Anything You Can Eat, Drink, or Fornicate In One Afternoon
West, Peter Gruenstein and Daniel
Anything You Can Eat, Drink, or Fornicate In One Afternoon by Peter Gruenstein and Daniel West Although even the most minor peccadillos of congressmen are now subject to public scrutiny, few...
...The rule is named after the former Senator Paul Douglas of Illinois...
...Tony Cluff, another Banking Committee staff member, and his wife also attended the convention...
...Lee Wilbur, another staff aide on the Transportation Subcommittee, and his wife were also on the Frankfort inaugural flight...
...But reminded that his name, as well as that of his wife, appears on a passenger list of a Pan American inaugural flight to Frankfort, Germany, in late 1973, Kingfield fell silent for a moment...
...In exchange, he spoke briefly on the Housing Act of 1974...
...Among the participants were committee staffers and congressional aides who work closely with defense-related . appropriations...
...The Friendly Skies Another bonanza for committee staffers is the inaugural flight of an airline’s new route...
...Several things are clear from these stories...
...Swigert added, “Oh, there’s nothing that I actually see...
...Committee staff members are therefore important to lobbyists, sometimes more so than the congressmen themselves...
...Inaugural flights are just the tip of the iceberg...
...Anything You Can Eat, Drink, or Fornicate In One Afternoon by Peter Gruenstein and Daniel West Although even the most minor peccadillos of congressmen are now subject to public scrutiny, few have bothered to monitor the behavior of the anonymous aides who staff congressional committees...
...What effect have these trips had on his job performance...
...If presents are given to staffers outside of this office, I wouldn’t know about it...
...Peter Gruenstein is director of and Daniel West is a reporter for the Capitol News Service...
...This means, of course, free lunches, like the one Lobel enjoyed-a practice rigorously defended by almost everyone involved as both harmless and necessary to maintaining contact between staff and lobbyists...
...Spokesmen for the committees without restrictions on gifts generally argue that such rules aren’t necessary...
...Several aides cited the so-called Douglas Rule-“anything you can eat, drink, or fornicate in one afternoon is acceptable...
...Like some of their congressional employers, committee staff members are regular passengers on corporate-owned jetliners...
...The seven-man party occupied the entire top floor of the 116 Club, an exclusive lobbyists’ gathering spot on Capitol Hill...
...In addition to the lobbyists, 60 Capitol Hill and other government employees belong to the club, whose membership list is secret...
...Committee aide Lewis Berry and his wife landed a $2,186 free roundtrip flight from New York to Dublin, Ireland, on TWA in October 1974...
...Only five of 39 congressional committees we surveyed have rules prohibiting committee staff members from accepting gifts from specialinterest groups or lobbyists...
...Kingfield’s committee job requires him to deal “on a regular basis” with Pan Am lobbyists...
...The Banking Committee, however, under new chairman Senator William Proxmire, is grappling with the problem...
...We count on the integrity of staffers,” remarked George Murphy, Jr., of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy...
...The Air Force paid for travel and hotel accommodations, but much of the liquor and entertainment came out of the lobbyists’ pockets...
...According to Lobel, his questions were answered with charts and slides, as well as steak and ample quantities of liquor...
...John Martin, staff director of the House Ways and Means Committee, which has no rules on gifts, said: “Well, I suppose it goes on...
...This one, courtesy of Trans World Airlines, was from New York to t.he Spanish coastal resort town of Malaga...
...Up, Up and Away In another case, last November 18, House and Senate aides were flown to the West Coast on Air Force planes for a four-day, all-expensepaid outing that included a Las Vegas rendezvous with defense industry lobbyists...
...Speaking of his committee colleagues, Berry said, “The thing is, they all do it...
...Jack Swigert, executive director of the House Science and Technology Committee, said it is difficult to precisely define a conflict of interest...
...This is one of the main arguments set forth by opponents of strict committee or congressional prohibitions on gift-giving...
...He described his committee role as one of “a catalyst between the airline companies and committee members.’’ On May 9 of last year, the Wilburs took another free round-trip flight...
...One is that without specific rules against the acceptance of gifts from lobbyists and corporations this kind of behavior will continue indefinitely...
...Martin Lobel, a former energy aide to Senator William Proxmire, told of his first contact with an oil industry lobbyist soon after going to work for Proxmire in 1969...
...But one former Capitol Hill staff member recalled a lunch he enjoyed with a major oil company lobbyist at the Sans Souci, one of Washington’s most exclusive French restaurants, where the bill came to $225...
...In contrast, the executive branch strictly prohibits federal employees from accepting virtually anything from individuals or corporations doing business with the government...
...Altogether he stayed in Hawaii for about two weeks...
...The bill originated in Williamson’s committee...
...Lobel telephoned Humble (now Exxon) lobbyist John Knodell with some questions about the oil import quota system, which was strongly supported by the major oil companies...
...Since passenger lists on private flights are not public information, specific incidents of this kind of “hitchhiking” are difficult to trace...
...But where do you draw the line...
...But, he argued that since gifts from lobbyists were “standard operating procedure, it’s hard to turn it around...
...The risk that “professional responsibility” may lie only in the eye of the beholder is apparent from the following incidents: William Webber attended, along with his wife, last fall’s convention of the American Bankers Association (ABA) in Honolulu...
