In and Out Burglars

Washington didn’t invent the revolving door. Theophilus von Kannel of Philadelphia patented the first one in 1888. But the Washington version – traveling between the public and private sectors – was soon in full swing.

As a D.C. tradition, the revolving door dates to at least 1897, when William McKinley named the head of the First National Bank of Chicago as treasury secretary. Under Bush, it is spinning faster than ever.

The Washington revolving door has many models. There’s the administration-to-industry version, in which officials cash in on their insider knowledge. Some civil servants don’t even clean out their desks before helping their new bosses. Consider Darleen Druyun, an Air Force procurement officer who secured jobs at Boeing for herself and two family members while pushing through a $20 billion contract to lease air tankers. She called the deal – which got her nine months in prison – a ​“parting gift.”

There’s also the government-to-lobbyist revolving door. Since 2000, the number of registered federal lobbyists has more than doubled to 34,750 and annual reported lobbying expenditures now top $2 billion. Leading the charge are ex-congressmen. According to Public Citizen, 43 percent of departing federal legislators since 1998(excluding those who took another office, died or went to jail) registered as lobbyists. More than half of Republicans leaving office went directly to K Street.

And why not? The money’s certainly better: Ex-Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.) now gets $2 million a year from PhRMA, a golden parachute for pushing through the Medicare prescription boondoggle. The Republican majority’s greatest policy success – outside of gerrymandering – is the K Street Project, Tom DeLay and Grover Norquist’s scheme to fill the plum lobbying jobs with their ex-staffers, loyalists and cronies.

The revolving door also works in reverse – lobbyists and executives join the government to regulate their former employers. One study found that more than 100 high-level Bush officials oversee industries they used to represent (and it missed a few). The poster-child here is J. Stephen Griles, who pulled off a double-reverse spin – industry-to-government and back again.

Griles was appointed as the Interior Department’s No. 2 after years of shilling for the oil and mining industries. Once there, he not only failed to recuse himself from cases involving former clients, but stayed on his old lobbying firm’s payroll, collecting $284,000 a year. Then he left to lobby for industry with Andrew Lundquist, the Cheney aide who ran the infamous Energy Task Force. 

But Griles got caught in what Carl Hiaasen calls ​“the glistening slime trail left by lobbyist Jack Abramoff.” At a November hearing of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, a former colleague accused Griles of trying to shut down a casino that threatened the business of an Abramoff client. To get Griles’ aid, Abramoff allegedly funneled $250,000 to an Astroturf eco-group run by a Griles crony. Abramoff also offered Griles a job at his firm.

Seizing on the stench of corruption, more than a dozen groups formed the Revolving Door Working Group (www​.revolv​ing​door​.info) to push a series of sensible reform proposals: doubling the one-year ​“cooling-off” period in which ex-officials cannot lobby their former colleagues; requiring officials to disclose job negotiations taking place while they’re still in office; revoking the special privileges enjoyed by former congressmen if they’re registered lobbyists; and improving the frequency and availability of lobbying disclosures, ethics forms and other documents.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and Rep. Marty Meehan (D-Mass.) already have introduced legislation addressing many of these concerns. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) are likely to introduce their own after McCain completes his hearings on Abramoff. ​“They’ll pass significant lobbying reform in 2006 before the midterm elections,” predicts Public Citizen’s Craig Holman. ​“The Democrats’ polling suggests this is a winner. And Republicans don’t want the Democrats to take all the credit.”

Of course, there’s reason to be more pessimistic. Democrats have a sordid record on lobbying reform. Bill Clinton issued an executive order in 1993, prohibiting all presidential appointees from lobbying for five years after they left office. But in his final weeks, he rescinded the order, reinstating the paltry one-year ban. 

And it’s hard to imagine Republicans closing off such a lucrative escape route for their scandal-ridden legislators. Sen. Bob Packwood – forced out of office for his serial sexual harassment – maintains a thriving lobbying practice. Former Rep. Bob Livingston, who resigned because of his own sex scandal, rang up almost $40 million in lobbying fees from 1999 to 2004.

Can DeLay be far behind? If Tauzin goes for $2 million, how much might The Hammer fetch on K Street? We could be talking A-Rod money. No wonder he can’t stop smiling, even in his mug shot.