13 November 2008
Obama Team Severely Restricts Role of Lobbyists in Transition
Teams established to review federal agencies for incoming officials
Washington — President-elect Obama’s transition team is implementing a set of rules designed to severely limit participation of federal lobbyists in what transition co-chairman John Podesta describes as “the most open and transparent transition in history.”
Under the ethics rules, announced November 11, the transition team cannot accept financial contributions from federal lobbyists or gifts from special interest groups. Anyone hoping to work on the transition cannot have lobbied in the policy field to which they are assigned within the past 12 months or be involved currently with any lobbying work.
Those assisting with the transition also are prohibited from lobbying the Obama administration for the next 12 months on matters on which they work during the transition.
These rules “are the strictest, the most far-reaching ethics rules of any transition team in history,” Podesta told reporters in Washington November 11. He said the rules continue Obama’s prohibitions against lobbyist contributions to his presidential campaign and are part of his pledge to “change the way Washington works and to curb the influence of lobbyists.”
Podesta, who co-chairs the Obama-Biden Transition Project and served as President Clinton’s White House chief of staff from 1998 until 2001, said Obama is imposing tough rules “to stop the revolving door in Washington,” by which U.S. officials have used the contacts and expertise they gained through government work to advocate for special interests once they have left federal service.
Lobbyists have developed a bad reputation among the American public because they are seen as cashing in on their government experience after they leave government jobs to lobby for powerful companies and groups.
However, former lobbyists have challenged the notion that their colleagues are “intellectually promiscuous” hired guns, pointing out that every cause and interest has its advocates, including trade associations, consumer groups, universities and state governments. (See “McCain, Obama Built Images by Pushing Lobbying Restrictions.”)
AGENCY REVIEW TEAMS TO HELP ASSESS FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
Podesta said those observing the Obama-Biden transition “will see a transition of government that is efficient, that is organized, that is bipartisan and more open and transparent than others before.”
In his November 11 briefing, he announced the transition’s agency review teams, which collect information from more than 100 federal departments, agencies and commissions, as well as the White House, to help senior Obama administration officials and appointees “make strategic policy, budgetary and personnel decisions prior to the inauguration.”
The teams will be briefed by Bush administration officials about ongoing programs, projects and operations. President-elect Obama then will “render judgment as a result of and after those briefings occur, and he's had a chance to meet with his key advisers.”
Podesta said Obama “wants to ensure that we hit the ground running on January 20 [2009],” but also recognizes there is only one president at a time, and until the inauguration, “President Bush is the leader of our government.”
Bush’s offers of support and assistance to the transition team show that “here in America we can compete vigorously in elections and challenge each other's ideas, yet come together in the service of a common purpose once the voting is done,” Podesta said. (See “Bush Pledges Full Cooperation with Incoming Obama Administration.”)
“I think we should all take pride in the fact that we once again displayed for the world the power of our democracy and reaffirmed that in America anything is possible when we come together as one nation.”
More information, including press releases by the Obama-Biden Transition Team, is available on the team’s Web site.
