Panel discussion: The Future of Voting Technology

This is the panel that I have looked forward to most, since it is the closest to my own research in the area of online voting. I'm not sure how much time the panelists will devote to online voting compared to electronic voting; my guess is that most of the discussion will be on electronic voting machines, ballot design, open source machine software, and

The panelists:

Debra Bowen, California Secretary of State
Norman Ornstein, AEI Scholar
Aaron Burstein, UC Berkeley ACCURATE research fellow
Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Founder, National Science Foundation CyberTrust ACCURATE Center

Just a guess, but I think this panel will tilt to the conservative on security issues.

Expanding Broadband Access - panel discussion

Minorities still lag behind whites in access to broadband internet service. Mike McCurry (Clinton WH press secretary) is one of the panelists discussing broadband and expanding access for poor and rural areas. The panelists are talking about expanding broadband for getting access to telemedicine, educational materials, and other info, but this is also important if online voting is ever to be tested on large scale.

Online Voting at the Politics Online Conference?

Online voting came up a couple of times at the Secretary of States panel this morning. First was an offhand comment by CA Sec of State Debra Bowen. Answering a question about privacy and security concerns with the use of new technology for registration, applying for absentee ballots, etc she said something like, "if we had online voting I would have to keep a file of all voters' iris imprints. I don't want to keep a file of your iris imprints." Then the moderator said, "But I want to vote online!" And Bowen replied, ok I'll keep your iris imprints. So, not a very serious intro to the online voting discussion, in my opinion. Then Bowen said there was a panel this afternoon devoted to online voting. Not really, it seems to me. The panel is called "The Future of Voting Technology" and seems to include alot on electronic voting machines. We'll see...

Then there was one question specifically on online voting: "Which of you Secretaries of State will have the bragging rights to being the first state to offer online voting?" Brunner: there is a program I think in Texas where one county e-mails PDFs of the ballot to overseas military personnel. We would like to do something like that. It is a slow process, we will take it slowly.
Bowen: we do that now (e-mail PDFs of ballot overseas) but then people have to fax them back and that compromises secrecy of ballot. More Bowen: we could have an online voting system now, but to have a secure system it would be prohibitively expensive. With only a few elections each year, the cost would not be worth the benefit. Also Bowen added: "I'm sure someone will figure out a way to do this, eventually." Well, maybe not if the people in this room are not even working on it.

PDFs? Faxes? For two very impressive Secretaries of State, who have made impressive progress in bringing online gvernment services to their constituents, these answers about online voting did not impress me. Clearly, online voting is not at the top of their agendas - they are working on improving technology in voting, but right now online voting is not part of it.

This conference is not about online voting. It is about campaigning and organizing online, delivering govt services online, using social networking sites for political campaigns, using electronic media effectively. But as someone who is writing a dissertation about online voting, I wish there was more work being done by the conference participants on this issue.

Live from the Politics Online Conference

I'm at the Politics Online Conference at the Ronald Reagan building in downtown DC. It is sponsored by the sponsored by the Institute for Politics Democracy at GWU and the Internet and Politics Magazine, with a big presence by Google, Politics.com, and other politics/news/tech companies.

On the opening panel this morning we heard from Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner and California Secretary of State Debra Bowen. Brunner has created many ways for Ohio voters to go online to get info about elections - how and where to register and vote, applying for absentee ballots, candidate guides, but also capturing voter e-mail addresses so the SOS office can send reminders to send it absentee ballots. Ohio partnered with Google, Pew, and the JEHT foundation to set up sophisticated online tools for voters.

Brunner is a big fan of absentee voting and she did alot to encourage voters to choose this method. They had a program called "avoid the line," as in avoid the line on Election Day. I was in Columbus, Ohio on election day 2004 and I will never forget the long snaking lines of people standing in the rain on that gloomy November day. Back then (before Brunner, when Ohio had a Sec of State who was more interested in preventing fraud than encouraging participation) absentee voting was very limited. In 2008 about 30% of the state's voters cast an absentee ballot, and Ohio avoided the lines and bad publicity from 2004. But what if the election had been close in Ohio, like it was in Minnesota? Would Ohio have seen the same problems that Minnesota has faced since Election Day? Probably, and with a new absentee voting law in Ohio the litigation ther could have been even more of a tangled mess than it has been in MN. Did not have a chance to ask Brunner this question, but will try to catch her later if she is still here.