...Webber acknowledged in retrospect that the trip could raise conflict-of-int erest problems...
...I can see no legislative purpose in accepting a television...
...YOU have to rely on a person’s sense of profession a1 responsibility, ” said William Webber of the Senate Banking Committee...
...For the congressional staff member such trips are a way that he can live like his boss...
...The first-class tickets which Kingfield received free, courtesy of Pan Am, were worth more than $2,000...
...Yet relatively little scrutiny has been given to the relationshps between these aides and the lobbyists who swarm around Capitol Hill...
...Two months after Williamson returned from vacation, the House passed by a slender margin con troversial legislation allowing the Civil Aeronautics Board to grant an airmail rate increase worth millions of dollars to TWA...
...Thomas Kingfield, a staff member of the House Appropriations Transportation Subcommittee, flew on such a flight to Frankfort, Germany, in late 1973...
...Dudley O’Neal of the Senate Banking Committee said: “Over the years, I guess just about every organization we do business with has sent up a case of whiskey at Christmas...
...Wilbur said it is easy to distinguish between “gifts and gratuities,” which he won’t accept, and free air travel...
...The two first-class tickets would have cost a paying customer over $2,200...
...At a committee organizational meeting earlier this year, chief staff counsel Ken McLean proposed that all staff travel be paid for out of committee funds unless the aide is a bona fide participant in a trade association meeting...
...We’re like Caesar’s wife down here,” said Howard Greenberg of the House Small Business Committee in arguing that a rule would be superfluous because staff members on his committee are personally above suspicion...
...In fact, I’ve turned down a couple of things I thought might be construed as a conflict of interest...
...He added that if anything arises which might involve a possible conflict, the staff member is encouraged to talk to him about it...
...The mysterious 116 Club, which gets its name from the 116 lobbyists who belong to it, has been called the “headquarters of subterranean power” by The New York Times...
...Webber and Cluff were not the only Banking Committee staff members in Hawaii for the ABA convention...
...Gifts are positively corruptive,” while free air fares are “harmless, or at least only potentially corruptive,” he said...
...These aides, who earn up to $36,000 a year, write much of Congress’ legislation and often have tremendous influence over both the form and substance of bills...
...Knodell suggested lunch, and two days later Lobel met with Knodell and five other Humble employees-three from Houston and two from New York-all flown in especially to answer Lobel’s query...
...And for the lobbyist, courting committee staff is good business...
...But spokesmen for two major Texas corporationsLing-Temco-Vought and Tennecosaid that committee aides regularly take advantage of their round-trip flight between Washington and Dallas or Houston...
...But I don’t want to know anything about it...
...No rule similar to Executive Order 11222 has ever been seriously considered by either the House or Senate...
...I’m sorry...
...He then took several days vacation...
...There is general agreement among committee aides that lunches and bottles of liquor provided by lobbyists are both common and permissible...
...Furthermore, I wouldn’t care...
...Again, TWA picked up the air fares...
...The weekend trip was designed by Air Force promoters to give the aides an opportunity to visit several West Coast defense installations...
...Then what’s the distinction between a free television set and a much more expensive Hawaiian holiday...
...One of the club’s members says: “Much of the major congressional legislation affecting billions and billions of dollars is either written or influenced there...
...I did take that flight,” he acknowledged...
...After all, they do much of the actual legislative work of Congress and it doesn’t cost much to win their eternal gratitude...
...McLean admitted that the rule did not go far enough...
...None at all,” he said initially...
...In Las Vegas, the aides were wined and dined and attended shows, all courtesy of representatives of such high-powered defense contractors as Fairchild, Hughes, General Dynamics, Ling-Temco-Vought and Northrop...
...But when asked if he would accept from the bankers, say, a color television Webber said, “No way...
...And, “besides,” he continued, “the fact it was held in Hawaii is fortuitous...
...But, hell, I’m sure it goes on.’’ Some committee staff spokesmen take an ostrich-like approach on the whole issue...
...he asked...
...But in talking about his committee responsibilities a short time later, Wilbur said, “I guess I’m a little more available to airline lobbyists than some of the other staffers...
...Executive Order 1 1222, signed by President Johnson on May 8, 1965, reads in part: “No employe shall solicit or accept, directly or indirectly, a gift, gratuity, favor, loan, or any other thing of monetary value, from any person, corporation or group...
...Everybody who’s been around here for a while has taken these free flights.’’ House Commerce Committee’s chief clerk, Ed Williamson, also spent a week in Dublin with his wife last October...
...When initially asked if he’d ever been offered a free flight by an airline, Kingfield said he hadn’t...
...He, too, acknowledged that this might raise questions of impropriety...
...Webber was given round-trip tickets, a room at the plush Hilton Village Hotel and a liberal expense account in exchange for making a brief .presentation on banking legislation past and present...
...Coan then stayed in town for the ABA convention and was paid a $25 per diem by the Committee as an “observer...
...Carl Coan, a top lawyer on the Housing Subcommittee, had gone to Honolulu for a meeting of the ’National Savings and Loan League, which had also paid his expenses...
...Lobel, in a word, was “overwhelmed...
Vol. 7 • June 1975 • No. 4
