Obama's lobbying reforms are the most aggressive attempt by an administration to rein in lobbyists, but still don't plug a host of loopholes. | REUTERS Lobbying reforms leave loopholes

President Barack Obama’s new ethics rules concerning lobbyists appear to be written right out of yesterday's headlines — the scandalous ones.

And while they represent the most aggressive attempt by an administration to rein in lobbyists, a host of loopholes that have bedeviled reform efforts for years won’t be plugged by the president’s executive order.


Among the new rules aimed at preventing a repeat scandal is one that forbids anyone on his team from working in an agency or on a program for which they lobbied in the last two years.

In short, that could be called the Jack Abramoff Rule, in recognition of the imprisoned former lobbyist who planted allies in the Bush administration’s Interior Department and elsewhere, then extracted inside information or favorable rulings for his clients.

Obama also vowed Wednesday to lean on the side of disclosing his administration’s records and those of former presidents when confronted with Freedom of Information Act requests.

An alternate title for that could be the Dick Cheney Energy Task Force Rule, for the secret band of energy executives who met privately with the former vice president to help fashion a new national energy agenda.

“Let me say it as simply as I can, ‘Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency,’” Obama said during his first full day on the job.

Good government advocates instantly heralded the new rules and Obama’s decision to rank them among his first priorities.

“These are unprecedented restrictions on what lobbyists can do when they join an administration,” said Fred Wertheimer, founder of Democracy 21, a nonpartisan ethics watchdog organization.

Interestingly, though, what the rules don’t do is prohibit lobbyists from working in the Obama administration, which shouldn’t be surprising, since quite a few of them have already been named to it.

A sample: Attorney General-designee Eric Holder was a lobbyist with Covington & Burling, Deputy Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Bill Corr advocated for the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and Vice President Joe Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, was a player at O’Melveny & Myers.

And, as is always the case when trying to contain lobbyists, there are some workarounds.

For instance, many people in Washington whose work involves plotting strategies to influence votes on Capitol Hill or administration action simply don’t register as lobbyists.

Instead, they take on the titles of “consultant,” “adviser” or “partner” and offer guidance, advice and insiders’ insight to underlings who are registered lobbyists and will attend a meeting on Capitol Hill or at an agency.

The Obama rule banning former presidential appointees from lobbying any part of the administration during his term — including a second one, if he wins reelection — is a sweeping prohibition that goes further than any similar presidential good government rules.

But what it doesn’t do — and can’t do — is ban former government officials from lobbying Capitol Hill, which is where the bulk of legislative advocacy happens anyway.

Such loopholes are notoriously common in rules aimed at containing the influence of lobbyists.

In part, that’s because lobbyists serve a legitimate — and legal — role in our democracy, whether advocating for business interests or those of the poor. Even the good government groups advocating for stricter rules are populated with their own lobbyists.

Obama’s rules, however, do represent the most aggressive effort by a president to trim K Street’s maneuvering room.

President George H.W. Bush created a commission that expanded the financial disclosure reports of those entering government services and formalized the cooling-off period before ex-officials could return as lobbyists. But that lobbying limitation often only applied to the agency or office in which they’d worked.

President Bill Clinton lengthened the cooling-off period for former presidential appointees but placed few restrictions on lobbyists entering his administration.

One of the first major government transparency reforms announced by President George W. Bush was an executive order that made it easier for former presidents to keep their records secret.

Obama’s comments Wednesday, though, suggest he’s prepared to overturn that Bush order or sign legislation to obliterate it that passed the House earlier this month and is now pending in the Senate.

“I will hold myself, as president, to a new standard of openness,” Obama said Wednesday. “Going forward, any time the American people want to know something that I or a former president wants to withhold, we will have to consult with the attorney general and the White House counsel, whose business it is to ensure compliance with the rule of law.”

The strength of Obama’s commitment, of course, will rely heavily on the independence and interpretations of the White House and Justice Department attorneys. In Bush’s case, he had their blessing each time he withheld records.

Still, Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which has sued the Bush administration for release of records, hailed the new approach.

“It is creating a clear line of demarcation between his administration and the Bush administration,” she said. “It sends a signal that he’s not going to be a party to” keeping records secret.

Obama’s rule limiting the role of lobbyists joining his administration marks the first time a White House has tried to restrict their role when they enter government service as opposed to when they are leaving it.

“The prohibition on lobbying the administration for multiple years is a tough rule,” said Ken Gross, an ethics attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. The ban against working at the White House in an area of expertise on which one had lobbied within the last two years “has frustrated some appointees,” he added.

Jan Baran, an ethics expert at Wiley Rein who served on President George H.W. Bush’s commission, has since made a career of finding the soft spots in this kind of regulation, or advising corporate clients about how not to run afoul of it.

Obama’s effort, he said, seems the most far-reaching.

“He’s setting the tone and he’s setting the standard, certainly for his White House employees, and that’s consistent with his campaign promises,” Baran said.