Obama's New Lobbying Rules

As a professor who has taught a class on Lobbying and Ethics for many years, I want to commend President-Elect Barack Obama on the historic new ethics rules for his administration. The President-elect’s record as an ethics and lobbying reformer continued yesterday with his new requirements for members of his transition team and prospective members of his administration. His campaign pledge to change the way Washington works with the lobbying industry became a reality yesterday with the toughest ethics rules of any presidential transition in the history of the United States. His revolving door and gift ban rules for the transition team will help bring trust in government and the way decisions are made in Washington. He shuts the revolving door of lobbyists working on issues in government that they were advocating outside of government. The new ethics rules are great for our democracy. The rules include the following:

• Federal lobbyists cannot contribute financially to the transition.

• Federal lobbyists are prohibited from any lobbying during their work with the transition.

• Lobbyists are prohibited from working in the fields of policy on which they lobbied if they have lobbied in that area in the last 12 months.

• If someone becomes a lobbyist after working on the transition, they are prohibited from lobbying the administration for 12 months on matters on which they worked.

• There is a gift ban that is aggressive in reducing the influence of special interests.

In sum, this is a great start for the Obama administration and the renewal of our democracy and the way Washington works.

Blogging from NBC

It is really quiet here in the NBC studio in Washington, DC. Most of the action tonight is in New York... unfortunately, we have no giant ice rink with the electoral map painted on it here.

Along with Professor Thurber one of the experts here tonight is Ken Duberstein, a Republican strategist. He just said, "If Sarah Palin is Cinderella, it's just about to strike midnight for her."

Also, off camera he was just told that NBC is calling Ohio for Obama. His response: it's over.

I am actually surprised that it is taking so long for the networks to call this thing...

Live on NBC

Professor Thurber is in the NBC studio tonight in Washington, DC, sitting at the anchor desk with Pete Williams. I am here too, providing research assistance and election analysis as needed.

Election Forecasting Event

Professor Thurber moderated a panel discussion Monday, October 27, at the National Press Club, hosted by the American Political Science Association and featuring three prominent political scientists who will present their forecast models for the upcoming election.

The power point presentations can be viewed and downloaded from the CCPS website.

Speakers:

• James E. Campbell is Professor and Chair of the Political Science Department at University at Buffalo, the State University of New York. He is editor of the presidential election forecast symposium in the October 2008 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics and author of The Presidential Pulse of Congressional Elections, Cheap Seats, and The American Campaign and the co-editor of Before the Vote. His research interests include election forecasting, swing voters and presidential elections, congressional district competition, electoral realignments, and the polarization of the electorate. He has been widely published, including numerous books and in the major political science journals.
  
  
• Alan Abramowitz is the Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science at Emory University. His areas of specialization include American politics, political parties, elections, and voting behavior and his current research involves party realignment in the U.S. and its consequences for presidential and congressional elections. He is the author of dozens of scholarly publications, including Voice of the People: Elections and Voting in the United States (2004).
  
  
• Michael Lewis-Beck is Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa. His areas of specialization include American and Comparative Politics, and he has authored or co-authored dozens of publications on American and European politics—including most recently The American Voter Revisited (2008).

Moderator:

James A. Thurber is Distinguished Professor of Government and Director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. He is author and co-author of numerous books and more than seventy-five articles and chapters on Congress, congressional-presidential relations, congressional budgeting, congressional reform, interest groups and lobbying, and campaigns and elections. Recent publications include Campaign Consultants, Political Parties, Interest Groups, and Voters in American Elections (with Candice J. Nelson and David A. Dulio, 2005).

