Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.comment From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Will the lobby rule Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE E;COMMENTARY \SS (WS) \HD Will the lobby rule stick? \BY Christopher Matthews Bill Clinton has tacked up a not wanted poster for the gang Ross Perot liked to call "those guys in $1,000 suits and alligator shoes." The president-elect has served notice that anybody who works with him must pledge not to lobby his federal agency for five years and not to lobby for a foreign government for the rest of his life. In Joe & Mo's, the Palm and other power restaurants here, the targets of Mr. Clinton's new ethical order wonder at its meaning. Is Mr. Clinton simply throwing up a smoke screen to keep the Goo-goos (good government types) happy and the Perot-istas calm? Or, as some insiders argue, is he making the biggest blunder of his presidency? Is the new kid on the block denying himself the keys to the city the big-shot lobbyists now dangle enticingly in their fingers? Or could it be that Mr. Clinton's stringent new ethics code is the genuine article? Whatever the ultimate assay - hypocrisy, stupidity, or integrity - the Arkansas governor's decision to restrict postemployment lobbying by his appointees stamps an indelible mark on the Clinton administration. His much-publicized reform measure will be used by friend and foe alike as a window to the new president's soul. It is easy to suspect hypocrisy. Those experienced in the "government relations" profession spotted the loopholes in Mr. Clinton's ethics code early. Just because a job applicant agrees not to lobby his own agency doesn't stop him from lobbying every other entity of the government, including the Congress. Nor does it preclude direct, money-backed appeals to those Capitol Hill committees who fund the agency that the presidential appointee serves. And even grander loophole looms in the Clinton Code. What is to stop a former aide of the new chief executive from directing a lobbying campaign by remote control? What in the five-year prohibition on direct contacts with a former agency stops a newly minted veteran of the Clinton administration from making a bundle on corporate clients without leaving his well-appointed office in downtown Washington? This is a key point for non-Washingtonians to recognize in judging the Clinton ethics reforms. Lobbying is not manual labor. Some of this city's biggest wheeler-dealers can look you in the eye and say, "I never" lobby. Translation: They don't deign, in other words, to actually visit House and Senate staffers in their cramped quarters on Capitol Hill. Hardly. After dinner with a senator or member of Congress the night before, the power broker simply sends his minion to Capitol Hill to do the nuts-and-bolts work of drafting the required helpful legislation. The second possible verdict for the Clinton Code is that the entire reform enterprise is little more than the folly of a newcomer. The Arkansan will be mocked, some old hands suppose, for having given up Washington's finest "expertise" by telling career lobbyists they cannot return to their professions after service in his new Democratic administration. The best and brightest will thus be lost to him. But a far better bet than either hypocrisy or stupidity is that Mr. Clinton's five-year rule on after-service lobbying will hit the nail on the head, sending a powerful set of signals: No one should come to the Clinton administration with the goal of cashing in later; no corporation or other client should hire someone from the Clinton administration for a lobbying job unless it is prepared to risk involvement in an ethics scandal; no one inside or out of the Clinton administration should harbor any delusion that it's OK for a Clinton person to "do good" for four years so he or she can "do well" at the public's expense thereafter. If Bill Clinton means what he says and sticks to his standards, he will be not just a "different kind of Democrat" but a different kind of president. He will have shown us that the real secret to his character lies not in his past draft record or marital difficulties but in the quality of his leadership and the integrity of his new government. Christopher Matthews, Washington bureau chief for the San Francisco Examiner, is a nationally syndicated columnist. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM