The Daily Background
| Dems plan high-profile roll-out of ethics reform package after 110th is sworn in
by Arlen Parsa
The Washington Post has a fascinating article today about the planned ethics and lobbying reform which Democrats will introduce shortly after taking control of the House of Representatives in early January. It’s likely to receive a good deal of fanfare and is being billed by many involved as “the most significant ethics and lobbying reform that Congress has ever voted on.”
If the bill passes through the House and only portions of it pass through the Senate, or if a weaker version passes through the Senate, the House can adopt the measures as “House rules” and make them permanently applicable to the lower chamber. What’s particularly interesting is the high-profile method in which Dems are set to introduce this legislation, which is designed to get maximum (prolonged) press coverage.
Instead of forwarding one big bill, Democrats will put together an ethics package on the House floor piece by piece, allowing incoming freshmen to take charge of high-profile issues and lengthening the time spent on the debate. The approach will ensure that each proposal — including banning gifts, meals and travel from lobbyists as well as imposing new controls on the budget deficit — is debated on its own and receives its own vote. That should garner far more media attention for the bill’s components before a final vote on the entire package.
[…]
The idea is to give each provision what Emanuel called its “Warhol time” — 15 minutes of fame — while forcing Republicans to take a stand on the components before a final vote on the ethics package. Because House rules changes are, by tradition, party-line votes, breaking the package into its components would also allow Republicans to support individual amendments, even though they probably would vote against the package in the end.
One of the interesting things about this is, Dems going to let incoming freshmen members introduce and cosponsor portions of the package, which is a major feather-in-the-proverbial-congressman’s-cap so to speak (to be introducing legislation within the first week of being elected is a feat in and of itself, whereas to be associated with such major legislation so early on is unheard of).
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