FEINGOLD AND OBAMA INTRODUCE THE LOBBYING AND ETHICS REFORM ACT
Feingold-Obama legislation would implement sweeping changes in
gift rules and close the revolving door between K Street and Capitol
Hill
January 8, 2007
Washington, DC – U.S. Senators Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Barack
Obama (D-IL) have introduced legislation that would implement extensive
changes to lobbying and ethics rules in Congress. The Feingold-Obama
bill improves substantially on S. 2349, the lobbying disclosure and
ethics bill that the Senate passed in March 2006 and that the Senate
will begin considering today. The Senators are committed to restoring
the public’s faith that Congress will place its interests ahead
of special interests, and look forward to working in a bipartisan fashion
to pass meaningful reform.
“Now that the new Congress is underway, we need to get down to
business and show Americans that we are responding to their call for
change,” Feingold said. “We now have the opportunity to
give the American people what they deserve and demanded in November
– real ethics and lobbying reform that holds their elected officials
to the highest ethical standards.”
“The American people deserve more than window-dressing when it
comes to ethics reform, they deserve meaningful reform that will finally
end the undue influence that lobbyists and special interests have had
over the laws we make,” Obama said. “To do this, we must
not only strengthen but enforce the rules governing our interactions
with lobbyists, and finally make the legislative process fully transparent
to the public. The American people put their faith in us so we could
restore their faith in government, and this is our chance to make that
happen.”
Last year, despite numerous ethical scandals, the Republican-controlled
Congress failed to pass meaningful lobby and ethics reform. This year,
Democrats have made ethics and lobbying reform the first order of business
in the 110th Congress. If passed, Feingold-Obama would ban lobbyists’
gifts and curb privately funded travel, establish an Office of Public
Integrity, slow the revolving door between Congress and K Street, improve
lobbying disclosures, and strengthen open government in the Senate.
Read a fact sheet on
the legislation.
Listen to Senator Feingold
speak about the legislation.
Watch Senator Feingold speak about the legislation.(Realplayer,
Quicktime)
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