Opinion: Caesar’s husband?
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On Sunday, on ABC’s “This Week,” Cokie Roberts offered a discordant note in what generally has been a chorus of approval for a Senate ethics bill that would prohibit lobbying by senators’ spouses (though Bob Dole is grandfathered).
During the TV program’s roundtable, Roberts suggested that it was a “low blow” for Congress to prohibit lobbying by the wives of senators. “Well what’s her other job going to be?” Roberts asked. “It’s not easy.
When George Stephanopoulos replied that “a lot of Americans, though, will say, ‘well, we don’t really care but . . . we don’t want her to be a lobbyist,’” Roberts shot back: “For the Girl Scouts? Could she be a lobbyist for the Girl Scouts?”
Roberts was giving voice to the feminist critique of the “Caesar’s wife” theory of political ethics: that traditional notions of conflict of interest (and maybe traditional notions of marriage) work against the interests of high-achieving women married to high-achieving men.
Given what psychologists call “assortative mating,” Washington is full of power couples and marital ties can put together what the Constitution’s separation of powers puts asunder. For example, Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the Senate, is married to Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.
The ultimate power couple, of course, is Bill and Hillary Clinton, and Cokie Roberts’ own network is speculating about what role Bill would play in a Hillary campaign.
When Bill ran for president, Hillary’s stature led to jokes about “Buy one; get one free” -- a slogan that prompted the editor of my former newspaper to ask Bill Clinton during an endorsement interview in 1992 whether we shouldn’t be scrutinizing his wife’s views as well.
Would it be fair to put the reverse question to Hillary? Or would that, in Roberts’ words, be a “low blow”? And if Bill may not lobby Hillary (even for the Girl Scouts) while she’s in the Senate, shouldn’t he be expected to take a vow of political silence if she were elected president?