BACKGROUND
Election forecasts are a biennial feature of the APSA journal PS: Political Science & Politics, and draw upon the expertise of prominent political scientists from around the country to forecast the outcome of U.S. presidential and congressional elections. PS is a quarterly journal of the APSA (est. 1903), the leading professional organization for the study of politics, which has over 14,000 members in 80 countries. For more news and information about political science research visit the APSA media website at www.politicalsciencenews.org.

Panel 3: Working with a Polarized Congress

Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress is chairing this panel. Before coming to CAP, Scott was Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee and served in many other leadership roles in his 30 year career on the Hill.

Other panelists are:

Tom O'Donnell, who was chief of staff to House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt

Professor Jim Pfiffner of George Mason University and Professor Stephen Wayne of Georgetown University

Clay Johnson keynote speech

1:30 question from National Journal reporter:
With all of the secret natl security memos in the Bush admin, how can we be sure the next intelligence officials will be knowledgeable about everything they need to know?
Johnson: Confident that the director of National Intelligence (Mike McConnell) will prepare the incoming team to the best of his ability.

Thurber follow up: Are the pres candidates being briefed now on intelligence matters?
Johnson: Not sure if they are specifically on this, but he agrees that this should be part of their preparation.

Question on budget:

1:25 Josh Bolton (WH CoS) asked Johnson to organize the preparation of agencies for transition. On July 18, Johnson send a list of "to-dos" to the agencies, such as appointing an agency coordinator for all transition activities. Many of the things he asked them to do are supposed to be completed by Nov. 1. Others: have a senior career person in charge of every part of the agency until a political appointee is assigned; prepare senior career people for the event of a national security incident (if one occurs before a political apointee is in place).

1:20 Johnson: The next president needs to be ready to take over right away - there is no time once he gets into office to say he is "preparing to govern". The outgoing administration is taking its responsibility very seriously to make sure the incoming administration is prepared.

1:15 pm Clay Johnson is well known in Washington for being a longtime close friend and confidante of President Bush. He has been invited to speak to many groups working on the transition, including the House admin subcommittee hearing last month. He speaks passionately about his role in Bush's transition, and he seems genuinely committed to working hard to make the next transition smooth.

(sorry for the formatting problems below... no time to fix now)
Prof. Thurber reminds us in his intro that Clay Johnson led what was perhaps the most difficult WH transition – George W. Bush’s, a transition that couldn’t really start until after the Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore made Bush the winner.

Balancing act between rewarding your loyal friends and people who helped get you elected, and the people who are really best for the job.

Getting the leadership team in place (cabinet secretaries). This needs to be done quickly – but they need to go through Senate confirmation. In 2001, it took 90 days on average for a cabinet official to be confirmed. Clay says this time needs to be cut in half (45 days from the time the president names the official to the time they take office).

Panel 2: From the Election Through the First Hundred Days: Opportunities and Hazards

11:30 Sullivan analyzes his presidential scheduling data to see what presidents spend their time on in the first 100 days.
Working alone: Carter and Nixon did this most
Traveling: Nixon traveled most, Eisenhower traveled least
Bush spent the most time on "Commander in Chief" issues; Kennedy spent the most time on "economic" issues

Sullivan also creates an "isolation index" to measure how much advice presidents get from advisors: external advisors, cabinet members, congressional leaders, WH staff, and heads of state.

11:15 Terry Sullivan has a handout showing the work schedules of the first 100 days of presidents from Eisenhower through George H. W. Bush. I will try to get an electronic copy to post here. A few of his findings, which are based on 50,000 observations of 20,000 events over 4 decades (drawn mostly from presidential diaries and presidential papers):
- modern era (post-Nixon) presidents have an average workday of 13.5 hours
- pre-modern presidents worked around 9.5 hours per day
- workdays of presidents get longer and more efficient over the 100 days


11:10 Kumar reminds us of the stories in the news media last Spring, that criticized Obama for already thinking about his transition team ("he is already measuring new drapes for the Oval Office, and he hasn't even been given his party's nomination!"). Kumar says that Clay Johnson (who is delivering the keynote lunch speech today) was brought on as Bush's tranistion director in 1999. It is important for these candidates to be planning early for the transition of the federal government; the news media should not be mocking them for it.

