Senator Seeks Ethics Review on Lobbying

The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Ethics Committee has requested a formal review of lobbying practices in the chamber to determine whether tighter restrictions are needed.

“I believe a Senate-wide review of policies that relate to all current lobbying practices is in order and have conveyed that to the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee,” Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said in a statement first reported in Wednesday’s edition of Roll Call, a Washington paper that focuses on Congress.

Reid was among several senators featured in a Times series last year on lawmakers who sponsor legislation or take other action to help special interests that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to their relatives in lobbying or consulting fees. He voluntarily banned his family members from directly lobbying his office after The Times raised questions about his push for federal land trades and other provisions benefiting Nevada interests that hired his sons and son-in-law.

In his statement Wednesday, Reid said he made the changes in his office policy “to prevent any appearance of impropriety.”

His call for an ethics review follows that of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), who was the subject of a Times article in December that detailed how he helped businessmen with whom he was involved financially. Stevens’ brother-in-law, an Anchorage lawyer and lobbyist, played a pivotal role in many of the deals.

“As a former chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, I believe we should review our rules and ethical concepts” to adjust for changing conditions, Stevens said in December, noting that he had conducted such a review while heading the ethics committee in the 1980s. Both Stevens and Reid said they had not been influenced by their relatives, or in Stevens’ case by personal business relationships.

A spokeswoman for the current Ethics Committee chairman, Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio), declined to comment on either request.

In the House of Representatives, the chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct also is still interested in a wide-ranging examination of the lower chamber’s rules, including a look at whether family members’ lobbying should be regulated, a spokeswoman said. Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) said previously that the increasing number of congressional relatives who lobby is “something that concerns me.”

The standards for the Senate and House are written and enforced by the members of each chamber’s ethics committee. The panels are the only committees in Congress with equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. The chairmen and vice chairmen, chosen from opposing parties, traditionally consult each other and show deference, former staffers said. Each committee has a professional staff and investigative powers.

The committees have generally shied away from strict conflict-of-interest regulations.

The 2003 edition of the Senate Ethics Manual states that “the decision on whether a spouse may lobby the Senate is generally a decision for the Senate and his or her spouse, giving due regard to the potential reflection upon the Senate.” The manual does not specifically address the lobbying of grown children or in-laws, siblings or parents -- all situations that exist in the Senate today. A different rule prohibits using legislative powers to advance the personal financial interests of a lawmaker or immediate family member.

The Times documented 17 senators and 11 representatives with family members engaged in lobbying or governmental relations, including several top leaders. Outside ethics lawyers said they thought there were dozens more and the practice was growing. All the lawmakers whose activities were described in The Times articles have denied being influenced by their relatives.

As more relatives join the lobbyist corps, individual lawmakers’ policies vary widely. A few say they recuse themselves from voting on bills that could specifically benefit a relative’s client; a few others say their relatives refrain from lobbying anyone in their chamber of Congress. More common is a ban on direct contact with the legislator’s office. Others impose no restrictions.

Until he changed his policy a year and a half ago, citing questions raised by The Times, Reid allowed relatives to lobby his office directly. Reid has repeatedly sponsored legislation and taken other action to help real estate developers, mining companies and other large economic interests in Nevada. At the same time, three of his four sons, as well as his son-in-law were paid as lobbyists, lawyers or consultants by those interest groups.

Reid said his family members did not receive special treatment from his office. He said he supported legislation that benefited Nevada, regardless of the interest groups’ ties to his family.

His sons Rory and Leif work in Nevada for the state’s largest law firm. Key, another son, also worked in Washington as a lawyer lobbyist for the same firm until late last year, when he moved back to his home state to work for a leading real estate developer. Reid’s son-in-law, Steven Barringer, continues to be a Washington lobbyist in another consulting firm.

Government-ethics advocates have suggested barring lobbyists from contacting the offices and committees of lawmakers who are their relatives, and requiring a declaration of family relationships on lobbyist registration forms.

Times staff writers Richard T. Cooper and Chuck Neubauer contributed to this report.