Rep. Karen Shepherd, D-Utah, and other reformers declared last week that they are fed up with inaction on lobbyist reform and will start turning up the heat.
Shepherd joined Sens. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., in announcing plans Thursday to force a Senate vote soon to ban most gifts from lobbyists. They hope it will shake loose similar legislation by Shepherd that has been bottled up in the House.The Senate passed a bill last May to require lobbyists to publicly disclose all gifts to members, but the House has not acted on it. The Senate also passed a non-binding resolution promising to enact a gift ban by the end of 1993 - which has not yet happened.
So Lautenberg and Wellstone said they will now seek to attach to some important bill new, tougher legislation banning most lobbyist gifts, but they did not say exactly which one.
"Our patience has run out," Wellstone said. "What we have to do is turn up the heat."
Shepherd, co-chairwoman of the Freshman Democrat Task Force on Reform, added, "There has been enough time. We've talked long enough. Now, let's get on with it."
She has said members - whom she calls the golf caucus - have blocked her proposed ban of most gifts for fear of losing free golf games, expense-paid travel and other perks.
"I'm not saying Congress is bought and sold. It is not. But it looks like it could be," Shepherd said. "People of America believe special interests are better represented here than are their interests."
Lautenberg said, "When lobbyists take a senator to dinner, they're not just buying a meal. They're buying access. And access is power."
He added, "Ordinary citizens don't have that access. They can't just take their senator to a quiet dinner at an expensive restaurant and explain what it's like to be unemployed. . . Lobbyists don't pay for free vacations out of the goodness of their hearts. They pay for access and clout."
The watchdog group Common Cause - which has long pushed for lobbyist gift bans - also endorsed turning up the heat.
Common Cause President Fred Wertheimer said passage of the Lautenberg-Wellstone legislation "could also help to convince reluctant House members that the time has come to end the system of lobbyists subsidizing the lifestyles of members of Congress."