WASHINGTON _ The road from Capitol Hill to K Street is designed to have a speed bump.
By law, members of Congress and their senior staffers are supposed to have a one- to two-year cooling-off period in which they refrain from lobbying their former colleagues.
But nearly 120 former members and senior staffers since 2015 have been the sole lobbyist or part of a lobbying team targeting their former chamber during their cooling-off periods, according to a McClatchy analysis of post-employment restriction data from the House and Senate as well as lobbying registration data.
That doesn't necessarily mean they broke the law.
Those rules are limited in terms of what they specifically prohibit former members and staffers from doing. They ban direct contact with current members or staffers, but do not ban providing behind-the-scenes advice to other lobbyists on who they should contact and what they should say _ essentially using a cutout. Former staffers from the House of Representatives are only restricted from lobbying their former office or committee. Lobbying other branches of government isn't prohibited. And the system effectively operates on the honor system.
The lobbying rules, designed to prevent former lawmakers from immediately profiting from their political connections, are more important than ever as Washington sees a strikingly rapid exodus of elected officials, some of them weary of the toxic partisanship and eager to cash in on more lucrative opportunities.
Violating the cooling-off period is punishable by up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $50,000, but lobbyists who break the law are unlikely to be detected. While the House and the Senate are responsible for flagging potential lobbying violations, both the offices of the House clerk and the secretary of the Senate confirmed to McClatchy that neither regularly checks whether lobbyists have violated the cooling-off period.
The Government Accountability Office annually audits a random sampling of lobbying forms for compliance with lobbying rules, but told McClatchy it doesn't check for compliance with the cooling-off period. And while the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington D.C. is responsible for bringing charges against potential violators, the office couldn't recall any recent instances in which it actually did.
When presented with McClatchy's findings, former Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold, best known for his work with former Sen. John McCain on a 2002 campaign finance law, said Congress should revisit the lobbying laws, which were last updated in 2007.
"At a minimum, Congress should insist that the clerk of the House and the secretary of the Senate review lobbying registrations to determine if former members and staff may be violating the law and refer potential violations to the U.S. Attorney's Office for investigation and prosecution," Feingold said. "We included tougher revolving-door restrictions in the 2007 lobbying reform package but without enforcement that law doesn't mean much."
McClatchy's analysis flagged three former members of Congress _ Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, California Rep. Howard "Buck" McKeon, and Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen _ whose lobbying forms indicated they had either directly lobbied their former chamber during their cooling-off period or been part of a team targeting their former chamber.
All three are Republicans, and more than 70% of the former members and staffers identified in the analysis were from Republican offices.
Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress for much of the period in the analysis and more than 10% of the Republican staffers on the list worked for the Republican leadership in one of the two chambers.
But the analysis flagged former staffers from both ends of the ideological spectrum, with aides to several Democrats on the list, including Bernie Sanders' former chief of staff, Michaeleen Crowell.
And McClatchy's analysis doesn't take into account so-called shadow lobbying, whereby former members of Congress and top aides provide many of the same services as a lobbyist but below the legal threshold of activity that would require them to register.
"You're looking at the tip of the iceberg," said Meredith McGehee, executive director of the group Issue One, which seeks to reduce the role of money in politics. "You're looking at the people who bothered to register."
