Patrick Leahy: “I filed an amendment to the lobbying reform bill, S. 2349, on March 7. My amendment is the honest services amendment…”

“I filed an amendment to the lobbying reform bill, S. 2349, on March 7. My amendment is the honest services amendment, No. 2924. It is disappointing that there will not be an opportunity to offer my amendment--or to have it considered by the Senate--because cloture has been invoked and the strict rules governing amendments postcloture prevent me from offering this amendment. The purpose of my amendment is to articulate more clearly the line that cannot be crossed with respect to links between special favors and gifts and official acts, without incurring criminal liability. My amendment would have offered an important and needed new dimension to the lobbying reform bill. Ironically, because my amendment offers a new element to the lobbying reform debate, it is now out of order. It was only with the indictments of Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon, and Randy ``Duke'' Cunningham that Congress took note of the serious ethics scandal that has grown over the last years. If we are serious about restoring public confidence in Congress, we need to do more than just reform the lobbying disclosure laws and ethics rules. Congress must send a signal that it will not tolerate this type of public corruption by providing better tools for Federal prosecutors to combat it. My amendment would have done exactly that. It would create a better legal framework for combating public corruption than currently exists under our criminal laws.…”