Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 13, 1994 TAG: 9405130083
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Of course there's a free lunch. And free breakfasts, free dinners, free concerts, free tickets to football games and free vacations under the guise of "fact-finding" trips and legislative retreats.
They are part of a system that allows well-heeled lobbyists for special-interest groups to buy access and influence with Congress, access denied the American public's Ordinary Joes and Jills.
"We senators get thousands of letters ... thousands of phone calls from people pleading for access ... but they do not get it," says Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J. Instead, he says, it's the lobbyists, picking up lawmakers' tabs in pricey Washington watering holes and at elegant resorts, who have the lawmakers' ears.
Lautenberg is one of the legislators who on Wednesday bulldogged through the Senate a near-total ban on gifts to senators and their staffs from lobbyists and from most other people. If it survives negotiations with the House, which has passed a much weaker bill governing lobbyists' largess, the measure could help alter the culture that is separating Washington from the rest of America - to the detriment of both.
Not every lawmaker lives the lobbyists' high life. And the outright selling of a congressional vote for a drink or a meal would be not only illegal but also declasse, cheapening the access market
But access-buying through financial perks and favor is how the well-oiled, well-wired lobbyists get the edge when it comes time to mention that little item to add in committee mark-up of an appropriations bill, or remove that pesky little clause in a regulation bill. At the least, it means it's your arguments that will get heard before the other guy's. At the most, it means only your arguments will be heard and heeded.
Current limits on gifts to members of Congress and their staffs haven't kept the system from perking along as usual. There are, for instance, no limits on the amounts lobbyists can spend to feed Congress' big egos and big appetites when the members are in Washington, D.C. - which is where the lawmakers sometimes hang out when they're not on jaunts.
In fact, there are so many loopholes in the existing restrictions that you could fly a corporate VIP jet through them, and such jets fly nearly every day. (Recently, there have been numerous newspaper and television exposes about jetloads of federal legislators, their wives, husbands and aides being taken on all-expense-paid trips to exotic hideaways for "retreats" to discuss the special legislative interests of those paying the fare.)
Even so, the freebies are only part of the story - and the smaller part at that. If Congress in the end does pass the stronger bill approved by the Senate, it will be a step in the right direction. It will do nothing, however, about a campaign-financing sytem that reeks with special-interest influence. True reform on that point would involve public financing of congressional elections, in exchange for far more severe restrictions on private financing.
The work of Congress is the public's work. Remuneration should be from public funds. When Congress tries to serve two masters at once, the public and perks-paying lobbyists, don't assume it's the public that gets first priority.
by CNB