CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS
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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

• Relevant Constitutional Provisions
• ---each chamber judges qualifications of its
  own members
• ---each chamber makes own rules, punishes for
  disorderly behavior, and (with 2/3 vote) expels
• ---members are privileged from arrest in
  performance of official duties shall not be
  questioned in any other Place for things they
  say in floor debate

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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

• 1958 Ethics Code positive principles
• Big 1960s scandals
• ---Adam Clayton Powell (violations, exclusion,
  Supreme Court case)
• ---Thomas Dodd mixing campaign and personal funds
• ---Bobby Baker (staffer) influence-peddling

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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

• Why the Increased Attention to Ethics in
  1960s-1970s
• --Watergate and Vietnam
• --emergence of goo goo groups like Common Cause
• --With more power, bigger staff, and bigger
  budgets, Congress was a bigger target
• --During times of increased partisanship, both
  parties found that they could use ethics charges
  as hammer to bash the other party

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Congressional Ethics

• Creation of House and Senate Ethics Committees
• 1968 Ethics Code restrictions on gifts,
  honoraria, personal use of campaign funds,
  ghost employees
• BIG SCANDALS OF 1970s/1980s
• 1.) Koreagate
• 2.) Abscam FBI Sting Operation, resulted in
  one expulsion and five forced resignations
• 3.) Keating Five related to bigger scandal
  about inadequate Federal regulation of savings
  and loan industry
• 4.) Sex scandals Wilbur Mills, Wayne Hays and
  his secretary/mistress, page scandals, Packwood

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Congressional Ethics

• Commonly used penalties for recent ethics
  violations
• 1.) Expulsion (2/3 vote)
• 2.) Censure
• 3.) Reprimand
• 4.) Senate innovations denounce, rebuke,
  condemn

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Congressional Ethics

• JIM WRIGHT SCANDAL (book sales in lieu of
  honoraria) led to 1989 reforms
• ---ban on honoraria (charitable donations still
  OK)---ban on keeping leftover campaign funds for
  personal use
• ---one-year moratorium on leaving Congress or
  Congressional staff jobs to go work for a lobbyist

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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

• 1995 REFORMS (Republican majority)
• new 1.) Complete ban on gifts from
  non-relatives, worth more than 50
• 2.) Lobby Disclosure Act of 1995
• --broadens definition of lobbyist (no longer
  just hired guns), requiring hundreds more
  lobbyists to register state their intentions
• --includes research and writing as part of
  lobbying
• --increased fines for failing to file disclosure
  reports
• --forbids nonprofit groups that receive federal
  funds from lobbying
• Still, theres not much regulation of grassroots
  lobbying and coalitional lobbying where its
  unclear whos working with whom

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CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS

• PROPOSED 2006 REFORMS ENDORSED BY COMMON CAUSE
  (weaker versions currenlty being considered in
  House and Senate)
• 1.) No privately funded travel
• 2.) Extend from one to two years the ban on
  post-Congressional employment as lobbyists
• 3.) Force members and staff to disclose when
  theyre negotiating with future employers
• 4.) Make lobbying information available online
  in real-time
• 5.) Limit role of lobbyists in campaign
  fundraising