Aug 3, 2007 -- Reform Groups Urge President Bush to Sign Lobbying and Ethics Reform Bill Passed in Congress by Overwhelming Bipartisan Vote

Our organizations strongly urge President Bush to sign the landmark lobbying and ethics reform legislation that has passed Congress with overwhelmingly bipartisan majorities in both the House and Senate.

The organizations include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

This fundamental reform legislation, which responds to the corruption scandals that have plagued Washington in recent years, received 411 votes in the House and 83 votes in the Senate.

The vote for the legislation in the House included 221 Democrats and 190 Republicans and the vote in the Senate included 47 Democrats, 34 Republicans and 2 Independents.

It is rare to see such overwhelmingly bipartisan votes in Congress these days and the votes reflect the understanding of members of Congress that citizens are deeply concerned about the corruption problems in Washington.

If President Bush shares the concerns of the American people about corruption in Washington he will have no problem signing this legislation.

There is absolutely no basis for President Bush to veto this important anti-corruption legislation and to prevent Congress from responding to the Washington corruption scandals of recent years, including the historic Jack Abramoff scandals which took place in both Congress and the Executive Branch.

Our organizations reject the argument being made by opponents of the lobbying and ethics reform legislation that the earmark provisions in the legislation have been gutted.

We share the view expressed by Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI) who has co-sponsored earmark reform legislation with Senator John McCain (R-AZ) and who broke with the Democratic leadership in January to vote for the earmark proposal offered by Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC).

Senator Feingold stated in yesterday's debate:

It is my judgment that the earmark reforms included in the proposal before the Senate today are consistent with the DeMint amendment, much stronger than the original bipartisan leadership proposal that was introduced in January, and an enormous improvement over the way earmarks had been handled by both Democratic and Republican-controlled Congresses in the past. It is simply not accurate to say that the final version of this provision guts the DeMint amendment that the Senate passed early this year. The minor changes that were made certainly do not justify a vote against cloture or against the bill.

We strongly urge President Bush to stand with the American people and their deep concerns about corruption in Washington by signing into law the landmark lobbying and ethics reform legislation passed by an overwhelming bipartisan majority in the House and Senate.

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