11:00 am Martha Kumar recently testified before a congressional hearing on the upcoming transition. Cong. Adolphus Towns is chairman of the subcommittee of the House administration committee that is responsible for overseeing the transition - along with several other federal agencies (including OMB, OPM and GAO) and other congressional committees (including the Senate Government Affairs Committee).

Kumar: some of the big problems in the first days of new administrations is with the appointment (and approval from Senate) of cabinet members. The failed nomination of Zoe Baird as Clinton's attorney general took up lots of time and energy in Clinton's first weeks. If she had been properly vetted, they could have avoided this.

10:45 am Michele Jolin, who is running a transition project at CAP, introduced the panel. CAP has a big transition report coming out on November 12.

Prof. Martha Kumar of Towson University is Director of the White House Transition Project.

Prof. Terry Sullivan of Univ. of North Carolina Chapel Hill is Executive director of the WH Transition Project (WHTP)

The WHTP was orignally funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts to create an archive of past presidential transitions -- to create an instittutional memory that will last after the staff of the outgoing president is gone.

Martha and Terry will likely provide some good historical perspective, and some good stories from transitions dating back to President Johnson.

Panel 1: Structuring a White House Legislative Affairs Office

The first panel is going now. It includes Patrick Griffin, who worked in President Clinton's legislative affairs office, and Gary Andres, who worked in the first President Bush's legislative affairs office. They are sharing lessons learned from their experiences working with Congress from the perspective of the White House. Even when the president shares the same party as the majority in Congress - as President Clinton did when he took office in 1992 - there are still many obstacles to a President getting his agenda passed. Remember health care reform? So even if Obama wins (as many polls are now predicting) and there is a strong Democratic majority in Congress, his path to legislative success will not be an easy one.

Live at the Presidential Transitions Conference

We are at maximum capacity here at the Center for American Progress -- every seat is full and the standing room-only lobby is just about full too. If you were not lucky enough to get in the room today, you can watch us live on C-Span 2 which is also live-streamed to their website:
http://www.c-span.org/Watch/C-SPAN_wm.aspx

Presidential Transitions Conference: From Campaigning to Governing - October 15, 2008

American University’s Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and the Center for American Progress Action Fund will host a conference discussing this shift in power and how the next president will work with Congress titled “Presidential Transitions: From Campaigning to Governing,” from 8:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 15, at the Center for American Progress offices located at 1333 H St., NW, 10th Floor, Washington, D.C.

The conference will include both academic and professional participants, who will comment on the upcoming presidential transition by looking at the successes and failures of past transitions. There will be a specific focus on the promise made by both presidential candidates to change the way Washington works, exploring how these changes can take place, if these changes should take place, and how presidential-congressional relationships can improve.

Also sponsored by AU’s Kennedy Political Union, the conference will include three panel discussions: structuring a White House legislative affairs office, policy making in a polarized Congress, and working with Congress: lessons from past presidential transitions. A key note speech will be given by Clay Johnson who organized President George W. Bush’s transition in 2000.

DRAFT Agenda

8:30 – 9:00 a.m. Registration and light breakfast

9:00 – 9:15 a.m. Welcome
Scott Lilly, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund and former Staff Director of the House Appropriations Committee
Dr. James A. Thurber, Distinguished Professor and Director, Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University and editor of Rivals for Power: Presidential-Congressional Relations

9:15 – 10:30 a.m. "Structuring a White House Legislative Affairs Office"
Chair: Dr. James A. Thurber
Dr. Patrick Griffin, Former Assistant to President Clinton for Legislative Affairs and Academic Director of the Public Affairs and Advocacy Institute at American University
Dr. Gary Andres, Former Assistant for Legislative Affairs to President George H. W. Bush and Vice Chairman of Public Policy and Research at Dutko Worldwide

