Originally published January 9 2006
Bi-partisan effort to attempt to clamp down on the political influence of lobbyists
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold are now spearheading a movement to more closely monitor and limit the political contributions of lobbyists, as scandals involving lobbyists looking to purchase influence with members of Congress have nagged at the legislature for the past few months.
U.S. Senators John McCain and Russell Feingold, who led the drive to ban unlimited corporate and union donations to political parties, will make the first bipartisan effort in a decade to strengthen lobbying laws.
The lawmakers will introduce a measure as early as today that would require lobbyists to disclose through quarterly electronic reports all the contributions they make, the fund- raisers they arrange and the amount they spend on behalf of candidates and political parties, according to a person who has seen a draft.
The legislation would require disclosure of all grass-roots activities and double to two years the waiting period before a lawmaker-turned-lobbyist could lobby a former colleague.
McCain, an Arizona Republican, said he was spurred to act after hearings by his Indian Affairs Committee showed that lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his partner, Michael Scanlon, had charged Indian clients more than $80 million and directed the tribes to donate money to politicians and pet projects.
Separately, Abramoff has been indicted in Florida on wire-fraud charges while buying a casino-ship company.
Abramoff, Scanlon and their tribal clients contributed $1.4 million to members of Congress between 2001 and 2004, a review of Federal Election Commission and Internal Revenue Service records shows.
Representative Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican, received $54,500.
His lawyer, Mark Tuohey, said last month that Ney was the unnamed ``Representative #1'' mentioned in the plea agreement that Scanlon reached with the Justice Department.
The Abramoff-linked donations spread to Democrats as well.
``There's a very close nexus between lobbying activity and the money officeholders need for election,'' said Craig Holman, a campaign-finance lobbyist for Public Citizen's Congress Watch, a watchdog group founded by consumer advocate Ralph Nader.
The 26,932 registered lobbyists operating in Washington now are only required to file reports twice a year, by paper, with the Senate and House of Representatives.
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