Senator Dodd To Guest Post Tomorrow

Please Ask Him About Lobbyist Reform (0.00 / 0)

When we elected Democrats to Congress in 2006, we expected significant lobbyist reform. Instead we got this [from the Feb. 10 The New York Times]: "Congress Finds Ways to Avoid Lobbyist Limits"

The 110th Congress opened with the passage of new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets. But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having lobbyist-financed fun. In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker's honor ($1,000 a lobbyist), martinis and margaritas at Washington restaurants (at least $1,000), a California wine-tasting tour (all donors welcome), hunting and fishing trips (typically $5,000), weekend golf tournaments ($2,500 and up), [and] a Presidents' Day weekend at Disney World ($5,000).

Questions:  Can we ever expect real lobbyist reform? And if not now, with Democrats in control of both Houses of Congress, then when? And what will it look like?

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by: CaptCT @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 20:18:22 PM CST

Good Question (0.00 / 0)

Sen. Dodd won't be in the comments thread tomorrow, but his staff will be. I'd suggest coming back to leave that comment, as I'm sure his staff will be passing feedback along to him.

http://holdfastblog.com

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by: Matt Browner Hamlin @ Tue Mar 06, 2007 at 21:11:04 PM CST

[ Parent ]

Habeas Corpus (4.00 / 1)

I suspect Sen. Dodd will be talking about restoring habeas corpus which is critical good legislation. I wish the Senate Dems did a little better job blocking the awful legislation that stripped it last fall so Sen. Dodd wasn't left nearly alone trying to repair our Constitution with spit and chickenwire.
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My questions for Connecticut's only Democratic Senator:

1) Will you end the practice of treating Al-Qaeda as 'enemy combatants' and seek to hold them as 'prisoners of war' under Geneva? As Geneva is unclear on stateless terrorism will you seek to renew Geneva with the international community to include such provisions? Can the stateless nature of Al-Qaeda be walked back and the pre-9/11/01 government of the Taliban be recognized retroactively to paper over the legal morass that the Bush Administration has created?

2) Does a US Senator running for President have time to do some recommended reading? How about his staff? If so I highly recommend the Department of the Army's LAW AT WAR: VIETNAM 1964-1973. One of the things we got right in Vietnam was our application of Geneva. It's only 116 pages plus a great index but what is most relevant to today's debate are the 12 pages on Prisoners of War and War Crimes.
http://www.army.mil/...

3) Less important than our Constitution and international law but still important - will Sen. Dodd join Sen. Edwards in avoiding the FOX News sponsored Nevada debate?
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I'll try to be here to ask myself but I don't think I'll be online tomorrow afternoon. Kudos to Sen. Dodd for joining MLN and cheers to MLN for being such a great place as to attract serious people like Sen. Dodd.

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by: joejoejoe @ Wed Mar 07, 2007 at 01:06:59 AM CST