Senator Claire McCaskill: McCaskill Applauds Senate Passage of Sweeping Ethics Reform

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August 2, 2007 -- WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate today, with the support of Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill, voted to enact sweeping ethics reforms that significantly tighten the rules related to earmarks and congressional lobbying. Already known among her colleagues as a fiscal conservative and a critic of the secretive earmark process, McCaskill spoke on Senate floor in favor of the overall package, suggesting there was still room for additional progress.

“I came to Washington hoping that we could make a difference in terms of the way business was done here, and today we did,” McCaskill said. “What we're just trying to do is live like everybody else in America. Most Americans don't have a corporation they can call for a ride on a jet plane. Most Americans don't have somebody who wants to pay for a fancy trip. Most Americans really don't have the ability to decide that one group in their state gets money when others don't. But we did here in Washington and that was wrong.”

Specifically, the measure requires greater disclosure of earmarks – funding set aside by individual members for specific projects – by requiring that earmarks and their sponsor are listed on the Internet at least 48 hours before the earmarks receive a Senate vote. It also prohibits members of Congress from adding earmarks and unrelated provisions to legislation in the dead of the night.

In addition, the legislation addresses issues related to Congressional lobbying by banning members of Congress and their staff from accepting gifts from registered lobbyists or from the companies and organizations that hire lobbyists. It prevents Senators from lobbying for two years after they leave Congress and limits Congressional travel paid for by lobbyists.

The bill, which received overwhelming approval of 83 to 14 in the Senate and 411 to 8 in the House, came under fire earlier this week by a few critics in the Senate for not going far enough on earmark reform, comparing the congressional leadership certification of earmark disclosure with allowing the fox to guard the henhouse.

McCaskill responded to the claim on the Senate floor when she said, “It's interesting that the phrase, ‘the fox in the henhouse’ was used as to the provisions in this bill. You know, there's a saying ‘all hat and no cattle.’ Well, I think that maybe this is the time to use the phrase ‘all foxes and no hens.”

Standing on the Senate floor, McCaskill reminded her colleagues that members of Congress were the very people responsible for taking advantage of the system that led to the need for earmark reform, referencing an old saying, “we have met the enemy and it is us."

McCaskill continued, “It’s an accomplishment that we should herald, and we should remember that if we’re worried about the foxes, we ought to check our own closet for that fox outfit before we start pointing the finger at anybody.”

McCaskill urged that a solution to the critics’ concerns about the ability to detect whether all earmarks had been disclosed properly was to require senators to put all earmarks on their own websites. This would allow the public to hold their own elected officials accountable for the way tax dollars were being spent.

“All we have to do to achieve the transparency that we need is for every senator to put every earmark request that they are making on their web site. And then it won't be hard to make sure that all the earmarks have been certified,” McCaskill said. “And then we won’t have to worry about the need for members of Congress to vet earmarks in secret sessions. It’s not their job to vet them. I'll tell you whose job is to the vet them. It's the people of the United States of America, because guess what? It's their money.”

Source: Senator Claire McCaskill