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Obama ethics code limits lobbyists
President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned against lobbyists' influence, on Tuesday opened the door for them to work for him if they sign an ethics code that restricts their role in and out of government.
- AP
- Published: 09:36 November 12, 2008
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Washington: President-elect Barack Obama, who campaigned against lobbyists' influence, on Tuesday opened the door for them to work for him if they sign an ethics code that restricts their role in and out of government.
Lobbyists can work for Obama's transition if they stop their advocacy efforts and avoid working in any field that they lobbied on in the last year. They also must pledge not to lobby the Obama administration on the same matters they focused on during the transition for a year after leaving Obama's service.
The ethics policy allows Obama to hire any of the some 22,000 federally registered lobbyists who could be valuable assets because of their government experience, even though Obama railed against their influence on the campaign trail.
Obama transition co-chair John Podesta announced the lobbyist policy at the first news conference in the transition headquarters briefing room, set up with a backdrop of a White House-like blue curtain and US flags. Interest in the Obama plans are high — the briefing room is much larger than at the White House, and media from around the world packed it to standing-room only even though no cameras were allowed.
Podesta said the transition will have a budget of $12 million. Taxpayers pick up $5.2 million, and Podesta said the rest would be raised from individuals with a $5,000 per-person contribution limit. He said lobbyists, corporations and political action committees will be banned from donating.
Podesta called the lobbying ban "the strictest, the most far-reaching ethic rules of any transition team in history." Yet the transition rules are not as strict as those that Obama has proposed for his administration's staff.
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