10:30 – 10:40 a.m. Break

10:40 – 12:00 p.m. "From the Election through the First Hundred Days: Opportunities and Hazards"
Michele Jolin, Senior Fellow at Center for American Progress Action Fund and Editor, "Change for America: A Progressive Blueprint for the 44th President"
Dr. Martha Joynt Kumar, Professor of Political Science at Towson University and Director of the White House Transition Project
Dr. Terry Sullivan, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Executive Director of the White House Transition Project

12:00 – 12:45 p.m. Buffet lunch

12:45 – 1:30 p.m. Clay Johnson III, Deputy Director for Management at the Office of Management Budget and former Executive Director of the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition

1:30 – 1:45 p.m. Break

1:45 – 3:30 p.m. "Working with a Polarized Congress"
Chair: Scott Lilly
Thomas J. O’Donnell, Executive Vice President at the Gephardt Group and former Chief of Staff to House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt
Dr. Jim Pfiffner, Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University and author of The Strategic Presidency: Hitting the Ground Running
Dr. Stephen Wayne, Professor of Government at Georgetown University and author of The Road to the White House and The Legislative Presidency

3:30 – 3:45 p.m. Closing Remarks

Professor Thurber on the Diane Rehm Show 10:00 am

Professor Thurber will be on the Diane Rehom show today at 10:00 am.
Click here to listen live.

Congressional Reaction to Pressure for a Wall Street Bail-Out

Guest host: Frank Sesno

President Bush warns the economic damage will be "painful and lasting" unless a financial bailout bill is passed. Guest host Frank Sesno and guests examine how record low approval ratings for Congress and the White House are affecting efforts to convince the nation that a Wall Street rescue plan is vital to the country's economic future.

Guests:

Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

Prof. James Thurber, Director and Professor at the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University

Norman Ornstein, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute; coauthor with Thomas Mann of "The Broken Branch: How Congress Is Failing America and How to Get It Back on Track"

NY Times Story Outlines McCain's Ties to Indian Gaming Industry

An article by Jo Becker and Don Van Natta Jr. of the New York Times went largely unnoticed on Sunday due to the nation’s focus on the ongoing financial crisis. The story was a lengthy examination of the relationships cultivated between lobbyists representing the Indian gaming industry and Senator John McCain over his 22 years in the U.S. Senate. Both presidential candidates have pledged to change the way Washington works, emphasizing their Senate records as champions of lobbying and ethics reform.

In a move that is emblematic of the rapid-response mindset in modern campaign advertising, the Democratic National Committee wasted no time in producing an eerie web video, portraying McCain as a “betting man” who stacked the deck in his favor during the explosive growth of a now $26 billion Indian gambling industry.

While on the stump, the candidates have downplayed their own ties to lobbyists while publicly ignoring the fundraising role policy advocates and their firms play in presidential campaigns. This has not prevented Senators McCain and Obama (and their surrogates) from ramping up the attacks against each other, however.

The junior senator from Illinois has attempted at times to portray McCain and his campaign as hypocritical: “This is somebody who has been in Congress for 26 years, who put seven of the most powerful Washington lobbyists in charge of his campaign,” Obama quipped at a recent campaign rally. “And now he tells us that he's the one who is going to take on the old boy's network. The old boy's network, in the McCain campaign, that's called a staff meeting.” Senator McCain, for his part, has not been reluctant to send barbs in Obama’s direction: “The crisis on Wall Street, my friends, started in the Washington culture of lobbying and influence-peddling, and [Senator Obama] was right square in the middle of it.”

In spite of these zingers flying back and forth between the candidates in what is a very competitive race, the Times article raises some interesting questions for McCain, who, as chair of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, presided over the congressional investigation into the lobbying activities of Jack Abramoff. While both Senators McCain and Obama have been at pains to distance themselves from any close association with Washington lobbyists and “special interests,” it is clear that both candidates could be more forthright on this issue.

