Ethics Rules May Inadvertently Burden Charities

By Lois Romano
Thursday, February 8, 2007

Anxiety over the new House ethics rules ratcheted up this week as lawmakers' spouses demanded clarification of whether the rules apply to them, and eight House members backed out of a fundraising gala for a major theatrical company when ethics lawyers stated that they could not attend as guests.

At a packed ethics briefing for congressional spouses last weekend, a number of wives struggled to understand whether the complicated rules would prevent them from accepting free tickets to bona fide charity events -- particularly those in which they were involved or served as chairmen.

"I am a person," Leslie Meek, wife of Rep. Kendrick B. Meek (Fla.), was quoted as saying during the noisy, packed meeting, held during the Democratic retreat in Williamsburg.

Ethics lawyers and Hill staffers tried to dispel the uncertainty by explaining that spouses must adhere to the same rules, unless they are invited to an event by virtue of their own stature or job.

The confusion largely centers on a new rule that bans legislators and staff members from accepting gifts and free tickets to events sponsored by organizations that employ lobbyists. There are 16 "exemptions" to the rule that are equally complicated.

"These rules are complex and are difficult in the application because each situation presents it own nuances," said lawyer Kenneth A. Gross, an ethics-law expert.

The previous ethics restrictions allowed members to accept a gift worth less than $50 from lobbyists and others. Under the new rules approved by the House last month, members are prohibited from accepting anything.

Hill employees, spouses and charity organizers complained this week that the new rule on gifts is an exceptional burden to charities -- which are known as 501(c)3s under the federal tax law and are tax-exempt -- because they depend mightily on House members' celebrity to sell tickets and raise money.

Carolyn Peachey, one of Washington's best-known event planners, said she sought an opinion from the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct regarding the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater Gala, an annual A-list event at the Kennedy Center.

She was eventually advised that, because the dance troupe had employed a lobbying firm last year, the legislators could not attend for free -- even though the invitation was issued by the nonprofit group.

"In major communities across the country, you'll find corporations that help with the charitable needs of a community," said Peachey. "Here, the main industry is the federal government. We can't expect the government to support all the charities, so we depend on members who are interested in the cause to attend. It enhances the evening -- it's celebrity."

Senior Hill sources acknowledged yesterday that the new rule's effect on legitimate charities was an unintended consequence. They predicted that it would be amended.

"We will look at it because a lot of members and spouses are concerned," said Brendan Daly, a spokesman for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). "This wasn't the intent."

The Interesting Life of the Leader

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has never shied away from describing his triumph over a hardscrabble childhood in the small town Searchlight, Nev., where he grew up poor in a house with no toilet and no running water.

He has reveled in talking of his father Harry's eighth-grade education and how his mother, Inez, had to take in laundry to help feed the family. He has unabashedly bragged about swimming in the pool of a local brothel owner.

But at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting last weekend, Reid brought up something he rarely mentions: whose wash his mother took in.

"Searchlight was a town of a couple hundred people. The mines were basically gone," he said. "But the big business as I was growing up in Searchlight was prostitution, and that's whose wash my mother did."

Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the Senate leader has never been embarrassed about his background. "It's who he is, and he's not self-conscious about it," Manley said. "It's a story about a kid who grew up to be majority leader. It is what it is."

Dispute Over Global Warming Panel Is Over -- for Now

Just because you haven't heard much lately about the speaker's intention to appoint a new select committee on global warming, that doesn't mean it has gone away.

On the contrary, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Dingell (D-Mich.) quietly ended the two-week standoff with Nancy Pelosi by dropping his objections to the new committee and, thereby, avoiding a messy floor fight.

Dingell had resisted the new committee, furious that it was likely to step on his turf. The final battle was fought over the limits of the select committee's subpoena power. By agreement, the new panel will be able to issue subpoenas only by a vote of the full committee; it will have no legislative jurisdiction; and it will automatically dissolve on Oct. 30, 2008 -- commitments Dingell sought.

Much of Dingell's wrath has been directed at Massachusetts Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a member of Dingell's committee, who will chair the new panel and who Dingell saw as doing an end run around him. Even with the gentleman's agreement, no one is harboring any illusions that the crusty chairman will soon forgive Markey, who heads the Energy and Commerce subcommittee on telecommunications.

"We've got a certain amount of concern over Markey's ability to get things done in telecommunications in this atmosphere," a telecommunications executive said.

Joking Congressman Offers Rice a Serious Suggestion

Rep. Gary L. Ackerman (D-N.Y.) went after the Pentagon's "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay people in the military yesterday, jokingly telling Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the administration seems to fear a "platoon of lesbians" more than terrorists.

Ackerman was reacting to Rice's testimony that there is a foreign-language deficit at the State Department. He noted that the Pentagon had fired interpreters and language experts who were gay.

"Well, it seems that the military has fired a whole bunch of people who speak foreign languages -- Farsi and Arabic, et cetera. After they train them . . . for 63 weeks, and presumably they all passed all kinds of security things," Ackerman said. "For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people. . . . And if the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad."

Ackerman suggested that the State Department hire back those people to do "what you're suggesting would cost a lot of money to do and to train."

"Can we have some kind of union of those two issues? Can we marry up these two -- or maybe that's not the right word. . . . Can we have some kind of union of those two issues?" Ackerman asked, sparking laughter.

Rice promised to look into it. Last night, Ackerman said in an interview that, after the hearing, he received a call from an aide to Rice who said that his suggestion was being taken seriously.