Sunlight in the Senate : Tough move for lobbyist disclosure is most welcome

President Clinton has sent Congress some long-promised--if now somewhat watered-down--proposals for reforming congressional campaign financing and reducing the money-fed influence of special-interest groups. Reform-minded public-interest organizatons are already promising to do some intense special pleading of their own to try to strengthen the legislation.

Meanwhile, the Senate, its ethical consciousness reawakened by public disgust over recent scandals, has voted 95 to 2 to enact the first-ever serious controls over Washington lobbyists. Among other things these will require an unprecedented degree of public disclosure about who spends how much to achieve what. If the House enacts a nearly identical measure, as expected, a formidable new standard of accountability will be set that should make the conduct of the nation’s legislative business more open, almost certainly more honest and maybe even marginally more effective.

No one knows how many Washington lobbyists work as members of law firms, trade associations and interest groups. Estimates run from a ridiculously low 7,400--the number who have bothered to register under a toothless 1946 law--up to 80,000. The Senate measure would require all lobbyists to register with the Justice Department and file periodic reports identifying their clients, what issues they have lobbied for, what committees and agencies they have contacted and how much money they have spent.

Any gifts or other favors to Congress members or their staffs worth more than $20 would have to be reported. That in itself is likely to severely curtail such goodies as the “seminars” that lobbyists often provide at resorts or aboard cruise ships for legislators, their spouses and their staffs. A lobbyist who knowingly violates the legislation’s provisions could be looking at a $200,000 fine.

The new measure can’t compel ethical behavior. But its disclosure requirements should make it possible to identify much more precisely just who gives and who takes to influence legislation. Make no mistake, that is a major advance. The Senate, prodded by public outrage, has at last done the right thing.