The Washington Post reported yesterday on new lobbyist regulations being proposed by the American League of Lobbyists. According to the report, ALL recommends eliminating the 20 percent loophole for lobbyists for hire. That would mean powerful stealth lobbyists like Tom Daschle, Newt Gingrich and Jon Corzine would have to register. ALL’s proposal would reduce the size of the loophole for in-house lobbyists, but just barely. It would allow lobbyists who work in-house to fly under the radar by claiming they spent less than 15 percent of their time lobbying. Sunlight has been advocating closing the 20 percent loophole for all lobbyists since before it was cool.

Sunlight’s position is simple. If you lobby, and you are paid to lobby, you should register to lobby. Twenty percent, fifteen percent, in house or not, it makes no difference.

Any carve out will be exploited, giving power players a way to hide their activities. Take Chris Dodd. The head of the Motion Picture Association of America is a former powerful senator who undoubtedly has the private numbers of many current members of Congress programmed into his cell phone. He’s not registered now, and there is no reason to think he would register simply because the threshold was lowered from 20 to 15 percent. Yet he has far more access and far more power than I, an outside lobbyist consultant to Sunlight, or the vast majority of lobbyists-for-hire could hope to have. Why give him a pass?

ALL is not the only group with a proposal to reform lobbying. The American Bar Association has a set of recommendations (that includes eliminating the 20 percent loophole, among other things), as of course, does Sunlight. Lobbying reform legislation has been introduced in Congress, and the President continues to talk about the issue. With all of the suggestions, ideas and competing (and overlapping) proposals, the time is ripe for Congress to take the issue of lobbying reform seriously. A start would be to hold hearings so that advocates could fully explain their positions and members of Congress could start to build a record and build a consensus for meaningful reform.

MPAA head lobbyist Chris Dodd threatened Congress and the President last week, suggesting that lawmakers should remember that they've been bought, and that if they want to continue to enjoy their piece of the entertainment industry's largesse, they should mind their leash:

"Candidly, those who count on quote 'Hollywood' for support need to understand that this industry is watching very carefully who's going to stand up for them when their job is at stake," Dodd told Fox News. "Don't ask me to write a check for you when you think your job is at risk and then don't pay any attention to me when my job is at stake."

The corruption here is blatant -- Chris Dodd thinks that his industry's contributions should be able to purchase congressional results. This isn't just money in politics buying access, or systemic corruption, or some theoretical statistical link -- Chris Dodd is threatening the Congress with his industry money.

That money buys votes and affects public policy is nothing new. Boehner wasn't handing out tobacco industry checks on the House Floor in 1995 as party favors, after all. But donors' influence over specific public policy decisions are usually left unspoken, or at least not publicly aired. Chris Dodd's sense of influence entitlement has strayed outside the bounds of normal Washington discourse, and perhaps thankfully so. Dodd is doing a fantastic time of demonstrating everything that's wrong with the system.

On top of the sweetheart mortgage treatment Dodd enjoyed as Senator, he parlayed his position as former Senator to become head of the MPAA, where his connections won him a high salary and influential position. His public pledge to forswear lobbying and related revolving door restrictions weren't even a speed bump on Dodd's path through the revolving door, since directing a team of lobbyists and managing political contributions don't count as lobbying under the law. (Common sense, of course, dictates otherwise -- he's a lobbyist.) Cashing in on connections is often par for the course, as is avoiding lobbying disclosure -- both are de rigueur for former Members of Congress looking for lucrative careers.

But as MPAA head Dodd's signature legislative effort (SOPA and PIPA) ran off the rails, Dodd decided to flex his campaign finance muscles, and threatened his former colleagues to get in line.

And that's where things get weird.

Because Senate Democrats have repeatedly told us that they are interested in protecting the integrity of our elections, and that public service and representation should be protected from the undue influence of money in politics. In fact, here's Senator Chris Dodd, talking about the Citizens United decision:

 "If corporations -- foreign as well as domestic -- are allowed even greater and more direct influence over our elections, our democracy as we know it will cease to exist. I won't stand for that. I urge my colleagues, and the American people, to join me in defense of democracy by supporting this amendment and other interim steps to mitigate the damage done by this decision."

Senator Dodd was concerned about corporations having greater direct influence over our elections, but as MPAA head, Dodd feels empowered to dictate public policy to elected representatives, and strongarm them into passing it.

But this shouldn't be awkward just for Dodd.

In his remarks, he's both threatening and imploring his former colleagues to stay on his side, and to understand that it's his job on the line. In other words, we paid you off, and if you want more industry money, you better toe the line. And by the way, we're friends.

This should be extraordinarily awkward for the rest of the Senate, and especially Dodd's colleagues.  Remember, Dodd was first elected to the Senate in 1980, and had various leadership and committee positions throughout his career. This isn't a one off backbench house Member. If a Senator with three decades of tenure behind him can do an about face and use campaign cash to dictate public policy, what about the rest of the Senate?

It's shocking to see Senators who usually rail against money in politics ignore the public threats from their former colleague. I haven't seen any public response at all from sitting Senators, while the public perception of the institution is taking yet another hit. While a public White House petition is calling for an investigation of Dodd, the rest of the Senate (and House) have just quietly ignored his threats, at least in public.

That shouldn't be enough. If the former colleague of all these Democratic Senators is going to accuse them of being bought, and threaten to withhold support, the least they can do is deny the influence of the MPAA's money on their actions. If it's not okay to publicly bully Congress with industry money, then somebody should say so.

And if we don't act, this is only going to get worse. All these outside influencers now have tools at their disposal to credibly threaten to spend tens or hundreds of millions of dollars supporting or opposing candidates, while covering their tracks, if they so choose. If a Senator who has publicly committed to protecting the integrity of representation is willing to bully Members with his industry cash, we can expect this is just a small piece of the action.

We should pass lobbying reform, get real disclosure for super PACs, strengthen ethics enforcement bodies, and follow the money as best we can. And maybe we should be glad when the influential have such hubris that they tell us what they're really up to.

About that black bar...

If you're reading this post on our website, you might have noticed the black bar covering our logo. It's there as an expression of solidarity with those opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA).

SOPA is designed to protect the interests of intellectual property rightsholders more vigorously. Whether or not that's a wise or necessary course of action isn't for Sunlight to say--that's not our mission. But we can say that this bill poses a serious threat to the freedom of online speech. And that's a problem--for an organization that relies on the internet as much as we do, it's a big problem.

It's simply not acceptable for the government to grant itself the power to silence individuals and organizations without appropriate due process. Making this possible would be a mistake under any circumstances; that this extreme threat to free speech is being considered simply to protect an industry's bottom line is outrageous--as is the money that that industry has been spending on the politicians who are trying to pass SOPA into law.

Despite vowing not to become a lobbyist after retiring from a long Senate career Chris Dodd officially became Hollywood's top lobbyist in Washington yesterday. Senate revolving door issues place certain restrictions on Dodd as he moves ahead in lobbying for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). These rules, however, do allow Dodd to lobby certain parts of the government that are essential for the MPAA's major issues.

Senate revolving door rules restrict Dodd from lobbying his former colleagues in the Senate. This rule, however, does not apply to the executive branch or the House of Representatives. The language from the Senate Rules states that any former senator registered as a lobbyist or working for an organization employing registered lobbyists "shall not lobby Members, officers, or employees of the Senate for a period of two years after leaving office."

The MPAA listed over a dozen executive branch agencies as contacts in their 2010 lobbying reports. This should provide more than enough lobbying targets for Dodd as he waits two years until he can lobby his old buddies in the Senate.