Congress's Search for Courage

It is time to end the lip service and outright evasion that Congress has been devoting to its most flagrant scandal — the money-soaked symbiosis of lawmakers and Washington's runaway lobbying industry. Taxpayers are near furious at such routine outrages as incumbents' paying a token commercial ticket price for the unlimited borrowing of corporate jets for political sorties that come replete with in-cabin lobbyists. No less offensive is the lawmakers' abject reliance on lobbyists to solicit and bundle large amounts of campaign cash from corporate clients intent on buying backroom clout.

These are the kind of abuses that must be banned if Congress is to credibly attack its own quid pro quo culture. Shallow fixes won't do the job. The public is being bamboozled unless the lofty promises of repair actually produce:

¶A ban on the privately financed junkets that now co-opt lawmakers and staffers — not just in Congress, but in the executive and judicial branches as well. The indicted superlobbyist Jack Abramoff bagged a corrupt fortune in caddying this fairway between Capitol Hill and luxury golfing greens.

¶An end to the scandalous presidential convention parties staged by lobbyists to "honor" politicians with contributions of $50,000 and more from corporate favor seekers. Representative John Boehner of Ohio, the Republicans' newly chosen majority leader and designated reformer, has been feted at the last three conventions with weeklong "warehouse" blowouts by rich corporate donors.

¶A cold-turkey, loophole-free ban on all lobbying for two years by incumbents who currently flock from public office to make big bucks influencing old colleagues. Former Representative Billy Tauzin switched in a golden instant from his principal's role in writing the new Medicare drug subsidy bill to a reported $2 million salary as the main lobbyist for the drug industry.

¶An electronic disclosure system accessible to the public in which lobbyists at last detail their expenses, their precise Capitol targets and their "grass roots" spending splurges — the stealthy lobbying of constituents back home to prop or soften up incumbents in Washington.

All of these steps would be a credible start. But Congress must also attend to its most glaring shortcoming — the absence of an independent, nonpartisan enforcement arm to police the intersecting behavior of lawmaker and lobbyist.