Senate toughens lobbying rules post-Ensign

The Senate Ethics Committee is tightening rules on lobbyists, an outgrowth of the scandal that ended Nevada Sen. John Ensign's political career and landed his once-top aide Doug Hampton in court.

But Politico reports today on blowback from senators and ethics attorneys who complain the new rule is too broad.

“This guidance is going to shut down access to the Senate,” Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.,  told the publication.

Coburn was reprimanded last month for taking a meeting with lobbyist Hampton (and executives from his client Allegiant Air) in his office in March of 2009.  Problem was,  Hampton still was covered by a restriction forbidding former top Senate aides from lobbying for a year.

Bret Bernhardt, chief of staff to Sen. Jim DMint, R-S.C., similarly was admonished for meeting with Hampton and Allegiant.

At the same time the Senate ethics panel issued those reprimands, it also put out new "guidance" for how senators can stay on the right side of the law.

"This is the first time the Senate ethics panel has laid out a knowledge test for lawmakers and staffers in their interactions with former staffers or members who make contact," Politico reports. "Staffers or senators must consult with an online database to determine whether a lobbyist falls within a cooling-off period if they are unsure whether a person falls within the restriction."

Previously it was believed to be okay for a former aide to ask Senate offices for information on behalf of clients,  short of lobbying itself.   The ethics committee said now that is a no-no.

“So you’re going to tell all your people, ‘Here’s what you’re going to have to do before you meet with anybody’? The responsibility needs to be on (lobbyists) — not us,”  Coburn said.

“It’s arbitrary and subjective and so open to interpretation,” DeMint told Politico.

Ethics committee chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said critics were over-reacting.

“We think we did it in the right way,” she said of the rule-tightening.

Hampton was indicted in March 2011 on seven counts of violating the so-called "revolving door" law.   He accepted a plea deal earlier this month and pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count for which he will be sentenced Sept. 6.

Ensign, who resigned from the Senate in May 2011, was not charged.  He had forced Hampton from his staff in May 2008 but helped set him up as a lobbyist after the discovery that Ensign was having an affair with Hampton's wife