Obama unveils ethics reform proposal
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By Charlotte Eby | Saturday, June 23, 2007 |
Democratic presidential hopeful U.S. Sen. Barack Obama gives an address on government reform in front of supporters at the N.H. Community Technical College in Manchester, N.H., Friday, June 22, 2007. (AP Photo/Cheryl Senter)
(Updated 2:02 p.m.) DES MOINES — Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama unveiled a broad ethics reform proposal today meant to limit the influence of lobbyists and bring more transparency to the inner workings of the federal government.
The plan, delivered in a speech in New Hampshire, sets out guidelines that would ban officials in an Obama administration from taking gifts from lobbyists or turning to jobs lobbying the executive branch after serving in it.
“I’m putting it forward because the lack of transparency, the lack of accountability, the cronyism and corruption impedes us from making progress on the critical issues that matter to people’s everyday lives,” Obama said in a phone interview with the Times Des Moines bureau.
Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, said the country doesn’t have a workable health care system or aggressive energy policy in part because of the disproportionate influence of special interests and lobbyists in Washington.
Obama said scores of Bush administration officials helped prevent the federal government from negotiating the best prescription drug prices for Medicaid and then went on to lobby for the drug industry.
His campaign also accuses the administration of meeting in secret with oil and gas executives to write energy laws.
“The examples are too numerous to mention, and part of our goal in this speech is to lay out a clear, unequivocal standard for how I expect to be judged as president,” Obama said.
Obama would ban those in his administration from taking part in the regulation of or contracts involving their former employers for two years. Appointees who leave his administration would be banned from lobbying the executive branch for the rest of his administration.
He also would prohibit the use of no-bid contracts, which his campaign argues have been handed out by the Bush administration to friends and supporters and cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year.
Gifts to executive branch employees from lobbyists and lobbying firms would be banned, and other policies would be put in place to help ensure new hires are not made based on political affiliation.
To those who might be cynical about his proposal, Obama points to his experience as a freshman state legislator helping engineer campaign reforms in Illinois and his work helping shape ethics reforms when he came to the U.S. Senate.
“I’ve got a track record; I’ve done this before,” said Obama, who has shunned taking money from political action committees and Washington lobbyists on his presidential campaign.
Obama said the Bush administration has been characterized by “enormous secrecy” and a great resistance to being held accountable to the public.
He wants to give the public more access to the workings of regulatory agencies, with videos of meetings archived on the Internet and transcripts available to the public.
Obama also is pledging to give the public a chance to comment on non-emergency bills before they are signed, an idea he is calling “sunlight before signing.”
“What I found both in the state legislature and in the U.S. senate, is that sunshine is the best disinfectant, that people tend to behave themselves a little better when they know that, you know, somebody is looking over their shoulders,” Obama said.
GOP presidential candidate John McCain also has laid out his own ethics proposal to crack down on the “revolving door” of government officials leaving their posts to become lobbyists.
“Sen. McCain has always been committed to ensuring that we have the highest ethics possible in government in Washington, particularly pertaining to lobbyists,” McCain spokesman Tim Miller said.
Charlotte Eby can be contacted at (515) 243-0138 or chareby@aol.com.
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