Tom Coburn isn't waiting for next month's swearing in to begin fulfilling his promise to be a Senate maverick.
The Oklahoma Republican, who infuriated House GOP leaders with his independent and combative style in the 1990s, is pressing senators to lift a three-decade ban on earning outside income for professional work. Coburn, an obstetrician elected to the Senate last month, wants to keep delivering babies in his spare time and make enough money to cover costs, including malpractice insurance.
Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) -- deliver votes and babies.
|
|
Aides say Coburn has expressed his interest to Senate Rules and Administration Committee Chairman Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), a heart surgeon who occasionally treats patients free. Coburn may soon send a "Dear Colleague" letter to the other 99 senators of the next Congress, said an aide who declined to be identified because of the issue's sensitivity.
As a House member, Coburn won a similar battle in 1998 when the ethics committee allowed him to accept enough money to cover expenses -- but make no profit -- by treating patients back home. His new quest, first reported on MSNBC's Web site, will be much tougher, Senate sources said. Once again, the ethics committee rules.
Senate ethics rules bar a senator from "affiliating with a firm, partnership, association, or corporation for the purpose of providing professional services," including medical care, "for compensation." Several Senate sources said they strongly doubt the Senate Select Committee on Ethics, which has jurisdiction, will revise the rule.
Coburn believes in a "citizen legislature" and wants to keep his medical license, skills and malpractice insurance up to date, said his spokesman, John Hart. The source close to Coburn said the senator-elect will not be easily deterred: "If the ethics committee wants to have a big battle over it, they'll have it."
House GOP Urges Ethics Screen; Critics Say They're Closing Door
Meanwhile, in the House ethics arena, Democrats and watchdog groups are battling what they consider alarming GOP efforts to discourage complaints against legislators. It began this fall when the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct rebuked Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) three times but also criticized Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.), who had filed a broad ethics complaint against DeLay.
Responding to complaints from DeLay's lawyer, the House Rules Committee suggested in October that it might try to screen complaints against lawmakers before they reach the bipartisan ethics committee. "It may be that we need to require a vetting of ethics complaints at the start of the process . . . to assure that they are not pursued for partisan reasons," Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) told colleagues in a letter.
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, called the letter "a 'shoot-the-messenger' approach to dealing with serious ethical improprieties." Noting that outside groups cannot launch ethics investigations of House members, he urged Dreier not to "further weaken the already enfeebled process" for initiating inquiries.
Meanwhile, three senior Democrats said the panel is trying to squelch free speech to protect itself from criticism. They cited a Nov. 18 ethics committee letter warning that House members could face "disciplinary action" if they "attack the integrity of this Committee or any of its members."
Citing several instances in which GOP lawmakers have sharply criticized the ethics committee, the Democrats said House members "have not only the right, but also the obligation, to speak out when they question the actions of the House or its committees." The Nov. 18 edict "could have a chilling impact on the rights of House members," said the letter to the ethics panel signed by Reps. John D. Dingell (Mich.), David R. Obey (Wis.) and Henry A. Waxman (Calif.).
Omnibus Spending Bill Takes A Bite Out of McCain-Feingold
Tucked inside the 3,300-page catchall spending bill recently passed by Congress was some good news for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.), Rep. Jim Nussle (R-Iowa) and other lawmakers thinking of running for governor.
A short provision, which drew no debate, will allow members of Congress to apply to state races any leftover money raised for federal elections. The provision, first reported by Roll Call, reverses a feature of the 2002 campaign finance overhaul law known as McCain-Feingold.
The biggest beneficiaries? House and Senate members, such as Nussle and Hutchison, hoping to run for governor in the next few years.
Champions of McCain-Feingold, of course, are not amused. "Regardless of the merits of the provision allowing members of Congress to use their federal campaign accounts for state campaigns," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), lawmakers and aides "should not be permitted to rewrite the campaign finance laws by slipping something into the omnibus appropriations bill."
