PunkAssBlog.com

As I’m sure many of you know, on January 18th, the Senate passed by an overwhelming majority the lobbying and ethics reform bill promised by both parties:

Under the bill, passed 96-2, senators will give up gifts and free travel from lobbyists, pay more for travel on corporate jets and make themselves more accountable for the pet projects they insert into bills.

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who made the bill his first initiative as head of the Senate, called it the “most significant legislation in ethics and lobbying reform we’ve had in the history of this country.”

PAB reader Phoenix alerted me to a potential problem in the bill for those of us in the blogosphere, including punkassblog. This statement came from the organization GrassrootsFreedom.com:

“Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the
Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to
500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report
quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220
would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive
intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history,
critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.
“The bill would require reporting of ‘paid efforts to stimulate
grassroots lobbying,’ but defines ‘paid’ merely as communications to 500 or
more members of the public, with no other qualifiers.
“On January 9, the Senate passed Amendment 7 to S. 1, to create
criminal penalties, including up to one year in jail, if someone ‘knowingly
and willingly fails to file or report.’

Fortunately, the way I read the bill, it doesn’t work that way. As the release above notes, it only requires reporting on paid efforts to stimulate lobbying; it expressly excludes actual grassroots lobbying from reporting requirements:

(1) in paragraph (7), by adding at the end of the following: `Lobbying activities include paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying, but do not include grassroots lobbying.’; and

The “500 person” qualifier also isn’t quite as vague as they feared. Only people who are being paid by clients to stimulate grassroots efforts that are expected to target more than 500 people have to turn over their paperwork:

`(B) PAID ATTEMPT TO INFLUENCE THE GENERAL PUBLIC OR SEGMENTS THEREOF- The term `paid attempt to influence the general public or segments thereof’ does not include an attempt to influence directed at less than 500 members of the general public.

Maybe I’m reading the legislation incorrectly, but I think we’re all fine. I have no problem saying that, if you pay a third party to actively lobby more than 500 people, you should have to make your activities known. My only question is whether all the people “influencing” ministers of the huge power churches will be forced to step out from behind the curtain. If there’s any secret lobbying effort whose coordination needs to be made public, it’s that one.

Unsurprisingly, this bill almost didn’t make it to a vote. Republicans became anxious about the lack of overt fascism in their new legislation, and attempted to balance it out by upping the dictatorial authority of herr president. The Dems said nein:

Republicans were angry they could not get a vote on a proposal giving the president, with congressional approval, more power to kill single spending items in larger bills. So GOP senators voted against a resolution needed to move the bill to final passage.

But they didn’t necessarily say nein hard enough:

Under the agreement reached today, the sponsor of the line-item veto amendment, Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H., will be allowed to offer his proposal as part of the next bill to reach the Senate floor, a proposal to raise the minimum wage while giving small businesses several tax breaks. That will take place on Monday.

I’m fine with the passage of this bill, but if I’m following the exhilerating play-by-play correctly, we could be looking at a LINE ITEM VETO being attached to the raising of the minimum wage on Monday. This version would turn every expediture deemed worthy by Congress into nothing more a request for more allowance money from Big Daddy Prez.

The Dems won the day on Friday, but tune in tomorrow to see if the last tatters of the Constitution find their way onto the shoeheels of our law-makers.

Er, law-suggesters.