the culture around it will be hard-pressed to survive. Paul Weinstein has proposed a tax reform plan designed to reverse Washington's priorities, by closing corporate loopholes and rewarding middle-class work and savings instead.
Consider this classic Washington irony: There's even a loophole for time spent writing loopholes. Legal expenses are tax-deductible; lobbying costs are not -- all the more reason to hire that K Street hybrid, the lawyer-lobbyist. By underreporting lobbying expenditures and billing their hours as legal work instead, firms can save clients money -- or charge them more.
10. Bring back democracy. One last missing factor is vital for us to succeed
in draining the swamp: competition. Ten years ago, Republicans swept into office on a promise of congressional, ethical, and lobbying reform. Now they couldn't care less about living up to the Contract with America, even though Americans have it in writing.
Why? Because as Ed Kilgore points out, for most of them -- and their Democratic counterparts -- the fix is in: The House member always wins. Across the country, congressional redistricting has become an engine of polarization, partisanship, and incumbency. At a time when the electorate is almost evenly divided, only one in eight congressional races ends up closer than 10 points. Members are
far more likely to leave Congress to become lobbyists than to be defeated.
In some states, like Texas, ruthless gerrymandering has been used for partisan gain. In other states, like California, the two parties have conspired to protect every incumbent from a competitive race.
Monopolies are as harmful in politics as in the marketplace. Competition keeps incumbents honest.
When politicians don't have to answer to the public, too often they learn to serve other masters.
It's time to end the incumbent protection racket. Democrats should follow the lead of Betty Castor, a 2004 Senate candidate in Florida, and fight for state constitutional amendments that require competition to be a major factor in redistricting.
It's sad and ironic that democracy is making such great strides in the Middle East at the same time it's taking such a beating in the Mid-Atlantic. As these latest scandals have shown, our nation's capital has its share of purple fingers -- usually from grubbing for a bigger piece of the public pie.
But it's not too late for this sorry chapter to have a happy ending. Some of the greatest strides in the history of the progressive movement -- at the turn of the century and in the 1930s -- were fueled by popular outrage at private intrigue on the public square.
If we have the courage to embrace reform, even when it hurts, we'll do more than prosecute these scandals. We'll drain the swamp that breeds them.