Questions from tonight's debate

Early in the debate, McCain said that the amount spent on earmarks has increased greatly in recent years, that earmark spending has gotten out of control. We have done some research on this at CCPS, and have found that it is not necessarily true that earmarked spending has gotten so much worse. Although it is hard to count "earmarks" (in part because they are defined differently by different committees and agencies) and even harder to count the actual dollar amounts attached to them, we pieced together an aggregate dollar amount for each year from 1994-2006 and found that although the number of earmarks increased, the value of the earmarks as a total percentage of the discretionary budget did not change.


Senator McCain keeps referring to General Petraeus (who I love and have followed his story, in part because he has a PhD and has surrounded himself with a staff full of PhDs, something I am hoping to have soon). Does McCain know that Petraeus is actually no longer in Iraq, that he left on September 16? Here's the "Change of Command" video from Pentagon TV.

The First Debate

Watching Obama and McCain debate tonight reminds of the first time they were in a public debate, during the effort to pass lobbying reform legislation way back in 2006 (when not very many people thought either Senator had a chance of ever being president). In February 2006,they got into a disagreement over some of the details of the legislation. They exchanged tersely written letters - McCain would later say they had become "pen pals" - and when they were scheduled to testify together before the Senate Rules Committee meeting on February 8, 2006, lots of cameras were there to document their "make-up" handshake. Professor Thurber had been working closely with Senator Obama and his staff on the legislation, and he was also at the hearing that day to testify. A New York Times photographer caught the Obama-McCain handshake, and managed to get Prof. Thurber in the shot too.


Here is the story from the New York Times where this photo ran.

And here are copies of the letters that Obama and McCain exhanged on the lobbying reform bill.

February 2, 2006

The Honorable John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear John:

Thank you for inviting me to participate in the meeting yesterday to discuss lobbying and ethics reform proposals currently before the Senate. I appreciate your willingness to reach out to me and several other Senate Democrats to discuss what should be done to restore public confidence in the way that Congress conducts its business. The discussion clearly underscored the difficult challenge facing Congress.

You and many in the Democratic Caucus have played a major role in reform efforts in the Senate. In fact, the Indian Affairs Committee hearings you led were instrumental in promoting public awareness of the culture of corruption that has permeated the nation's capital.

As you know, Senator Harry Reid and others in the Democratic Caucus have taken an important step by introducing S. 2180, the Honest Leadership Act, which imposes many of the same disclosure requirements for lobbyists that you have proposed, while also strengthening enforcement, eliminating "pay to play" schemes, and imposing more restrictive rules on meals, gifts, and travel that Members and their staff can receive from special interests that advocate before Congress. This bill, which now has the support of 40 members of the Democratic Caucus, represents a significant step in addressing many of the worst aspects of corruption that have come to light as a result of the Justice Department investigation of Jack Abramoff.

I know you have expressed an interest in creating a task force to further study and discuss these matters, but I and others in the Democratic Caucus believe the more effective and timely course is to allow the committees of jurisdiction to roll up their sleeves and get to work on writing ethics and lobbying reform legislation that a majority of the Senate can support. Committee consideration of these matters through the normal course will ensure that these issues are discussed in a public forum and that those within Congress, as well as those on the outside, can express their views, ensuring a thorough review of this matter.

Given the state of affairs in Washington, we have a historic opportunity to make fundamental changes in the way our government operates so that the actions we take as public officials are responsive and transparent to the American people. Thank you again for your interest in this important matter.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

---

February 6, 2006

The Honorable Barack Obama
United States Senate
SH-713
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Obama:

I would like to apologize to you for assuming that your private assurances to me regarding your desire to cooperate in our efforts to negotiate bipartisan lobbying reform legislation were sincere. When you approached me and insisted that despite your leadership's preference to use the issue to gain a political advantage in the 2006 elections, you were personally committed to achieving a result that would reflect credit on the entire Senate and offer the country a better example of political leadership, I concluded your professed concern for the institution and the public interest was genuine and admirable. Thank you for disabusing me of such notions with your letter to me dated February 2, 2006, which explained your decision to withdraw from our bipartisan discussions. I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Again, sorry for the confusion, but please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.

