Congress is heading back to coach.
Well, not necessarily coach class. Members of the House may still hobnob with the swells (and frequent-fliers) in first class. But they won’t be sashaying onto private jets courtesy of someone else’s dime. The U.S. House last week voted to ban members from accepting trips on corporate jets, one of lawmakers’ most cherished perks.
Members also won’t be allowed to accept free trips, meals or gifts from lobbyists or the groups that employ them. The House under its new Democratic leadership also approved new restrictions and disclosure requirements on privately financed travel. (For example, trips funded by educational institutions will be permitted, but trips funded by other groups will have to be approved by the ethics committee and immediately disclosed to the public.)
And so it will be just a little bit harder for influence-peddlers in Washington to wine and dine the House.
The House also tackled earmarks, the pet spending requests that came back to bite the Republican leadership in the November election. No earmarks will be allowed for this fiscal year; after that, the sponsors seeking money for pet projects will have to disclose who they are and where the money’s going. This will apply to all spending requests and to any tax provisions that would benefit fewer than 10 companies or people. Lawmakers also will have to certify that they will not profit from the earmark.
So it will be a little bit harder for members of Congress to be secretly rewarded by the influence-peddlers.
These rules won’t turn Washington into Mayberry. The influence game in Washington has a long history of surviving the periodic efforts at reform. And there are some loopholes in these latest reforms. (Lobbyists can still set up lawmaker junkets through non-profit affiliates. They’ll be able to do some wining and dining if it’s tied to a campaign fundraiser.)
The House Democrats also left for another day the decision on how much policing they really want. They say they’ll make a proposal in March for an independent ethics committee. That has potential to be good for government–and good politics. It would be a sharp contrast from the ham-handed way in which Republican leaders jiggered the ethics committee rules and membership in an attempt to protect former Rep. Tom DeLay from sanctions by the House.
Ultimately, the most important curb placed on the House in the first hours of Democratic control will likely turn out to deal not with ethics, but with spending. The House approved a return to pay-as-you-go rules. In essence, if you want to raise spending or reduce revenue, it will have to be offset by spending cuts or revenue increases.
Republicans might remember these rules. They helped Republican leaders in the 1990s produce a balanced federal budget with President Bill Clinton. But Republicans dumped the pay-as-you-go rules in 2002 and kept spending money they didn’t have.
In the early going, the new Democratic leadership has set some good standards for ethics and fiscal discipline. But let’s face it: The Republicans helped them make it look easy.
