J.C. WATTS : Congress and the Abramoff mess
It's perhaps the biggest dog-bites-man story in the history of Washington. A high-rolling lobbyist took his access to excess, and bilked his clients out of millions of dollars. The media and members of Congress are shocked -- shocked! -- at the spectacle.
It has been with much amazement and little amusement that I have watched the whole Jack Abramoff lobbying debacle unfold on Capitol Hill.
Let's review, shall we?
After four decades in the political wilderness, the Republican Party -- my Republican Party -- swept into control of Congress in 1994. Newt Gingrich led an anti-Clinton and anti-incumbent juggernaut. On a sunny autumn afternoon on the steps of our nation's capitol, Republican candidates for Congress signed the Contract With America, and vowed that things would change.
I was one of 73 new members of a Republican freshman class that came in committed to changing the world, and changing the way business is done in Washington.
But there's an old saying that goes: "The man that sets out to change the world without first changing himself is a fool."
The sorry spectacle of the basest, greediest instincts in man have surpassed, at least in perception, the good that has come from the big change in 1994.
Now, we have the manifestation of a brash young Turk and his buddies parlaying their access to the most powerful players on the Hill into millions of dollars in lobbying fees, trips, meals and a general profligate lifestyle at the expense of their clients -- and more chillingly -- at the expense of ethics.
Clearly, the Abramoff situation will force Congress to look at lobbying reform.
Lobbying reform is a nice concept. But common sense dictates that it doesn't matter what the law is, if people don't have ethics enough to obey rules. You can have all the laws on the books you need, and it won't change bad people from doing bad things. When arrogance and greed kick in, smarts take a holiday. The problem is not that we don't have rules, it's that we have thugs who ignore the rules because of greed.
As is typical in Washington, I anticipate that Congress will hold very public hearings, and members of the minority party and the majority party alike will feign disgust at the whole sorry scene. With furrowed brows, they will wag their fingers at the witnesses and the cameras in one of the great morality lectures of their careers. I may have to watch Dr. Phil that day.
I urge my former colleagues in Congress to resist the temptation to take a rug and throw it over all of the past sins and think that's dealing with the problem. We saw that after the 1996 presidential election when the Clinton campaign took foreign money and did other illegal things, and then basically said: "Let's forget about all that, and let's start over with new rules."
There is nothing illegal, unethical or unconstitutional about lobbying. It is every man's right to be represented before our nation's leaders. Making new laws won't change the climate of Washington
So I would strongly suggest that before we make more bad laws, let's deal with the bad guys, and send a message that such behavior will not be the norm.
At the risk of sounding like "I told you so," I can confidently say I saw this train coming years ago. The arrogance factor among some leaders, members and their staffs who were smitten with power and arrogance was starting to run amok even six years ago.
By the way, if there are ever term limits on members of Congress, we might consider term limits on staff as well.
It's all about access to power, and that access morphs quickly into greed. You seldom hear of a member of Congress or key staffers taking a position with a small business or a Hispanic or black university, a church-affiliated university or with their local rescue mission. No sir, it's all about cashing in, and the cash is in the big boys' pockets.
Ironically, the small businesses and the minority businesses get the shaft again.
The bottom line is that rules have been in place for years. Abramoff and his associates knew the rules, and they scoffed at them because of greed.
Let's not broad-brush all lobbyists as being crooks because of the sins of their contemporaries.
There is no such thing as business ethics. Personal ethics -- or lack of the same -- set the tone for the entire process.
J.C. Watts (JCWatts01@jcwatts.com), chairman of J.C. Watts Companies, a business consulting group, is former chairman of the Republican Conference of the U.S. House, where he served as an Oklahoma representative from 1995 to 2002. He writes twice monthly for the Review-Journal.
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