As you know, the Majority Leader has asked Chairman Collins to hold hearings and mark up a bill for floor consideration in early March. I fully support such timely action and I am confident that, together with Senator Lieberman, the Committee on Governmental Affairs will report out a meaningful, bipartisan bill.

You commented in your letter about my "interest in creating a task force to further study" this issue, as if to suggest I support delaying the consideration of much-needed reforms rather than allowing the committees of jurisdiction to hold hearings on the matter. Nothing could be further from the truth. The timely findings of a bipartisan working group could be very helpful to the committee in formulating legislation that will be reported to the full Senate. Since you are new to the Senate, you may not be aware of the fact that I have always supported fully the regular committee and legislative process in the Senate, and routinely urge Committee Chairmen to hold hearings on important issues. In fact, I urged Senator Collins to schedule a hearing upon the Senate's return in January.

Furthermore, I have consistently maintained that any lobbying reform proposal be bipartisan. The bill Senators Joe Lieberman and Bill Nelson and I have introduced is evidence of that commitment as is my insistence that members of both parties be included in meetings to develop the legislation that will ultimately be considered on the Senate floor. As I explained in a recent letter to Senator Reid, and have publicly said many times, the American people do not see this as just a Republican problem or just a Democratic problem. They see it as yet another run-of-the-mill Washington scandal, and they expect it will generate just another round of partisan gamesmanship and posturing. Senator Lieberman and I, and many other members of this body, hope to exceed the public's low expectations. We view this as an opportunity to bring transparency and accountability to the Congress, and, most importantly, to show the public that both parties will work together to address our failings.

As I noted, I initially believed you shared that goal. But I understand how important the opportunity to lead your party's effort to exploit this issue must seem to a freshman Senator, and I hold no hard feelings over your earlier disingenuousness. Again, I have been around long enough to appreciate that in politics the public interest isn't always a priority for every one of us. Good luck to you, Senator.

Sincerely,

John McCain
United States Senate

---

February 6, 2006

The Honorable John McCain
United States Senate
241 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear John:

During my short time in the U.S. Senate, one of the aspects about this institution that I have come to value most is the collegiality and the willingness to put aside partisan differences to work on issues that help the American people. It was in this spirit that I approached you to work on ethics reform, and it was in this spirit that I agreed to attend your bipartisan meeting last week. I appreciated then - and still do appreciate - your willingness to reach out to me and several other Democrats.

For this reason, I am puzzled by your response to my recent letter. Last Wednesday morning, you called to invite me to your meeting that afternoon. I changed my schedule so I could attend the meeting. Afterwards, you thanked me several times for attending the meeting, and we left pledging to work together.

As you will recall, I told everyone present at the meeting that my caucus insisted that the consideration of any ethics reform proposal go through the regular committee process. You didn't indicate any opposition to this position at the time, and I wrote the letter to reiterate this point, as well as the fact that I thought S. 2180 should be the basis for a bipartisan solution.

I confess that I have no idea what has prompted your response. But let me assure you that I am not interested in typical partisan rhetoric or posturing. The fact that you have now questioned my sincerity and my desire to put aside politics for the public interest is regrettable but does not in any way diminish my deep respect for you nor my willingness to find a bipartisan solution to this problem.


Sincerely,

Barack Obama
United States Senator

Shades of Gray: When Campaign Consultants are also Lobbyists

In Professor Thurber's chapter in the book, Shades of Gray: Perspectives on Campaign Ethics (2002, editors Candice Nelson, David Dulio and Stephen Medvic), he writes about the ethical dilemma surrounding political consultants who are both campaign advisors and lobbyists. The simplest case is of a campaign staffer who helps a candidate get elected, then goes on to lobby the now-elected official on behalf of some private interest. The former campaign staffer has unique access to the elected official, especially if he helped get them elected.

