Bagel, Please, and Hold the Lox

When does a bagel become a meal? When it’s served with lox.

Washington lobbyists need to know that distinction and others similar to it because the rules have finally changed. The old days of treating House members to three-martini lunches and exquisite lobster dinners are over, thanks to a solid reform law that restricts those who make a living trying to influence legislation. Under the new rules, lobbyists still can spring for a bite to eat, if it is literally a bite. A meatball speared on a toothpick at a reception is allowed. A meatball topping spaghetti is not.

Finger food is usually OK. Doughnuts are fine. So is a croissant. Plain bagels make the cut, but not when served with Nova Scotia salmon. According to an interpretation by a lawyer for the House Ethics Committee, salmon would make a bagel pretty close to a meal. A meal is allowed, but only if at least 25 members of an organization are present so a lobbyist cannot monopolize the House member.

Buying an alcoholic drink is not off-limits as long as the official is standing at a bar when he or she consumes it. But lobbyists can no longer pay for several rounds plus appetizers.

The rules are a little more relaxed for the Senate. Lobbyists can still pick up the tab but only up to $50 a meal and $100 a year, which won’t go very far in a town dominated by restaurants that cater to expense accounts.

It is amazing that lobbying reform passed, given the long history of the practice. The term “lobbyists” was coined during the First Congress in 1789, according to the Congress Dictionary. Farmers, merchants and anyone else who had a personal interest in the outcome of legislation had to wait outside in the lobby. During the 19th century, influence peddlers were considered congressional pests. Only since then did lobbyists begin picking up tabs for meals, gifts, trips and other luxuries.

The meal ban and the other reforms should reassure wary voters. Lobbyists can no longer use a bagel and lox or a chateaubriand to buy access routinely denied to the public.