Proposed ethics reforms target trips, "earmarks"

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers will still be able to hop on a plane and decamp to touristy hot spots on someone else's dime. But under new rules coming up for a vote today, they will have a lot more explaining to do.

The new rules, unveiled Wednesday, expand current bans on some privately financed trips, prohibit travel on corporate jets and require greater public disclosure of targeted, and often hidden, special-interest legislation.

While more restrictive, the new standards rely less on prohibiting behavior than they do on shining more light on how Congress goes about its business.

The rules will continue prohibitions on travel paid for by lobbyists, representatives of foreign entities or groups that employ lobbyists or foreign agents. All other privately financed trips would require pre-approval by the House ethics committee and detailed descriptions of their purpose.

The biggest current spenders on congressional travel are educational or advocacy foundations that send congressional delegations around the globe. Some are groups founded by lobbyists or affiliated to organizations that lobby Congress. Under the new rules, the House ethics committee would have to determine whether the trips sponsored by such groups are educational in nature or junkets with no such value.

Lawmakers will still be able to load legislation with funding that benefits special interests. But they'll have to put that work, often hidden in the past, on display for everyone to see. Congressional committees will have to specifically highlight such provisions in legislation and identify the lawmakers seeking them. In addition, committees will have to make public all requests made by lawmakers for such funding, called "earmarks."

"They will be reduced, not eliminated," said incoming Democratic leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md.

Lobbyists would be prohibited from giving any gifts to members of Congress. Current rules permit gifts of $50. Tickets to entertainment events would have to be priced at face value — a restriction aimed at ending a practice of pricing professional basketball or ice hockey tickets at $49 to escape the ceiling on gifts.

Watchdog groups applauded the Democratic proposals as significant steps toward curbing the means by which lobbyists seek to influence members of Congress. They particularly singled out the travel restrictions and prohibitions on use of corporate jets as an important way to curb often uncommon access by lobbyists to lawmakers.

"We think this is a strong package in addressing the abuses that have been occurring in private travel, in providing gifts, meals and entertainment to lawmakers and in corporations making their planes available to members at very low costs," said Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, an independent advocacy group for tougher ethics rules.

Still, watchdog groups and lawmakers such as Meehan continued to insist that Congress needs to pass legislation creating an independent office of public integrity to assist in the policing and enforcement of ethics rules.

"In the ideal world, we would want privately financed travel banned," said Meredith McGehee, policy director of the Campaign Legal Center. "However, in these days of budget deficits and accusations of junkets, there is political reality and it's not going to happen at this moment."

The changes are an outgrowth of the travel and lobbying scandals associated with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who arranged for golfing trips in Scotland for former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, and others. Abramoff pleaded guilty to public-corruption charges for seeking to buy influence in Congress.

The reputation of the Republican-led Congress was further marred when former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., said he accepted $2.4 million in bribes to insert provisions in legislation to help defense contractors. Cunningham is serving an eight-year prison sentence.

In a related development on Wednesday, House ethics-committee members said Rep. Tom Feeney has agreed to pay the costs of a 2003 trip to Scotland that apparently was paid for by Abramoff or his clients.

Feeney, R-Fla., sought committee review in March 2005, after news reports said Abramoff financed the trip rather than the sponsor Feeney listed on a disclosure form. He reported the expenses as $5,643, purportedly paid by The National Center for Public Policy Research.

Feeney agreed to pay the cost of the trip to the U.S. Treasury, said the statement by Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., ethics-committee chairman, and ranking Democrat Howard Berman of California.