The case we are seeing play out in the McCain campaign is more complicated, since Rick Davis (McCain's campaign manager who is accused of being paid as a lobbyist for Freddie Mac until just before the bailout of Fannie and Freddie) is said to have "recused" himself from his firm's dealings with Fannie and Freddie. The ethical question here is whether Davis, as the top staff person on the McCain campaign, should have been involved with Fannie and Freddie (*especially* during the worst housing crisis and the bailout of these firms) and if he was, did he tell his boss the extent of his involvement.

Thurber's chapter, "From Campaigning to Lobbying," reviews the American League of Lobbyists Code of Ethics, and it seems pretty clear that Davis violated Article IV - "Conflicts of Interest" (since on Sunday night in a CNBC interview McCain said that Davis was no longer involved with the mortgage giants). But the funny thing is that Fannie and Freddie probably kept Davis' firm as its lobbyist BECAUSE of his connection to McCain, so the "conflict of interest" is apparently a one-way street.

This happened to a Dem consultant during the primaries: Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's top strategist, who was doing work for the government of Columbia at the same time that he was working on Clinton's campaign. This was such a conflict of interest, that he was actually helping the Columbian government advocate for something that his candidate opposed.

Is this what we should come to expect of our country's top political consultants? They can't pay their bills working just for presidential candidates, can they - since presidential campaigns only happen every 4 years? (Even though the campaigns never really stop, do they?) So we have to expect that they will have other clients besides candidates and campaigns. It seems to me that the burden here lies with the candidates as much as it does with the consultants. Candidates should expect their high-paid consultants to work only for them, not their private-interest clients, when a campaign is underway. Candidates should know about the Lobbyist Code of Ethics, and consultants should be expected to adhere to them.

What do you think?

40 Days Left

With just 40 days left until Election Day, today seems like a great day to resurrect the CCPS blog. Even though Senator McCain is suspending his campaign at the same time we're restarting our blog, we bet that there will be great campaign stories just about every day until November 4.

I can't promise that we'll have the same kind of original analysis of polls and trends that Brian Schaffner offered when he was the chief blogger here, but we here's what we will do:

- Keep you updated on CCPS events and activities.

- Post research and reports written by CCPS fellows and board members.

- Share with you some of the interesting political analysis that we're reading.

-------

Today the CCPS phones were ringing with reporters calling to ask Professor Thurber about the McCain campaign's ties to lobbyists for Freddie Mac. Here's the story, which became more interesting this weekend when Senator McCain denied to reporter John Harwood in a CNBC interview that his campaign manager, Rick Davis, was involved as a lobbyist for Fannie or Freddie. Here is a transcript of the exchange:

HARWOOD: You mentioned cronyism and corruption on Wall Street and in Washington, and you've criticized Obama for self dealing here. How do you square that with the fact that your campaign manager, Rick Davis, was involved in some lobbying activities on behalf of Fannie Mae? And secondly, what specifically would you prevent, would you outlaw--what activity would you outlaw in Wall Street to make sure this doesn't happen again?

Sen. McCAIN: Now, on Wall Street, I'd--obviously we need to stop--we need to more--have more transparency. We need to take the regulatory agencies and merge them together in one effective agency. These regulatory agencies, this alphabet soup, was really designed for a different era. We're now in global transactions. We need more transparency. We need to combine the regulatory agencies, and we need to give them some more authority, if necessary, to do so. You know, Secretary Paulson had a package of recommendations sometime ago that basically did not really go anywhere. Maybe we can look at those and other recommendations in the future.

In Washington, I still think that it was the special interest money that went--and Fannie and Freddie money that went, and everybody was involved in this--not everybody, but certainly Senator Obama got next amount of money, except for the two Democratic chairman. His vice presidential search team was headed by Mr. Johnson, and...

HARWOOD: And your campaign manager?

Sen. McCAIN: And my campaign manager has stopped that, has had nothing to do with it since, and I'll be glad to have his record examined by anybody who wants to look at it.

(The entire transcript of the interview is available here.)

So after examining Rick Davis' record, it looks like his lobbying firm was getting about $15,000 a month from Freddie Mac until just before the bailout.