The Ship of State Travels Slowly

Oh dear. I knew Nancy Pelosi was heroically pushing strong lobbying and ethics reform bills (modeled after the Honest and Open Government Acts from last year) and meeting some resistance. Well, when the bill got marked up today, one of the key items was stripped out of it.

The House Judiciary Committee has stripped from a lobbying overhaul bill a provision that would have extended the current ban on “revolving door” practices from one year to two.

During a Thursday markup of the bill (HR 2316), the panel also changed the measure to allow members to negotiate for an outside job in secret while still representing their constituents.

Both moves are sure to draw strong opposition, including from some Democrats, when the measure reaches the floor next week, but both had the support of Chairman John Conyers Jr., D-Mich., and ranking member Lamar Smith, R-Texas.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. It's hard to tell someone like John Conyers, who's been in the Congress since, I don't know, Lincoln, that what he's been doing all of these years needs to change. But it does, because the public has lost confidence in the Congress' ability to cleanly deal with the nation's issues and not make themselves personally wealthy in the process. The House also rejected a proposal to stop lobbyists from throwing parties at the nominating conventions.

Ultimately, it's going to take a lot more hard work before these sensible ethics standards are adopted. Nobody wants to eliminate lobbying, a fundamental right enshrined in the Constitution. It needs to be regulated and disclosed, and split from the money that it trafficks in.