Clinton Team Issues Ethics Rules for Top Appointees : Politics: Strictest-ever standards are meant to close the revolving door between public service, lobbying activities.

In a final step before filling the ranks of the new Administration, aides to President-elect Bill Clinton Wednesday issued rigid guidelines intended to shut the so-called revolving door between government service and private lobbying activities.

The new regulations, far tougher than those imposed by any previous Administration, will require about 1,100 of Clinton’s top appointees to sign pledges agreeing to refrain from lobbying their agencies for five years after leaving office.

That standard, which affects nearly all of the government’s top policy-making positions, could give a distinctive cast to the composition of a Clinton team, whose leader has made plain his distaste for those who might use public service for private gain.

With Clinton expected to announce his first Cabinet choices today, the new code was said by ethics experts to make it more likely that a cadre of professionals and academics would supplant Washington-based lawyers and lobbyists in some of the government’s top posts.

Transition director Warren Christopher, who outlined the new rules at a news conference here, described the restrictions as a “dramatic step” that fulfilled a Clinton campaign pledge and underscored his responsiveness to Americans determined to “take their government back.”

The unveiling of the standards reflected even more closely the attention the President-elect’s team continues to pay to voter sentiments inflamed this year by independent candidate Ross Perot. With a bluntness that seemed inspired by the Texas maverick’s complaints, Christopher three times denounced as a “vice” the practice of trading government influence for private gain.

Many ethics experts and politicians publicly hailed the new code as a way to halt a pattern of abuse. But some expressed private concern that the measures might prove too restrictive, and suggested that the Clinton team might have been overzealous in responding to public complaints.

One knowledgeable congressional source, who declined to be identified, expressed particular concern about extending the current one-year lobbying ban to five years. Such a move, the source warned, “goes beyond ‘cooling off’ to punishment.”

The question of just how restrictive the new ethics standards should be has been debated within the transition team as lawyers struggled to transform Clinton’s campaign pledges into a workable standard for government.

At Wednesday’s briefing, Christopher acknowledged that the new rules would carry “some cost . . . in terms of excluding people from government.” But he said that Clinton believes that the emphasis should fall on “trying to cleanse the government process and ensure that you would not have the kind of vices of the past.”

The Clinton team stopped well short of imposing a universal code, leaving more than half the government’s political appointees unaffected by the new standards. Of the estimated 3,500 officials soon to be named by Clinton, about 2,400 will be limited by only the existing one-year ban.

At the same time, the 1,100 senior officials subjected to the new rules may find their obligations eased by significant loopholes. While expected to adhere to a lifetime ban on working as the agent of a foreign government, officials would remain free to lobby on behalf of foreign corporations, a practice singled out by Perot for particular criticism.

Even U.S. trade negotiators would be permitted to begin lobbying for foreign business entities five years after participating in decisions involving those companies, according to the guidelines.

Pat Chote, author of “Agents of Influence,” a book detailing how U.S. government officials go to work for foreign interests, said that the rules will prove to be “a Potemkin village” if they do not restrict appointees from accepting lucrative jobs with foreign corporations.

In many instances, Chote said, former U.S. government employees do lobbying work for foreign governments while being paid by government-subsidized companies. As a result, he said, there is no point to limiting them from working for a foreign government, if they are not also restricted from going to work for a foreign corporation.

Christopher indicated that the Clinton Administration might eventually seek to toughen the Foreign Agents’ Registration Act in recognition of the often-close relationship between foreign corporations and governments.

But the transition chief, reflecting the concerns voiced by outside analysts, made clear that the Clinton team has no intention of applying the new standards to lower echelons of political appointees.

He said that such a move would unfairly penalize those with limited responsibilities and would have proved too broad a barrier to those interested in government service. He said that the Clinton team had sought instead to strike a balance between “wanting to be able to attract the most outstanding people in government and yet preventing any possible vice that’s inherent in the system that now exists.”

The final code, which applies to officials paid over $104,000 a year, covers appointees with ranks as low as deputy assistant secretary. But its lobbying restrictions include a host of special exemptions, including one for scientists and medical personnel, who in private life must rely heavily on their ability to win government grants.

Others exempted from the restrictions include civil service personnel, foreign service officers and uniformed military personnel.

Penalties for breaking an ethics pledge have not yet been established, but are to be written into the federal code under an executive order Clinton has promised to issue after taking office. Federal code violations are civil offenses. Clinton aides, however, say that the new Administration might ask Congress for legislation also making violations subject to criminal prosecution.

Stanley Brand, a Washington lawyer specializing in ethics matters, described the new rules as “a significant expansion” of the current restrictions imposed upon political employees.

And Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), a strong advocate of stricter ethics rules in government, praised what he called Clinton’s “determination to end an attitude that has become all too prevalent.”

“No one has the God-given right to ‘cash in’ on his or her public service,” Levin said.

But privately, some politicians said that they believe the new rules, even when applied narrowly, will discourage good people from joining the Administration. In addition, they said, they understood that Clinton transition officials are sorry they had promised such stringent restrictions.

Aides to Clinton insisted that they know of no case in which concern about the ethics standards has caused a candidate for a position in the new Administration to ask that his or her name be withdrawn. And other Washington observers said that they had detected little slackening of Democratic enthusiasm for working in the new Administration.

“I’ve heard grumblings from lobbyists because they don’t like it,” said Phil Schiliro, administrative assistant to Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles). “There are good people who won’t do it. But if you ask if it’s going to be a serious impediment to get good people, I think the answer is no.

“You have three generations of Democrats waiting to serve in the Administration and there is so much pent-up demand of good people that I think you’ll be able to fill all the positions,” Schiliro said.

According to some experts, the lobbying ban likely will discourage all but the very youngest job applicants, who have no thought for their future, and the oldest appointees, who plan to retire after government service. People who currently occupy lucrative lobbying jobs will be reluctant to give it up under these circumstances, they said.

Jehl reported from Little Rock and Fritz from Washington.

The Ethics Terms

President-elect Bill Clinton’s ethics rules add up to the strictest guidelines ever imposed on officials of a U.S. Administration. Two main rules will apply to approximately 1,100 of the top appointees:

All must pledge not to lobby their former agencies for five years after leaving the government, compared to one year at present.

All must pledge never to become lobbyists for foreign governments or foreign political parties, a practice now common among former U.S. officials.

Additional requirements: Those who serve on the White House staff must pledge not to lobby any agency for which they have had “substantial personal responsibility” for five years after leaving office. And trade negotiators must pledge not to lobby for foreign governments or interest groups for five years after their participation in trade talks.